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[NABOKOV-L] Names: Electra, amber,lammermoor and thespionyms...
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Dear List,
I remembered Lévi-Strauss' comments restricting research after the etymology of proper names ( when he applied his "symbolic machine" on Oedipus: Oedipus means Swollenfeet; Laius' means Lame. Laius' father's name, Labdacus, means Lame-on-the-Left...).
I have not his "Structural Anthropology" at hand from where I remember informations on sexual or asexual reproduction and chtonic dragons, related to the undecidable conundrums figured as "myths". Google only led me to his "The Elementary Structures of Kinship (first published 1949, revised 1967, translated into English 1969)". Anyway, any way can lead me back onto Nabokov. A chance comment in google listings and I'm off.
"Freud and Levi-Strauss present the myth of Oedipus from very different starting ...... insists that the proper translation of Electra's name is "amber" ..."
Yes! Oedipus, Electra...Egyptian kings, Sir Walter Scott, incest...Indeed.
A bunch of quotes from ADA:
As noted by Darkbloom: p.25. lammer: amber (Fr: l'ambre), allusion to electricity onto ...The fire of Lucette's amber runs through the night of Ada's odor and ardor, and stops at the threshold of Van's lavender goat; Rack's eyes ["the beautiful, amber, liquid, eloquent eyes..."] and also Ada's [ a hundred barns blazed in her amber-black eyes...Van appeared as incestuous Ramses the Scotsman*], Ada's hair, a Nymphalis carmen's wings, Marina's fear of lightning [" whom certicle storms terrified even more than they did the Antiamberians** of Ladore County"], Monaco's amber-and-ruby bacon; ardis of speech and time related to Lucette [He put on his tinted glasses ... as she prepared to ardis into the amber. He wondered, in a mental footnote that might come handy some day, if sunglasses or any other varieties of vision, which certainly twist our concept of 'space,' do not also influence our style of speech], black amber associations [ 'It's one of the Vane sisters,' and he awoke murmuring with professional appreciation the oneiric word-play combining his name and surname]
.....................................
* (a) Walter Scott's novel Lucia de Lammermoor "is based on an actual incident that took place in 1669 in the Lammermuir Hills area of Lowland Scotland. The real family involved were the Dalrymples.The story concerns a feud between two families, the Ashtons and the Ravenswoods."; (b) Three Egyptian squaws...long ebony eye,thin amber arms...reproduction of a Theban fresco (no doubt pretty banal in 1420 B.C.), printed in Germany (Künstlerpostkarte Nr. 6034, says cynical Dr Lagosse) (Ada).
** technologists (the so-called Eggheads)... banning of an unmentionable 'lammer.'...He worked for a couple of hours on his Texture of Time, begun in the Dolomites at the Lammermoor (not the best of his recent hotels).No pill could cope with that torment. There he sprawled, curled up, uncurled, turned off and turned on the bedside light (a gurgling new surrogate - real lammer having been forbidden again by 1930), and physical despair pervaded his unresolvable being. (Ada)
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I remembered Lévi-Strauss' comments restricting research after the etymology of proper names ( when he applied his "symbolic machine" on Oedipus: Oedipus means Swollenfeet; Laius' means Lame. Laius' father's name, Labdacus, means Lame-on-the-Left...).
I have not his "Structural Anthropology" at hand from where I remember informations on sexual or asexual reproduction and chtonic dragons, related to the undecidable conundrums figured as "myths". Google only led me to his "The Elementary Structures of Kinship (first published 1949, revised 1967, translated into English 1969)". Anyway, any way can lead me back onto Nabokov. A chance comment in google listings and I'm off.
"Freud and Levi-Strauss present the myth of Oedipus from very different starting ...... insists that the proper translation of Electra's name is "amber" ..."
Yes! Oedipus, Electra...Egyptian kings, Sir Walter Scott, incest...Indeed.
A bunch of quotes from ADA:
As noted by Darkbloom: p.25. lammer: amber (Fr: l'ambre), allusion to electricity onto ...The fire of Lucette's amber runs through the night of Ada's odor and ardor, and stops at the threshold of Van's lavender goat; Rack's eyes ["the beautiful, amber, liquid, eloquent eyes..."] and also Ada's [ a hundred barns blazed in her amber-black eyes...Van appeared as incestuous Ramses the Scotsman*], Ada's hair, a Nymphalis carmen's wings, Marina's fear of lightning [" whom certicle storms terrified even more than they did the Antiamberians** of Ladore County"], Monaco's amber-and-ruby bacon; ardis of speech and time related to Lucette [He put on his tinted glasses ... as she prepared to ardis into the amber. He wondered, in a mental footnote that might come handy some day, if sunglasses or any other varieties of vision, which certainly twist our concept of 'space,' do not also influence our style of speech], black amber associations [ 'It's one of the Vane sisters,' and he awoke murmuring with professional appreciation the oneiric word-play combining his name and surname]
.....................................
* (a) Walter Scott's novel Lucia de Lammermoor "is based on an actual incident that took place in 1669 in the Lammermuir Hills area of Lowland Scotland. The real family involved were the Dalrymples.The story concerns a feud between two families, the Ashtons and the Ravenswoods."; (b) Three Egyptian squaws...long ebony eye,thin amber arms...reproduction of a Theban fresco (no doubt pretty banal in 1420 B.C.), printed in Germany (Künstlerpostkarte Nr. 6034, says cynical Dr Lagosse) (Ada).
** technologists (the so-called Eggheads)... banning of an unmentionable 'lammer.'...He worked for a couple of hours on his Texture of Time, begun in the Dolomites at the Lammermoor (not the best of his recent hotels).No pill could cope with that torment. There he sprawled, curled up, uncurled, turned off and turned on the bedside light (a gurgling new surrogate - real lammer having been forbidden again by 1930), and physical despair pervaded his unresolvable being. (Ada)
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/