In a posthumour edition of Ana Cristina César's "Letters" ("A.C -
Correspondência Incompleta", Aeroplano editora, 1999) I came across a reference
to Nabokov
Portsmouth, March 7, 1980.
"I'm attempting yoga, psychology manuals e varied rituals such as taking
down dreams, perfecting diaries and heart-of-palm soufflés, learning English
with Nabokov (for the first time do I see the
English language in Lolita, it was Armando who told me
to read it for some psychoanalytic reason - ...) What I admire in
Lolita, is it's long sinuous syntax, the
kind the Campos Brothers dislike, but it's [Nabokov's] syntax that
makes me tick, and so what (sic)?" (p.41-42)
the translation is mine.
On p.57 she quotes in English Emily Dickinson (she is the process of
translating her into Portuguese, while working on Katherine Mansfield and
feminine/masculine women writers): "Going-to-her! / Happy-letter! Tell her
-/Tell her - the page I never wrote!/ Tell her, I only said the syntax - /And
left the Verb and the Pronoun - out! - "
Funny AC "sees" the English language when she reads
Nabokov. Myself, I feel his words roll like marbles in my mouth, a sensuous
and concrete and external experience with a foreign language
that he forbids me to inhabit.
I wonder how different non-native English readers react to
VN's slithering sentences.