Carolyn Kunin writes:

 

I have a new pair of chickens to replace the old one, the Little Childe, who
used to love contributing to the List in Don Johnson and Dmitri's day. It
prompted me to look up the chicken puzzle that Don posed to the list with the
wonderful responses from Walter Miale that poured in. Maybe the List would enjoy
this as a birthday present?

Carolyn (and the two new chicklets named Sarah and Georgy Girl -- their sign: :>
:>)

Subject: Birthday parody
From: NABOKV-L <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 10:53:21 -0400
Content-Type: text/plain
Parts/Attachments: text/plain (48 lines)
[EDNOTE. Prompted by a subscriber alert, with Walter Miale's kind permission we
are reprinting his hilarious post in response to a query from D. Barton Johnson
a few years ago. Don had asked for answers to the question, "Why did the
chicken cross the road?" that would be given by various Nabokov characters. --
SES] Editor's Assignment: "Why did the chicken cross the road? "My dear sir,
she was hardly a chicken. But be that as it may, there's no mystery about it.
She was on her way to the letter box, poor thing. Of course if she hadn't gone,
there would have been a calamity of an entirely different sort. An entirely
different sort indeed." - Humbert Humbert "It didn't understand its
alternatives, and it couldn't see the horse." - Luzhin "Pada galu rode gals
here the gull tous thi side the gala says tell your father not to----" - Aunt
Maude "By the merest quirk of fate, the chicken did indeed cross the road. But
it was a different chicken." - Sebastian Knight "We know that it crossed the
road because life on the other side of the road was Nabokov's overarching theme.
But re-re-re-reading makes it clear that it was actually the chicken's ghost
that crossed the road." - Brian Boyd "Oh that's sidesplitting. Now would you
mind making a u-turn? I'm starving." - Dolores "That can be easily explained,
though she hardly knew herself. To do otherwise was impossible. Can't you
see? Oh if I had any germ of genius in me, if I'd have been given a bit of
creative power, I could have put into words the precise thoughts of the chicken,
but as it is I can only improvise: Higgledy-piggledy, Out of my way you there!
Birds in the future will stop for no cars.... Would a better life await her on
"the other side"? Yes, and as the years roll on, with the lapse of time, before
we know it, or after, as the case may be, life grows better; provided it comes
to be what it already is for some and what it one day will be for all. She must
go to Ryazin and open a coop." - Chernyshevsky "An alluring riddle. I must rack
my brains. Not to grace my table, that's for sure, under the cloying béchamel,
with Gallo wine, did she, over worn pavement aflutter streak for the sake of
wearisome yokels. Ah Greta! Your dainty ways I remember well. The simple curve
of your neck, your dark thighs and your white bosom that tempted so many --
these beguiled me not. But your immolodious voice, and the innocent games we
played! Questions, intense cogitations, and a flurry of head scratching. . . but
no answers. I'm probably senile. But it seems at one time I knew. . . ." -
Poushkin