Subject
RES: [NABOKV-L] fires and fingernails
From
Date
Body
Alexey Sklyarenko: When Van first meets Ada in Ardis, her fingernails are
badly bitten. She stops biting them on her twelfth birthday.I don't think
that Ada is so superstitious that she asks Kim or Blanche to throw her pared
fingernails in the flames of the Burning Barn; yet, Gorky's story seems to
me another indirect evidence that the "Baronial" Barn was set on fire on
purpose and that Ada was involved in the arson..
JM: So Ada stopped to bite her fingernails after she met Van? He seemed to
feel great tenderness for her harmed cushiony fingertips at that first
period in Ardis. The mosquitoes were associated to Chateaubriand, Goethe and
the fictional Robert Brown. Now you see a link to Gorky, an author Nabokov
didn't seem to appreciate much. Were his references, then, satirical or
neutral?
I cannot remember the interconnections between the fiery bites, Van and
Ada's passion and a second arson, one that is mentioned much later in
connection to Kim and silhouettes seen from a distance. A few lost lines of
poetry about a guide which indicated the British princess Margaret and her
forbidden love seem to be close to this scene. Wasn't Lord Snowdown also a
photographer, although better equipped than Kim?
It's such a pity that I cannot return to Ada right now, your new clues are
tantalizing by bringing up various blind spots in my reading.
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/
badly bitten. She stops biting them on her twelfth birthday.I don't think
that Ada is so superstitious that she asks Kim or Blanche to throw her pared
fingernails in the flames of the Burning Barn; yet, Gorky's story seems to
me another indirect evidence that the "Baronial" Barn was set on fire on
purpose and that Ada was involved in the arson..
JM: So Ada stopped to bite her fingernails after she met Van? He seemed to
feel great tenderness for her harmed cushiony fingertips at that first
period in Ardis. The mosquitoes were associated to Chateaubriand, Goethe and
the fictional Robert Brown. Now you see a link to Gorky, an author Nabokov
didn't seem to appreciate much. Were his references, then, satirical or
neutral?
I cannot remember the interconnections between the fiery bites, Van and
Ada's passion and a second arson, one that is mentioned much later in
connection to Kim and silhouettes seen from a distance. A few lost lines of
poetry about a guide which indicated the British princess Margaret and her
forbidden love seem to be close to this scene. Wasn't Lord Snowdown also a
photographer, although better equipped than Kim?
It's such a pity that I cannot return to Ada right now, your new clues are
tantalizing by bringing up various blind spots in my reading.
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/