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More images: Ah, cette Linejansy@aetern.us;
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ADA: "She could recollect, of course, when she and her sister played 'note-comparing,' much better than Lucette ...;but Lucette, though so much younger, remembered heaps of bagatelles, little 'turrets' and little 'barrels,' biryul'ki proshlago. She was, cette Lucette, like the girl in Ah, cette Line (a popular novel), 'a macédoine of intuition, stupidity, naïveté and cunning.'(ch 24)
Ada On Line: 138.13-14: Oh! qui me rendra mon Aline / Et le grand chêne et ma colline?: Darkbloom: "oh who will give me back my Aline, and the big oak, and my hill?" Note the changes Van rings on the final sestet: Hélène becomes Aline, perhaps to emphasize the personal tang of Chateaubriand's poem, since his elder brother, Jean-Baptiste Auguste de Chateaubriand, married in 1787 Aline-Thérèse Le Pelletier de Rosanbo; both died under the guillotine in 1794. Cf. also: "She was, cette Lucette, like the girl in Ah, cette Line (a popular novel)," 152.09-10.
from BB's On line Notes on Ch24: 152.10-11: like the girl in Ah, cette Line (a popular novel): A tease. Presumably a pun on acetylene ("Colorless and explosive, like some popular novels," suggests Mary Krimmel on NABOKV-L, April 20, 2005) and on the feminine name Aline, but the "popular novel" has not been identified. Carolyn Kunin notes (NABOKV-L, April 20, 2005) that in 1895, "Henri Moissan discovered that calcium carbide and water produced acetylene gas, and burning acetylene produced light. For the next ten years, acetylene producers flourished until the lower cost of electric and coal gas lighting collapsed the acetylene market." Now Lucette means "little light." If acetylene is a precursor or surrogate for electricity in light generation (as Nabokov knew: see the "carbide lamps" at 154.23 and n.), such as would be permissible in Antiterra, and if the word acetylene is disguised in Ah, cette Line, as the word electricity is disguised in various ways in Ada (as in "the L disaster" or "Lettrocalamity"), then Ah, cette Line almost becomes an image of Ada itself (woman's name, begins with "Ah" sound, and set on a world where electricity can't even be mentioned), but with Lucette as perhaps its heroine.
CK's N-L message includes a reference to poisons, narcotics and murder motifs and acetylene poisoning* for "acute effect: symptoms such as headaches, dizziness, shortness of breath and loss of consciousness... There also seems to be a chemistry motif in Ada. There is at least one chemist in that family tree & I thought a few times I spotted possible references to Rimsky-Korsakov (chemist & composer) in the novel.
*some of the other poisons referred to in Ada are also narcotic &/or intoxicants, most importantly the moonflower, L. datura, R. durman[ov].
JM: I cannot avoid thinking about a different link to "ah, cette line... ma coline...", namely,"acetylcholine" (wiki: a neurotransmitter in both the peripheral nervous system (PNS) and central nervous system (CNS) in many organisms including humans. Acetylcholine is one of many neurotransmitters in the autonomic nervous system (ANS) and the only neurotransmitter used in the motor division of the somatic nervous system). On the "science side" and Lettrocalamity, I'd also remind about Lavoisier (his guillotined family, the discovery and naming of "oxygen" to substitute for the term "aether", a theory defended by butterfly-collector and "scientist" Marat (who appears in Ada & in Pale Fire) Lavoisier illuminated, but circled within walls the city of Paris.
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Ada On Line: 138.13-14: Oh! qui me rendra mon Aline / Et le grand chêne et ma colline?: Darkbloom: "oh who will give me back my Aline, and the big oak, and my hill?" Note the changes Van rings on the final sestet: Hélène becomes Aline, perhaps to emphasize the personal tang of Chateaubriand's poem, since his elder brother, Jean-Baptiste Auguste de Chateaubriand, married in 1787 Aline-Thérèse Le Pelletier de Rosanbo; both died under the guillotine in 1794. Cf. also: "She was, cette Lucette, like the girl in Ah, cette Line (a popular novel)," 152.09-10.
from BB's On line Notes on Ch24: 152.10-11: like the girl in Ah, cette Line (a popular novel): A tease. Presumably a pun on acetylene ("Colorless and explosive, like some popular novels," suggests Mary Krimmel on NABOKV-L, April 20, 2005) and on the feminine name Aline, but the "popular novel" has not been identified. Carolyn Kunin notes (NABOKV-L, April 20, 2005) that in 1895, "Henri Moissan discovered that calcium carbide and water produced acetylene gas, and burning acetylene produced light. For the next ten years, acetylene producers flourished until the lower cost of electric and coal gas lighting collapsed the acetylene market." Now Lucette means "little light." If acetylene is a precursor or surrogate for electricity in light generation (as Nabokov knew: see the "carbide lamps" at 154.23 and n.), such as would be permissible in Antiterra, and if the word acetylene is disguised in Ah, cette Line, as the word electricity is disguised in various ways in Ada (as in "the L disaster" or "Lettrocalamity"), then Ah, cette Line almost becomes an image of Ada itself (woman's name, begins with "Ah" sound, and set on a world where electricity can't even be mentioned), but with Lucette as perhaps its heroine.
CK's N-L message includes a reference to poisons, narcotics and murder motifs and acetylene poisoning* for "acute effect: symptoms such as headaches, dizziness, shortness of breath and loss of consciousness... There also seems to be a chemistry motif in Ada. There is at least one chemist in that family tree & I thought a few times I spotted possible references to Rimsky-Korsakov (chemist & composer) in the novel.
*some of the other poisons referred to in Ada are also narcotic &/or intoxicants, most importantly the moonflower, L. datura, R. durman[ov].
JM: I cannot avoid thinking about a different link to "ah, cette line... ma coline...", namely,"acetylcholine" (wiki: a neurotransmitter in both the peripheral nervous system (PNS) and central nervous system (CNS) in many organisms including humans. Acetylcholine is one of many neurotransmitters in the autonomic nervous system (ANS) and the only neurotransmitter used in the motor division of the somatic nervous system). On the "science side" and Lettrocalamity, I'd also remind about Lavoisier (his guillotined family, the discovery and naming of "oxygen" to substitute for the term "aether", a theory defended by butterfly-collector and "scientist" Marat (who appears in Ada & in Pale Fire) Lavoisier illuminated, but circled within walls the city of Paris.
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/
