There is no suggestion that it is a Zemblan word (although, Zemblan would have words of Latin and Greek origin like any European language). It is a “learned” word, just like skoramis, psychopompos, parhelion etc. in the novel.
Here is the context:
“I still hoped there had been a mistake, and Shade would telephone. It was a bitter wait, and the only effect that the bottle of champagne I drank all alone now at this window, now at that, had on me was a bad crapula (hangover).”
A. Bouazza
From: Vladimir Nabokov Forum [mailto:NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU] On Behalf Of Jansy
Sent: zaterdag 27 april 2013 13:13
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Subject: Re: [NABOKV-L] Zemblan and digitized Samuel Johson (Crapula)
Barrie Akin: As for "crapula" as an English word, there is an early instance of it. It is in Florio's Italian - English dictionary of 1611 as the English meaning of "crapola".Florio appears as a minor character in Anthony Burgess's 'Nothing Like the Sun' (1964, from memory) and (again from memory) Burgess uses both 'crapula' and 'crapulous' in his works. I don't have immediate access to my copies of 'Nothing Like the Sun' and 'Earthly Powers' but those are the novels in which I recall Burgess uses them. [ ] P.S. Apologies [ ] I have misread Florio. He gives 'crapola' as a variant of 'crapula' and then defines 'crapula' without using any English variant of it. So 'crapula' appears in an English work in 1611, but only as a foreign word.
A. Bouazza: The OED attests the use of crapula or cropula in its sense of hangover as early as the 17th century. Anthony Burgess uses the word frequently. At least twice in The Malayan Trilogy (aka The Long Day Wanes), as well as “crapulous”. Also in Tremor of Intent; twice in Honey for the Bears, and once in Nothing Like the Sun, if I recall correctly.However, crapula is surprisingly missing from Earthly Powers, but we do find “uncrapulous”.
Jansy Mello: Have I misread PF's "crapula" as a word in Zemblan? Did Kinbote mention it to indicate the OED, Burguess or...?
VN's satirical vein in LATH concerning translators [ "Although his English was inadequate for the interpretation of, say, Keats (whom he defined as "a
pre-Wildean aesthete in the beginning of the Industrial Era") Basilevski was fond of attempting just that. In discussing recently the "not altogether displeasing preciosity" of my own stuff, he had imprudently quoted a popular line from Keats, rendering it as: Vsegda nas raduet krasivaya veshchitsa which in retranslation gives:
"A pretty bauble always gladdens us."] has the severe critic indirectly praising Vadim's writings ("a thing of beauty is a joy for ever", I suppose). ....
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All private editorial communications are read by both co-editors.