Sandy Klein : http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/02/fashion/02iht-rjewel.html
Suzy Menkes,February 2, 2010. Jewels ...were shown last week in an
haute couture initiative...Butterflies were the message from Van Cleef &
Arpels...incorporated the message of metamorphosis ...the underlying sensuality,
epitomized by the author Vladimir Nabokov and his dual fascination with
butterflies and young girls.Without contemplating the myths behind the winged
treasures...aso
JM: Just for the fun of a
reminder, VN wrote in (ADA) about "how
incestuously insects and art meet and... the myth behind the
moth"
Stan Kelly-Bootle: TLS, Feb 9,
2010, pp 19-20. Review by Bharat Tandon of Martin Amis’s The Pregnant Widow
(Cape): “To depict protagonists who aren’t wholly aware of the genre
of the story they are in has long been a staple of Amis’s ironic art, and one of
his notable inheritances from the Nabokov of Despair and Pale Fire.”...I
hope Mikhail Efimov’s web-cite is not a typo! It’s delightfully
Nabokovian...Does Salinger rhyme with Malinger?
JM: Why the prejudice against
Salinger?
A. Sklyarenko: Because in
his "Annotations" Boyd doesn't mention uncle Ruka who, like Van, managed to
cheat a cheater in a poker game...[...]"the violent dance called kurva or ‘ribbon
boule’..." kurva ("whore") = rukav ("sleeve"). Tatarin ("a
tartar"), a character in Gorky's At the Bottom, exclaims: Karta
rukav soval! ("you've put the card in your sleeve!"), as he accuses
Satin of cheating in a card game [...]'ribbon
boule' hints at "Moscow's ribbon of boulevards,"... Van: "Have you read any of Mlle Larivière's stories? Well, you will. She
thinks that in some former Hindooish state she was a boulevardier in
Paris; and writes accordingly" (1.8)...The
Russian word for boule is shar (which also means "sphere,"
globe") - Shar + ada = sharada ("charade"). I suspect, I
managed to solve Nabokov's difficult charade in
Ada.
JM: Lo and behold... What a delightful posting with
winged treasures in Sklyarenko's elyptical progress. A.S never ceases to
amaze me.
btw:
there is also a vrai off-center link bt.Mlle Ida, glassy fountains
in Mount Ida and Mount Parnassus.