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Mike M writes:
Having failed to respond to Alexey's postings of July 10 (see below)
and of July 9, here goes:
One wonders why Moses de Vere has that biblical name. In 1.14 he's said
to have been born in a "lotus swamp". Typically the location of his
discovery is described using the word bulrushes. Vere of Oxford had
been called "ox", hence 'bul'; also dried rushes (from bulrushes) were
used to make the wicks of candles in those days, and candlelight (and
candlestick) is associated with Vere (interestingly Nabokov has John
Shade's poem on electricity utter "And maybe Shakespeare floods a whole
/ Town with innumerable lights."). That is something that would take me
a dozen pages to prove to your satisfaction, and is part of another
project, so you'll have to take my word for it ..... or not.
I doubt that it is relevant, but Marina's trying to shift the
discussion to Indian religion, and her previous incarnation might have
something to do with metempsychosis as it occurs in Twelfth Night &
Malvolio's imprisonment.
"Ségur's adaptation in fable form of Shakespeare's play about the
wicked usurer" is actually adumbrated earlier in the chapter where Greg
says that his antecedents were "Hebrews ... not comic characters or
Christian businessmen". The Merchant of Venice was nominally a comedy,
and the Christian businessman was Antonio (some wrongly assume that the
merchant is Shylock).
As for Ada's revision of Lear's monologue, as Alexey realized it is
crazy with Vere allusions: "hiver" = E[dward] Ver; then the five
n[ever]s; ditto in French, pronounced nay-ver. The Oxfordians make a
big fuss over the fact that the 1609 quarto edition of Troilus and
Cressida is addressed from "a never writer, to an ever reader". I can't
get terribly excited myself, though Nabokov seems to have been tickled
by it all.
Next Alexey quoted from 1.27, about the late Major de Prey, "obscurely
related to our late neighbor, a fine shot but the light was bad on the
Common, and a meddlesome garbage collector hollered at the wrong
moment". The clue here is "hollered". Wenceslas Hollar was an engraver.
In 1634 William Dugdale, an antiquarian visited Stratford and sketched
the monument/bust of "Shakespeare" in the church. Hollar made an
engraving of the sketch which Dugdale used in his 1656 book
'Antiquities of Warwickshire'. There is some contention over the way
"Shakespeare" is portrayed. This website gives the background in brief,
as well as devising an interesting theory
http://webpages.charter.net/stairway/WOOLPACKMAN.htm. Getting back to
Ada, the explanation/excuse for the discrepancy is that the light was
poor in Stratford church when Dugdale made his drawing ("but the light
was bad on the Common"), "meddlesome garbage collector" = antiquarian
Dugdale; "hollered at the wrong moment" = Hollar.
I don't know whether there's a good Russian language clue in Erminin,
but ermine was (maybe still is) worn by aristocrats.
Alexey's last point: "The name of Van's lawyer (whose employee Gwen
helps Van to sell his book, Letters from Terra), Mr Gromwell, reminds
one of Cromwell." I thought perhaps Gwen is a wordplay on Nell Gwynn,
mistress of Charles II (Nell Gwynn/ Gwen [Nyll]). That does line up
with Oliver Cromwell, unless Thomas Cromwell was intended, in which
case it's a washout. In his posting of July 9 Alexey mentioned Gwen as
"a fat little fille de joie", so she could be Nell transmuted.
I mentioned yesterday that the actor who first played Voltemand was
suspected of literary piracy, so it's curious that Van should have
chosen that name as a pseudonym. Oxfordians assume that Philip Sidney
(Van in Ada) was accused of plagiarism in Love's Labour's Lost, in the
character of Boyet; "This fellow picks up wit as pigeons peas / And
utters it again when God doth please". Sidney was very religious. In
his sonnet #74 Sidney defends himself against the charge: "And this I
swear by blackest brook of hell / I am no pick-purse of another's wit".
(Since Sidney died in 1586, a date later than 1586 for LLL needs some
explanation).
Note the verbal correspondence, Shakespeare's "picks up wit" and
Sidney's "pick-purse ... wit".
Probably Vere de Vere peeing in the swimming pool, secretly, reflects
Vere's not-so-secret fart at Court. That Vere de Vere is in
"shoulder-high water" means that Nabokov knew of the association with
candlesticks & Vere, as well as Sidney's treatment of this in his
'Lady of May'. He kept a lot to himself, did VN.
MM
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Demon to Van: 'At the races, the other day, I was talking to a woman I
preyed upon years ago, oh long before Moses de Vere cuckolded her
husband in my absence and shot him dead in my presence - an epigram
you've heard before, no doubt from these very lips - ' (Ada, 1.38)
'It's not a very old religion, anyway, as religions go, is it?' said
Marina (turning to Van and vaguely planning to steer the chat to India
where she had been a dancing girl long before Moses or anybody was born
in the lotus swamp). (1.14)
Praskovia de Prey and Shakespeare are also mentioned in this chapter:
Marina was about to jingle a bronze bell for the footman to bring some
more toast, but Greg said he was on his way to a party at the Countess
de Prey's:
'Rather soon (skorovato) she consoled herself,' remarked Marina,
alluding to the death of the Count killed in a pistol duel on Boston
Common a couple of years ago.
'She's a very jolly and handsome woman,' said Greg.
'And ten years older than me,' said Marina...
...'Et pourtant,' said the sound-sensitive governess, wincing, 'I read
to her twice Ségur's adaptation in fable form of Shakespeare's play
about the wicked usurer.'
'She also knows my revised monologue of his mad king,' said Ada:
Ce beau jardin fleurit en mai,
Mais en hiver
Jamais, jamais, jamais, jamais, jamais
N'est vert, n'est vert, n'est vert, n'est vert, n'est vert.
At a cocktail party given by the excellent widow of an obscure Major de
Prey ("obscurely related to our late neighbor, a fine shot but the
light was bad on the Common, and a meddlesome garbage collector
hollered at the wrong moment") Demon Veen courts a young actress whose
name hints at the youngest daughter of Shakespeare's mad king: 'She's a
budding Duse,' replied Demon austerely, 'and the party is strictly a
"prof push." You'll stick to Cordula de Prey, I, to Cordelia O'Leary.'
(1.27)
Before repeating his epigram about Moses de Vere, Demon mentions Greg's
(and his twin sister Grace's) father who suffers a mental illness: 'You
have all sorts of rather odd neighbors. Poor Lord Erminin is
practically insane.' (1.38)
Colonel Erminin failed to turn up at the picnic on Ada's twelfth
burthday (1.13), saying in an apologetic note that his liver (pechen')
was behaving like a pecheneg (savage). According to Van (3.2), Greg's
'father preferred to pass for a Chekhovian colonel.' Pecheneg is a
story (1894) by Chekhov.
When Marina (Van's, Ada's and Lucette's mother) was a little girl,
'Mesopotamian history was taught practically in the nursery.' (1.14)
Below is the scripture lesson in Chekhov's story Three Years (1895),
chapter IX:
Meanwhile Alexey Fyodorovitch was giving Sasha and Lida a scripture
lesson below. For the last six weeks they had been living in Moscow,
and were installed with their governess in the lower storey of the
lodge. And three times a week a teacher from a school in the town, and
a priest, came to give them lessons. Sasha was going through the New
Testament and Lida was going through the Old. The time before Lida had
been set the story up to Abraham to learn by heart.
“And so Adam and Eve had two sons,” said Laptev. “Very good. But what
were they called? Try to remember them!”
Lida, still with the same severe face, gazed dumbly at the table. She
moved her lips, but without speaking; and the elder girl, Sasha, looked
into her face, frowning.
“You know it very well, only you mustn't be nervous,” said Laptev.
“Come, what were Adam's sons called?”
“Abel and Canel,” Lida whispered.
“Cain and Abel,” Laptev corrected her.
A big tear rolled down Lida's cheek and dropped on the book. Sasha
looked down and turned red, and she, too, was on the point of tears.
Laptev felt a lump in his throat, and was so sorry for them he could
not speak. He got up from the table and lighted a cigarette. At that
moment Kochevoy came down the stairs with a paper in his hand. The
little girls stood up, and without looking at him, made curtsies.
“For God's sake, Kostya, give them their lessons,” said Laptev, turning
to him. “I'm afraid I shall cry, too, and I have to go to the warehouse
before dinner.”
“All right.”
Alexey Fyodorovitch went away. Kostya, with a very serious face, sat
down to the table and drew the Scripture history towards him.
“Well,” he said; “where have you got to?”
“She knows about the Flood,” said Sasha.
“The Flood? All right. Let's peg in at the Flood. Fire away about the
Flood.” Kostya skimmed through a brief description of the Flood in the
book, and said: “I must remark that there really never was a flood such
as is described here. And there was no such person as Noah. Some
thousands of years before the birth of Christ, there was an
extraordinary inundation of the earth, and that's not only mentioned in
the Jewish Bible, but in the books of other ancient peoples: the
Greeks, the Chaldeans, the Hindoos. But whatever the inundation may
have been, it couldn't have covered the whole earth. It may have
flooded the plains, but the mountains must have remained. You can read
this book, of course, but don't put too much faith in it.”
Антитерра + Ной = Антиной + Терра (Антитерра - Antiterra, Ной - Noah,
Антиной - Antinous, Терра - Terra)
Note the mention of Abraham (the first of the great Biblical
patriarchs, father of Isaac, and traditional founder of the ancient
Hebrew nation). On Antiterra, Abraham Milton is a founder of Amerussia.
On the other hand, Milton Abraham helped Aqua (Marina's mad twin
sister) to organize a Phree Pharmacy in Belokonsk. (1.3)
The author of Paradise Lost (1667), John Milton was a civil servant for
the Commonwealth of Englan under Oliver Cromwell. The name of Van's
lawyer (whose employee Gwen helps Van to sell his book, Letters from
Terra), Mr Gromwell, reminds one of Cromwell.
.