JM: The adjective C.K followed by
a question mark surreptitiously popped into my posting. Since I often
use it in Portuguese, Carolyn's doubt made me fear I'd practiced a
solitary "Portuguecism" (the kind I'd always been taught to avoid in HS...)
So I checked it again to realize that it was incorrectly
spelled: a typo (instead of the "p", the "r").
Carolyn's persistent
questioning always stimulates me into probing into formerly
"assumed" routines, typos and words, and I can only thank her for
that.
However, and here I enrol the aid of Poincaré: "If you are
present at a game of chess, it will not suffice, for the understanding of the
game, to know the rules for moving the pieces. That will only enable you to
recognize that each move has been made conformably to these rules, and this
knowledge will truly have very little value. Yet this is what the reader of a
book on mathematics would do if he were a logician only. To understand the game
is wholly another matter; it is to know why the player moves this piece rather
than that other which he could have moved without breaking the rules of the
game. It is to perceive the inward reason which makes of this series of
successive moves a sort of organized whole. This faculty is still more necessary
for the player himself, that is, for the inventor."*
Carolyn, I'm sure this quote and answer won't "add
up" to you since you consistently depart from a logician's vertex, whereas
I often abuse intuition. Both practices should balance each other and this is
why I cannot but feel rewarded by your insistence***.
I still hold to the hunch that Nabokov intended to present a
"private dig" at Edmund Wilson and that many of Nabokov's similar satires (if
one may call them satires, not parodies) remain to be discovered by
other dedicated scholars.
Matt Roth: [to Jansy] I'm not sure those quote marks absolutely means that
VN was quoting Wilson, but it's worth checking...Also, I found another source
that says red wop refers to alchol.
JM: Even if "red wop" refers to alcohol, it also applies to
"anarchists" and to "w.o.p" as well. Given the context, I only chose
treferences which were unrelated to your find about wines and alcohol, but
this is merely a matter of interpretation, since I saw myself
confronted by a choice between two different readings.
You are correct,
Matt. The "quote marks" do not "absolutely mean that VN was quoting
Wilson." The fact that VN writes an ingenious verselet where
he attributes the words to Wilson and, when using them ten years later in
another poem, uses quotation marks only for these specific twisted words is
not an "absolute" proof. For me, though, it is provisionally
satisfactory until I'm able to check into it further, or someone
else brings new elements that demand a revision.
JM: Ludger Tolksdorf quoted Adair's novel and data
about an interview, bringing up once more the subject related to this
writer's "disavowal" (verwerfung), concerning the extent of
Nabokov's "influence" over (or "unwanted presence in") Adair's thoughts.
Adair could be the ghost of Sebastian Knight (as
he is seen by his half-brother V.) and I'm very curious to read one or two
of his novels to confirm this hunch which I, here, prematurely
divulge.
........................................................................
** Excerpts from former postings:
C.
Kunin:I fail to see what is the link between the apparently
explosive powder/red wop and Hazel?
JM: Once in a while I've the
feeling that Kinbote bears traits inspired in how Nabokov sees critic
E.Wilson.
By his own admission, Kinbote notices
that he has something in common with Hazel (twisting of
words).
Hazel twists T.S. Eliot into "Toilest"
and "Powder" into "Red Wop."
I'll quote only from page 249 (letter 192,
Feb.1949) VN addressed to Bunny:
Do you still work
upon such sets
as
for example "step" and "pets,"
as
"Nazitrap" and "partizan,"
"Red
Wop" and "powder," "nab" and "ban"?
PS: Thanks to Gary's quotes:
She twisted words: pot,
top,/ Spider, redips. And "powder" was "red wop."
I realized
that, indeed, "powder/red wop" stems from Edmund Wilson.
Shade gives three examples and only the wop-play is
crowned by quotation marks.
Nabokov and Wilson
had famous opposing views on Lenin. I haven't yet had time to check
when Wilson applied the redwop for the first time, I only found VN's private dig
at him in his 1949 letter.