Subject
Responses to query on VN and Disney
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Date
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Dear List,
Thank you so much for your kind responses to my query for suggestions
about connections between VN and Walt Disney. I think that I have
gathered them all here. Some of them independently confirm the general
influence of comics and cartoons on VN’s work (already established by
Brown, Shapiro, Appel, and Toker), while others provide additional
insights. For my purposes, I found the suggestions below by Matt Roth,
Mike Donohue, and Andrea Pitzer especially useful.
Please let me know if you think of anything else, especially once you
read these replies. I promise to thank folks in print eventually.
Yours gratefully,
SES
Andrea Pitzer:
In Lolita, when Humbert speaks of gremlins and kremlins during his
wartime arctic stint (p. 34), I have always thought VN was slipping in a
nod to a Disney cartoon called "Russian Rhapsody," originally called
"Gremlins from the Kremlin." It was based on a Roald Dahl book of WWII
aviators' Gremlin stories.
The first link is the cartoon itself, the second and third just provide
some information about it. If I remember correctly, the wikipedia entry
is brief but accurate.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xs8TVkJSUc
http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6373256.html
http://www.toonopedia.com/gremlins.htm
This cartoon was hugely popular during the war, as were Russophilic
songs like "Stalin Wasn't Stallin'," though both probably seemed pretty
dated by the 50s...
Matt Roth:
I don't know if the color "Cinderella Blue" originates with Disney or
not.
In Pnin, the blue-green bowl is connected with the color of Cinderella's
slippers, which VN clearly thinks goes back to the color of the vair
(squirrel-fur) slippers in other versions of the tale. But in the larger
culture, I think we associate Cinderella with blue because of her dress
in
the Disney film (which of course comes from the sky-colored dress in the
Catskin tales). Still, I don't know if that association was operational
in
the 50s. In fact, I don't even know when Cinderella was made, so maybe
this
is all irrelevant.
Mike Donhue:
In the NYPL exhibit back in 1999, there was (and I'm absolutely certain
about this little bit) a poem that contained the phrase "Not Marvell's
faun, but Disney's" -- and it was off to your left, entering the room --
though I forget everything else. An anti-Bambi reference, perhaps? Check
in the Berg Collection.
Jansy Mello:
I've been recently reading about Walt Disney, how he was born a Joe in
Spain and adopted by an American family, before he became one of the
most representative (albeit over-zealous) iconic manager of americana.
In "Once upon a time: the sources of inspiration for the Disney studios"
we see how Wilhelm Busch, Beatrix Potter and Honoré Daumier influenced
some of the scenes, movements and captions. Disney hired many emigré
artists with their nostalgia but the influences that interested me most
came from German expressionism and movies. Not only do we feel Gustave
Doré's illustration of Dante's Inferno ( in Snow-White!), or Arthur
Rackham's or Blake's drawings, but the metamorphosis of the SW's cruel
step-mother into a witch, inspired in a movie about "Dr.Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde" and in Fritz Lang's "Metropolis."
I couldn't help finding, in retrospect, a connection between Van's
"Mascodagama act" and the gigantic batlike monster in Mussorgsky's "A
Night in Bald Mountain" (cf. Disney's "Fantasia".)
. . . Walt Disney and W.von Braun worked together (wikipedia brings a
picture of both posing with a mini rocket, in Disney's biography) I'd
been trying to discover if Disney's hair was red, or if he had sideburns
and recending chin for this is how VN described uncle Dan [in ADA], a
cartoonlike figure with mismatched stripes. Uncle Dan,like Demon, was
named Walter. The first was "Durak Walter or Red Veen".The sense of
political alusions related to reds & communists side by side Disney
doesn't help me discern what were VN's opinions on Disney's stands.
RS Gwynn:
I can't help but thinkspirit, if not the letter, of Looney Tunes more than Disney. Just a
thought.
Abraham Adams:
this may not be useful at all, but your post reminded me of scenes in
Invitation
to a Beheading in which the landscape and characters are rendered as
representations, for example, "the town, from every point of which one
could
see, now in crayon, and now in ink-- the tall fortress in which he was"
(p 77).
There are references to characters being "poorly cast" or having an
"unrealistic" toupee. These are not directly related to Disney, of
course, but
the intrusion of artificial images into the book's world strike me as
cinematic
and perhaps cartoonish.
Tom Seifrid:
It has always seemed to me that "Chipi," the cartoon-guinea-pig made
popular
by Robert Gorn in 'Kamera obskura' was inspired by the success of
Disney's
Mickey Mouse. This would be an early allusion, if indeed Disney was
what VN
had in mind.
Eric Butterbaugh:
During a recent symposium entitled Lolita in America (The New School,
NYC,
27-Sept-08), Alfred Appel briefly discussed *Lolita's *self-reflexive
structure (i.e. narrative involution, self-conscious fiction, etc.). He
said something to the effect of "[Disney's] Duck Amuck is the best
example of self-reflexivity in art." It's posted on YouTube and appears
on
*Looney Toons Golden Collection: Volume 1.* Hope this helps.
Eric Hyman:
You might check his butterfly book to see if his drawings show any trace
of influence from Disney butterflies (or other Disney winged creatures).
My hunch is that, since Nabokov is such a visual artist, visual
allusions might be more likely than textual ones.
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/
Thank you so much for your kind responses to my query for suggestions
about connections between VN and Walt Disney. I think that I have
gathered them all here. Some of them independently confirm the general
influence of comics and cartoons on VN’s work (already established by
Brown, Shapiro, Appel, and Toker), while others provide additional
insights. For my purposes, I found the suggestions below by Matt Roth,
Mike Donohue, and Andrea Pitzer especially useful.
Please let me know if you think of anything else, especially once you
read these replies. I promise to thank folks in print eventually.
Yours gratefully,
SES
Andrea Pitzer:
In Lolita, when Humbert speaks of gremlins and kremlins during his
wartime arctic stint (p. 34), I have always thought VN was slipping in a
nod to a Disney cartoon called "Russian Rhapsody," originally called
"Gremlins from the Kremlin." It was based on a Roald Dahl book of WWII
aviators' Gremlin stories.
The first link is the cartoon itself, the second and third just provide
some information about it. If I remember correctly, the wikipedia entry
is brief but accurate.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xs8TVkJSUc
http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6373256.html
http://www.toonopedia.com/gremlins.htm
This cartoon was hugely popular during the war, as were Russophilic
songs like "Stalin Wasn't Stallin'," though both probably seemed pretty
dated by the 50s...
Matt Roth:
I don't know if the color "Cinderella Blue" originates with Disney or
not.
In Pnin, the blue-green bowl is connected with the color of Cinderella's
slippers, which VN clearly thinks goes back to the color of the vair
(squirrel-fur) slippers in other versions of the tale. But in the larger
culture, I think we associate Cinderella with blue because of her dress
in
the Disney film (which of course comes from the sky-colored dress in the
Catskin tales). Still, I don't know if that association was operational
in
the 50s. In fact, I don't even know when Cinderella was made, so maybe
this
is all irrelevant.
Mike Donhue:
In the NYPL exhibit back in 1999, there was (and I'm absolutely certain
about this little bit) a poem that contained the phrase "Not Marvell's
faun, but Disney's" -- and it was off to your left, entering the room --
though I forget everything else. An anti-Bambi reference, perhaps? Check
in the Berg Collection.
Jansy Mello:
I've been recently reading about Walt Disney, how he was born a Joe in
Spain and adopted by an American family, before he became one of the
most representative (albeit over-zealous) iconic manager of americana.
In "Once upon a time: the sources of inspiration for the Disney studios"
we see how Wilhelm Busch, Beatrix Potter and Honoré Daumier influenced
some of the scenes, movements and captions. Disney hired many emigré
artists with their nostalgia but the influences that interested me most
came from German expressionism and movies. Not only do we feel Gustave
Doré's illustration of Dante's Inferno ( in Snow-White!), or Arthur
Rackham's or Blake's drawings, but the metamorphosis of the SW's cruel
step-mother into a witch, inspired in a movie about "Dr.Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde" and in Fritz Lang's "Metropolis."
I couldn't help finding, in retrospect, a connection between Van's
"Mascodagama act" and the gigantic batlike monster in Mussorgsky's "A
Night in Bald Mountain" (cf. Disney's "Fantasia".)
. . . Walt Disney and W.von Braun worked together (wikipedia brings a
picture of both posing with a mini rocket, in Disney's biography) I'd
been trying to discover if Disney's hair was red, or if he had sideburns
and recending chin for this is how VN described uncle Dan [in ADA], a
cartoonlike figure with mismatched stripes. Uncle Dan,like Demon, was
named Walter. The first was "Durak Walter or Red Veen".The sense of
political alusions related to reds & communists side by side Disney
doesn't help me discern what were VN's opinions on Disney's stands.
RS Gwynn:
I can't help but thinkspirit, if not the letter, of Looney Tunes more than Disney. Just a
thought.
Abraham Adams:
this may not be useful at all, but your post reminded me of scenes in
Invitation
to a Beheading in which the landscape and characters are rendered as
representations, for example, "the town, from every point of which one
could
see, now in crayon, and now in ink-- the tall fortress in which he was"
(p 77).
There are references to characters being "poorly cast" or having an
"unrealistic" toupee. These are not directly related to Disney, of
course, but
the intrusion of artificial images into the book's world strike me as
cinematic
and perhaps cartoonish.
Tom Seifrid:
It has always seemed to me that "Chipi," the cartoon-guinea-pig made
popular
by Robert Gorn in 'Kamera obskura' was inspired by the success of
Disney's
Mickey Mouse. This would be an early allusion, if indeed Disney was
what VN
had in mind.
Eric Butterbaugh:
During a recent symposium entitled Lolita in America (The New School,
NYC,
27-Sept-08), Alfred Appel briefly discussed *Lolita's *self-reflexive
structure (i.e. narrative involution, self-conscious fiction, etc.). He
said something to the effect of "[Disney's] Duck Amuck is the best
example of self-reflexivity in art." It's posted on YouTube and appears
on
*Looney Toons Golden Collection: Volume 1.* Hope this helps.
Eric Hyman:
You might check his butterfly book to see if his drawings show any trace
of influence from Disney butterflies (or other Disney winged creatures).
My hunch is that, since Nabokov is such a visual artist, visual
allusions might be more likely than textual ones.
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/