Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0019770, Wed, 7 Apr 2010 21:00:04 +0400

Subject
bars, Mars, Marx
Date
Body
Since I mentioned барс (leopard) in my previous post, let's play a little word golf:

bars - Mars - Marx

Marx ("a popular author of 'historical' plays") is mentioned not only in Ada, but also in each novel of the Ilf and Petrov dilogy.

Mars is the Roman god of war and a planet (also in Russian). In Wells' War of the Worlds humans beat off the attack of Martians. Mars = sram (shame; privy parts). Cf. Demon's words in Ada: "...if the local squires don't blow up that new kerosene distillary, the styd i sram (shame) of our county" (1.38). Kerosin (kerosene) is the word Ada composes at the beginning of a Flavita game (1.36). Mars = M + ars (Lat., art)

bars = bras (Fr., arm; cf. Bras d'Or). Bars (ounce) is the animal with which the hero of Lermontov's Mtsyri (1839) wrestles. There is bar in bars and bars in barsuk, badger. The dachshunds (cf. dackel Dack in Ada) were initially bred to hunt badgers. "Барсучья нора" ("Badger's Hole") was Mandelshtam's article on Blok. Bar = rab (slave). There is bar in both barn and ambar (or anbar), Russian for "barn". Cf. also barin ("master"), the word that occurs in both Ada and "The 12 Chairs". Barin = brain. Cf. also baran ("ram")
There is bras in Fortinbras, Prince of Norway in Hamlet. Bras differs only in the ultima from brat (brother) and brak (marriage).
One also remembers Arbat (street in Moscow), Arbatov (city in "The Golden Calf") and Arbenin (the hero of Lermontov's play "The Masquerade").

The game is over: I'm in Zeitnot.

Alexey Sklyarenko

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