If we can briefly tear ourselves away from ingenious word-games ... I was fascinated to learn from Antony Beevor’s BERLIN that Freud’s works were banned in Soviet Union following that ever-so-brief avant-garde ‘flurry’ in the 1920s. It’s almost certainly been debated in the vast Nabokovian literature, but, new to me, it seemed remarkable that Nabokov and Stalin shared Freud, as it were, as a common ‘enemy.’ On the other hand, of course, Freud and Nabokov shared Stalin as a common suppresser.
I have Beevor’s frightening- unto-despair book only in audio-format, so forgive the absence of precise quotes and citations. Beevor is relating the still largely-unmentionable cases of mass rape of German women by the Red Army as it swept through East Prussia towards Berlin. He offers the tricky historian’s ‘balance’ needed to appreciate the inevitable chaos-of-war and the rage-and-revenge following the massive Nazi atrocities perpetrated. He adds the factor of suppressed Soviet male sexual appetites, associated with the enforced ‘puritanical’ streak found in Stalinism and most totalitarian regimes. Individual ‘love’ being directed toward the State ... I leave these vague notions to be refined by those more versed in the complex issues. How did Freud and Nabokov react to Soviet suppression of sexual ’openness?’
Stan Kelly-Bootle
On 26/01/2011 15:45, "jansymello" <jansy@AETERN.US> wrote:
A.Sklyarenko: "Like Van Veen, Nabokov was ein unverbesserlicher Witzbold, but, Rack being a Mozart-like figure, "Baron von Wien" seems to hint at several characters in Pushkin's "Little Tragedies" ..." JM:... whenever Nabokov mentions Wien he is referring to the "Viennese quack." ( "Dr Froit of Signy-Mondieu-Mondieu in the Ardennes or, more likely, the same man, because they both came from Vienne, Isère...")
JM: A rapid google-search (wiki) for the French and Austrian Vienne, Vienna, Wien and the "Viennois", shows that (rather surprisingly for me, when we leave out Freud and Von Wien), the etymology seems to inspire Aqua's ("water") relation to river names that indicates torrential waters. Nevertheless, I don't think Nabokov departed from this kind of information when he played with Wien and Vienna.