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[NABOKOV-L] Unrelated similar references; plot and weave
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Dear List,
While watching Michelangelo Antonioni's movie "Identificazione di una Donna" ( Italy -1982), with a self-referential movie-director's search after a woman's face and a plot, I followed the steps of two girls, Mavi and Ida. The latter is an actress in a production of Baudelaire's "Les Fleurs du Mal" and the theatre where she performs is placed high up a staircase ( and it is first visited when one of the lady escorts needs to pee). The theatre's name is related to "Mont Parnasse" (the mythic site of the muses and art, even of a stray "parnassian poet").
Nabokov's Mlle Ida Montparnasse is connected to another French writer, Guy de Maupassant - and a sentimental plagiarist.
Both Idas (VN's, Antonioni's) have nothing in common ( but an almost uncalled for reference to "pee" in both cases). The original nymph and the Turkish "Mount Ida" seem to be equally unrelated to the characters.
A plot indicates a "weave" ( in Portuguese and in Italian the word is "trama"). When Kinbote mentioned an "underside of the weave" I had pictured an embroidery or a carpet with its distiinct sides. If I associate it to "plot", the clarity is lost. In the same way I could never understand how Van planned to "turn a metaphor upside down" ( in ADA), also an "underside of a plot" intrigues me (although I recollect Nabokov often mentioned a hidden plot in a bigger plot, something that is not a mere ramification of the plot - but its reversal).
Can anyone locate a quote about Nabokov and "hidden plots"?
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While watching Michelangelo Antonioni's movie "Identificazione di una Donna" ( Italy -1982), with a self-referential movie-director's search after a woman's face and a plot, I followed the steps of two girls, Mavi and Ida. The latter is an actress in a production of Baudelaire's "Les Fleurs du Mal" and the theatre where she performs is placed high up a staircase ( and it is first visited when one of the lady escorts needs to pee). The theatre's name is related to "Mont Parnasse" (the mythic site of the muses and art, even of a stray "parnassian poet").
Nabokov's Mlle Ida Montparnasse is connected to another French writer, Guy de Maupassant - and a sentimental plagiarist.
Both Idas (VN's, Antonioni's) have nothing in common ( but an almost uncalled for reference to "pee" in both cases). The original nymph and the Turkish "Mount Ida" seem to be equally unrelated to the characters.
A plot indicates a "weave" ( in Portuguese and in Italian the word is "trama"). When Kinbote mentioned an "underside of the weave" I had pictured an embroidery or a carpet with its distiinct sides. If I associate it to "plot", the clarity is lost. In the same way I could never understand how Van planned to "turn a metaphor upside down" ( in ADA), also an "underside of a plot" intrigues me (although I recollect Nabokov often mentioned a hidden plot in a bigger plot, something that is not a mere ramification of the plot - but its reversal).
Can anyone locate a quote about Nabokov and "hidden plots"?
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/