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[NABOKOV-L] A "work in progress" - for the List? - on "Fondness"
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The actual exchange of letters between Nabokov and 'Bunny' Wilson reveals a particular kind of emotion that is rather rarefied in Nabokov's novels, namely, affectionate warmth: "fondness," which ranges from a special type of preference for edibles and things, to a tender cuddly love for puppies, young children, elderly people and (why not?) mankind.
I wondered how well "fondness" fared in Nabokov's novels, should one could count the frequency of the word, or evaluate its varying contexts, to register the gamut of emotions explored by him as a writer. My first results were baffling, perhaps because, at least in Ada and in Lolita, there was a contamination from "being fond of" to "fondling," that contrasts with Nabokov's extra-novelistic recommendation to "fondle the details" ('In reading, one should notice and fondle details.There is nothing wrong about the moonshine of generalization when it comes after the sunny trifles of the book have been lovingly collected." ( 'Good Readers and Good Writers' in Lectures on Literature (ed. Fredson Browers, Harvest Book, San Diego, 1980).
An informal search in the internet led me to approach "to fondle" and "to pet" ("my pet," charged with contrasting meanings, is how Ada sometimes addresses her half-sister) although what would have been originally "explicitly innocent and nonsexual," in fondling and in "wuffle"*, and related to children and animals, will now acquire a depreciative erotic sense.
As I see it, Nabokov's employ of the English noun "fondness" is marked by mostly negative aond conflictual feelings.**
............................................................................................................................................................................................
* A site for "Urban Dictionary" described "wuffle": 1.) The verb form of "affection;" the act of being affectionate. To demonstrate physical affection, especially in ways that do not have specific other names. Ie to nuzzle, cuddle and pet. Explicitly innocent and nonsexual - one "wuffles" a lover the same way one wuffles a child or pet. May imply an emulation of the way an animal demonstrates affection, ie, how a cat will rub its face up against someone. 2.) A dimunitve form of nonromantic, nonsexual love in the sense of affection or fondness. Used to express the desire to give affection towards someone being cute or endearing (I chose only the first two of a list).
** - Fondness in "Ada, or Ardour":
1. In "Ada" it is a British reviewer who exhibits a "journalist's fondness for ...phoney wordplay," although "fond" at first seems to be associated to Uncle Dan's falling "comfortably in love with Marina," in relation to "a fondly made topcoat". Marina, herself, keeps "a secret fondness for salty jokes" and ellicits "a fond deprecation" after being praised about the softness of her expensive fur coat. Ada and Lucette are "fond ...of Russian fare and Russian floor shows" and whores ( Flora) may flash "a fond farewell." while a tolerant comment, added to Van's text, is written "in Ada's fondest hand." Van, in his turn, vents his anger in a "fond way" but he also may be "fond of Ada's cotton frock" although he intends to "soil it." (something which we'll later find directly related to the act of "fondling": "he had fondled and fouled her many times in the course of the last ten days, but was not sure if her name was really Adora..." and this reappers in: "on the bench where he had recently fondled and fouled a favorite, lanky, awkward, black girl student".. now surprisingly related to his feelings of guilt towards his mother,when "Van tortured himself with thoughts of insufficient filial affection - a long story of unconcern, amused scorn, physical repulsion, and habitual dismissal"). Van does try, once in a while,"to squeeze out some fondness for her but as usual failed and as usual told himself that Ada did not love her mother either, a vague and cowardly consolation." but, more realisticaly, he notes that "nothing... can be construed as allowing itself to be deciphered by a witch doctor who can then cure a madman or give comfort to a killer by laying the blame on a too fond, too fiendish or too indifferent parent ." At other times, the tender cuddly protection ellicits other kinds of thoughts for in " 'real' life we are creatures of chance in an absolute void - unless we be artists ourselves, naturally; but in a good play I feel authored, I feel passed by the board of censors, I feel secure, with only a breathing blackness before me (instead of our Fourth-Wall Time), I feel cuddled in the embrace of puzzled Will (he thought I was you) or in that of the much more normal Anton Pavlovich, who was always passionately fond of long dark hair.'"
2. Fondness might appear as "tendresse" ( Demon's, towards Ada: The bizarre enthusiast had developed the same tendresse for her as he had always had for Van) or related to pets, or to pity, as in the case of Ada, towards Fritillaries:'Our fondest dream,' she continued, 'Krolik's and my fondest dream, was to describe and depict the early stages, from ova to pupa," since "a caterpillar needs exquisite care!" while we learn that Van was fond of kissing girlish Ada's pitifully gnawed hands...
3. In "Ada," fondness is predominantly a feeling related to nurses and butlers. Vivian Darkbloom translates Bouteillan's sentence in French (p.126): "no, Sir, I simply am very fond of you, Sir, and of your young lady." ('Non, Monsieur,' answered Bouteillan, holding on to his cap. 'Non. Tout simplement j'aime bien Monsieur et sa demoiselle.' ) typical of Demon's and Van's "old comedy retainer's," who may be as loyal and observant as "a fond relative or faithful retainer," and who welcomes his master "with a fond bow."
4. We learn about the perils of being fond. It's not Ada, but Lucette who is able to admire "fondly ...his long lashes while pitying his tender skin..." - a dangerous feeling in her case: "A wet nurse's (Ruby Black) and later Lucette's tender feelings for Van led to madness, "anguish and calamity." ( "for no sooner did all the fond, all the frail, come into close contact with him...than they were bound to know anguish and calamity, unless strengthened by a strain of his father's demon blood.")
5. In keeping with the hazards of fond softness and pity, here linked to parental care, we find that Marina, "took some professional pleasure in playing the hackneyed part of a fond mother, proud of her daughter's charm and humor..." or knitted "her brows and shook her head acting the fond, worried mother though, in point of fact, she bore her daughters even less affection than she had for cute Dack and pathetic Dan."
It befalls Demon to consider (in Van's fantasy) how his love for Marina had changed: "How strange that when one met after a long separation a chum or fat aunt whom one had been fond of as a child the unimpaired human warmth of the friendship was rediscovered at once, but with an old mistress this never happened - the human part of one's affection seemed to be swept away with the dust of the inhuman passion, in a wholesale operation of demolishment."
To fondle in "Ada, or Ardour":
1.related to Demon's marriage to Aqua, "out of spite and pity, a not unusual blend," because Van registers Marina's "perverse vainglory," when she "used to affirm in bed that Demon's senses must have been influenced by a queer sort of 'incestuous' (whatever that term means) pleasure (in the sense of the French plaisir, which works up a lot of supplementary spinal vibrato), when he fondled, and savored, and delicately parted and defiled, in unmentionable but fascinating ways, flesh (une chair) that was both that of his wife and that of his mistress, the blended and brightened charms of twin peris, an Aquamarina both single and double, a mirage in an emirate, a germinate gem, an orgy of epithelial alliterations."
2. A puzzling link between fondling and Mr Nymphobottomus's petting: " ...she said, or said later she'd said - while he continued to fondle the flow of her hair, and to massage and rumple her nightdress...She turned to him and next moment he was kissing her bare shoulder, and pushing against her like that soldier behind in the queue./.../ First time I hear about him. I thought old Mr Nymphobottomus had been my only predecessor." Also during their lovemaking, Ada "fondled him; she entwined him: thus a tendril climber coils round a column..."
3. Fondling may be related to twinning entwinement, depreciation and cruelty: "He still hoped to get rid for a moment of dull Cordula and find something cruel to make dull Ada dissolve in bright tears. But that was prompted by his amour-propre, not by their sale amour. He would die with an old pun on his lips. And why 'dirty'? Did he feel any Proustian pangs? None. On the contrary: a private picture of their fondling each other kept pricking him with perverse gratification. Before his inner bloodshot eye Ada was duplicated and enriched, twinned by entwinement, giving what he gave, taking what he took: Corada, Adula. It struck him that the dumpy little Countess resembled his first whorelet, and that sharpened the itch." And courtesan loves who were"picked up in a café between Grasse and Nice, and another, a part-time model (you have seen her fondling a virile lipstick in Fellata ads), aptly nicknamed Swallowtail by the patrons of a Norfolk Broads floramor." (indeed, Van would die with an old pun on his lips...) Other fantastic additions refer to "Vaniada's Adventures" by which "Virgin chatelaines in marble-floored manors fondled their lone flames fanned by Van's romance."
4. Is there a defiled "platonic love" element in a reference to Mr. Platonov whose gouty feet Van had inadvertently, but angrily, trod upon: 'Cordula,' said the old actress (with the same apropos with which she once picked up and fondled a fireman's cat that had strayed into Fast Colors in the middle of her best speech), 'why don't you go with this angry young demon to the tea-car? "
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I wondered how well "fondness" fared in Nabokov's novels, should one could count the frequency of the word, or evaluate its varying contexts, to register the gamut of emotions explored by him as a writer. My first results were baffling, perhaps because, at least in Ada and in Lolita, there was a contamination from "being fond of" to "fondling," that contrasts with Nabokov's extra-novelistic recommendation to "fondle the details" ('In reading, one should notice and fondle details.There is nothing wrong about the moonshine of generalization when it comes after the sunny trifles of the book have been lovingly collected." ( 'Good Readers and Good Writers' in Lectures on Literature (ed. Fredson Browers, Harvest Book, San Diego, 1980).
An informal search in the internet led me to approach "to fondle" and "to pet" ("my pet," charged with contrasting meanings, is how Ada sometimes addresses her half-sister) although what would have been originally "explicitly innocent and nonsexual," in fondling and in "wuffle"*, and related to children and animals, will now acquire a depreciative erotic sense.
As I see it, Nabokov's employ of the English noun "fondness" is marked by mostly negative aond conflictual feelings.**
............................................................................................................................................................................................
* A site for "Urban Dictionary" described "wuffle": 1.) The verb form of "affection;" the act of being affectionate. To demonstrate physical affection, especially in ways that do not have specific other names. Ie to nuzzle, cuddle and pet. Explicitly innocent and nonsexual - one "wuffles" a lover the same way one wuffles a child or pet. May imply an emulation of the way an animal demonstrates affection, ie, how a cat will rub its face up against someone. 2.) A dimunitve form of nonromantic, nonsexual love in the sense of affection or fondness. Used to express the desire to give affection towards someone being cute or endearing (I chose only the first two of a list).
** - Fondness in "Ada, or Ardour":
1. In "Ada" it is a British reviewer who exhibits a "journalist's fondness for ...phoney wordplay," although "fond" at first seems to be associated to Uncle Dan's falling "comfortably in love with Marina," in relation to "a fondly made topcoat". Marina, herself, keeps "a secret fondness for salty jokes" and ellicits "a fond deprecation" after being praised about the softness of her expensive fur coat. Ada and Lucette are "fond ...of Russian fare and Russian floor shows" and whores ( Flora) may flash "a fond farewell." while a tolerant comment, added to Van's text, is written "in Ada's fondest hand." Van, in his turn, vents his anger in a "fond way" but he also may be "fond of Ada's cotton frock" although he intends to "soil it." (something which we'll later find directly related to the act of "fondling": "he had fondled and fouled her many times in the course of the last ten days, but was not sure if her name was really Adora..." and this reappers in: "on the bench where he had recently fondled and fouled a favorite, lanky, awkward, black girl student".. now surprisingly related to his feelings of guilt towards his mother,when "Van tortured himself with thoughts of insufficient filial affection - a long story of unconcern, amused scorn, physical repulsion, and habitual dismissal"). Van does try, once in a while,"to squeeze out some fondness for her but as usual failed and as usual told himself that Ada did not love her mother either, a vague and cowardly consolation." but, more realisticaly, he notes that "nothing... can be construed as allowing itself to be deciphered by a witch doctor who can then cure a madman or give comfort to a killer by laying the blame on a too fond, too fiendish or too indifferent parent ." At other times, the tender cuddly protection ellicits other kinds of thoughts for in " 'real' life we are creatures of chance in an absolute void - unless we be artists ourselves, naturally; but in a good play I feel authored, I feel passed by the board of censors, I feel secure, with only a breathing blackness before me (instead of our Fourth-Wall Time), I feel cuddled in the embrace of puzzled Will (he thought I was you) or in that of the much more normal Anton Pavlovich, who was always passionately fond of long dark hair.'"
2. Fondness might appear as "tendresse" ( Demon's, towards Ada: The bizarre enthusiast had developed the same tendresse for her as he had always had for Van) or related to pets, or to pity, as in the case of Ada, towards Fritillaries:'Our fondest dream,' she continued, 'Krolik's and my fondest dream, was to describe and depict the early stages, from ova to pupa," since "a caterpillar needs exquisite care!" while we learn that Van was fond of kissing girlish Ada's pitifully gnawed hands...
3. In "Ada," fondness is predominantly a feeling related to nurses and butlers. Vivian Darkbloom translates Bouteillan's sentence in French (p.126): "no, Sir, I simply am very fond of you, Sir, and of your young lady." ('Non, Monsieur,' answered Bouteillan, holding on to his cap. 'Non. Tout simplement j'aime bien Monsieur et sa demoiselle.' ) typical of Demon's and Van's "old comedy retainer's," who may be as loyal and observant as "a fond relative or faithful retainer," and who welcomes his master "with a fond bow."
4. We learn about the perils of being fond. It's not Ada, but Lucette who is able to admire "fondly ...his long lashes while pitying his tender skin..." - a dangerous feeling in her case: "A wet nurse's (Ruby Black) and later Lucette's tender feelings for Van led to madness, "anguish and calamity." ( "for no sooner did all the fond, all the frail, come into close contact with him...than they were bound to know anguish and calamity, unless strengthened by a strain of his father's demon blood.")
5. In keeping with the hazards of fond softness and pity, here linked to parental care, we find that Marina, "took some professional pleasure in playing the hackneyed part of a fond mother, proud of her daughter's charm and humor..." or knitted "her brows and shook her head acting the fond, worried mother though, in point of fact, she bore her daughters even less affection than she had for cute Dack and pathetic Dan."
It befalls Demon to consider (in Van's fantasy) how his love for Marina had changed: "How strange that when one met after a long separation a chum or fat aunt whom one had been fond of as a child the unimpaired human warmth of the friendship was rediscovered at once, but with an old mistress this never happened - the human part of one's affection seemed to be swept away with the dust of the inhuman passion, in a wholesale operation of demolishment."
To fondle in "Ada, or Ardour":
1.related to Demon's marriage to Aqua, "out of spite and pity, a not unusual blend," because Van registers Marina's "perverse vainglory," when she "used to affirm in bed that Demon's senses must have been influenced by a queer sort of 'incestuous' (whatever that term means) pleasure (in the sense of the French plaisir, which works up a lot of supplementary spinal vibrato), when he fondled, and savored, and delicately parted and defiled, in unmentionable but fascinating ways, flesh (une chair) that was both that of his wife and that of his mistress, the blended and brightened charms of twin peris, an Aquamarina both single and double, a mirage in an emirate, a germinate gem, an orgy of epithelial alliterations."
2. A puzzling link between fondling and Mr Nymphobottomus's petting: " ...she said, or said later she'd said - while he continued to fondle the flow of her hair, and to massage and rumple her nightdress...She turned to him and next moment he was kissing her bare shoulder, and pushing against her like that soldier behind in the queue./.../ First time I hear about him. I thought old Mr Nymphobottomus had been my only predecessor." Also during their lovemaking, Ada "fondled him; she entwined him: thus a tendril climber coils round a column..."
3. Fondling may be related to twinning entwinement, depreciation and cruelty: "He still hoped to get rid for a moment of dull Cordula and find something cruel to make dull Ada dissolve in bright tears. But that was prompted by his amour-propre, not by their sale amour. He would die with an old pun on his lips. And why 'dirty'? Did he feel any Proustian pangs? None. On the contrary: a private picture of their fondling each other kept pricking him with perverse gratification. Before his inner bloodshot eye Ada was duplicated and enriched, twinned by entwinement, giving what he gave, taking what he took: Corada, Adula. It struck him that the dumpy little Countess resembled his first whorelet, and that sharpened the itch." And courtesan loves who were"picked up in a café between Grasse and Nice, and another, a part-time model (you have seen her fondling a virile lipstick in Fellata ads), aptly nicknamed Swallowtail by the patrons of a Norfolk Broads floramor." (indeed, Van would die with an old pun on his lips...) Other fantastic additions refer to "Vaniada's Adventures" by which "Virgin chatelaines in marble-floored manors fondled their lone flames fanned by Van's romance."
4. Is there a defiled "platonic love" element in a reference to Mr. Platonov whose gouty feet Van had inadvertently, but angrily, trod upon: 'Cordula,' said the old actress (with the same apropos with which she once picked up and fondled a fireman's cat that had strayed into Fast Colors in the middle of her best speech), 'why don't you go with this angry young demon to the tea-car? "
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/