Stan Kelly Bootle: Carolyn/Jansy: I’m delighted you have triggered some serious, professional comments on VN’s diverse interactions with the wonderfully wide world of Chess. Especially the two links offered by Dave Haan, both dripping with goodies previously unknown to moi: I remain confused about which “Speak, Memory” problem* it was that VN claimed to have resisted solution? [ * For the complex titular& publicational variants, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speak,_Memory]

Laurence Hochard [to E M Farrell*...] In the exerpt of the poem when Shade is paring his nails, there's the line: "The middle fellow, a tall priest I knew" (line 190) ..... this tall priest also exists in Zembla -and the priest in the poem must have been intended to echo the one in Zembla, as no other mention of a priest Shade knew is made either in the poem or commentary- in the long note to line 47-48:

 

 

Jansy Mello: Problems, puzzles, riddles from different sources! 

 

Nabokov had multicultural experiences: he not only spoke French and English besides Russian, in his childhoord. He lived in England, in Germany, in France for significant periods of his young European life. This fact inspired me to check for children's verses related to the fingers, so as to find some special allusion to grocer's son, tall priests, old flirts,aso.

 

While exploring internet search tools, I discovered that Humpty Dumpty is a Lewis Carroll riddle (in German: "Rätsel")*** and that illustrious writers, such as Goethe # inserted them in their work (I was familiar only with a mathematical "Witch" problem in Dr.Faust).

The German the finger-exercise and puzzles ** offer personalized fingers, each with a particular attribution for a shared task (similar to the game with toes related to the "five little piggies"). English nursery-rhymes bring up the "Finger Family," in which the thumb represents the father, the middle finger is the older brother, the small finger is the baby. They have acquired names, too: The thumb =  Tommy Thumb;The index finger =  Peter Pointer;The middle finger = Toby Tall; The ring finger = Ruby Ring; The small finger = Baby Small. There were Biblical unsolvable riddles, others were as ancient as the Sumerians bricklets 

 

Would John Shade be only day-dreaming about his life (E.M.Farrell developped a beautiful image of glovers, fingers and a thematic closure for the novel, L.Hochard emphasized the mirroring from poem to commentary ), or was there a riddle lurking somewhere in his mind? I wonder now about "finger-rhymes" in Russian: are there any special ones?  The thumb is a tyrant in Kinbote's PF (he smudges a daedalian labyrinth to make it into a beautiful straight line) and John Shade gains from Sybil (line 260) "A thimbleful of bright metallic tea."##

 

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* - E.M.Farrell: "I see the "two becoming one" in this scene a little differently. In the poem (line 185-195) Shade is paring his nails, associating his fingers with things that are important in his life and end up the themes of his poem. His thumb, the grocer's son, is his life in New Wye, the people and growing up. His forefinger, Starover Blue (Observatory's turquoise dome), is the college, his work and learning. The middle finger, a tall priest, is religion and current religious thought (he doesn't have a high opinion of it.) The ring finger, the old flirt, is his wife and the pinky, Hazel. His hand represents the poem."

 

** - Das ist der Daumen,
der schüttelt die Pflaumen,
der hebt sie alle auf,
der bringt sie nach Haus,
und der Kitzekleine isst sie alle, alle wieder auf
der Zeigefinger schüttelt die Pflaumen, der Mittelfinger hebt sie auf, der Ringfinger trägt sie nach Haus und der Kleine (den nennt man dann auch so), der isst sie alle, alle auf!!

Das ist der Daumen Knudeldick - Über 500 Fingerspiele und Rätsel / Marga Arndt, Waltraut Singer (Hrsg.) Gebundene Ausgabe - ISBN: 9783473378593 - Verlag: Ravensburger Buchverlag mehr Erfahrungsbericht schreiben | Frage stellen Rätsel und Fingerspiele - eine der schönsten und wichtigsten Möglichkeiten der Sprachförderung und spielerischen Anregung der Fantasie des Kindes. Diese einzigartige umfangreiche... mehr

In Brazil we have "Dedo mindinho, seu vizinho, pai de todos, fura-bolos, cata-piolhos" The pinki has a "neighbor" (the anular), the middle-finger is "the father of all the others", the index is "the one that probes the cake" and the thumb is a "lyce finder" 

 *** -

# -

Ein Rätsel aus der Literatur von Goethe: