Subject
Re: answer to Don at [NABOKV-L] Red Admiral
From
Date
Body
Dear Don,
Alfred Appel Jr. (1970) asked why VN was so fond of Vanessa atalanta. The
writer replied that "Its coloring is quite splendid and I liked it very much in my youth. Great numbers of them migrated from Africa to Northern Russia, where it was called "The Butterfly of Doom" because it was especially abundant in 1881, the year Tsar Alexander II was assassinated, and the markings on the underside of its two hind wings seem to read '1881.' The Red Admirable's ability to travel so far is matched by many
other migratory butterflies." (_Strong Opinions_, 170)
Probably Nabokov selected this association bt. the Red Admiral and DOOM ( in Pale Fire it appears as a "heraldic butterfly", somewhere) to signal not only death or madness but, also, an authorial intervention.
At least, this is what I gathered from VN's introductory remarks to Bend Sinister where, as he explains, the term "bend sinister" points to the heraldic bar which splits
an escutcheon in two from left to right : "This choice of title [ for the novel BS] was an
attempt to suggest an outline broken by refraction, a distortion in the mirror of being".
The theme rises again at the end with his coming in to rescue Adam: "it was then that I felt a pang of pity for Adam and slid towards him along an inclined beam of pale light causing instantaneous madness, but at least saving him from the senseless agony of his logical
fate". "The inclined beam of pale light", with color variations, often occurs in VN's novels and it is inserted with such elegance that it often may escape our notice.
Jansy
----- Original Message -----
From: "Donald B. Johnson" <chtodel@GSS.UCSB.EDU>
To: <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
Sent: Monday, January 22, 2007 4:04 PM
Subject: Re: [NABOKV-L] Red Admiral vs Cabbage White
Hi, Carolyn. Many thanks for the Red Admiral Rothschild reference. I'll
check it out today. What I had in mind was not so much that the general
proposition that Red Admiral = death but that VN's inteview comment that the asserted
presence of the figure 1881 on the hind wind heralded the death of Tsar Alexander
II. I have not been abl
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
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
Alfred Appel Jr. (1970) asked why VN was so fond of Vanessa atalanta. The
writer replied that "Its coloring is quite splendid and I liked it very much in my youth. Great numbers of them migrated from Africa to Northern Russia, where it was called "The Butterfly of Doom" because it was especially abundant in 1881, the year Tsar Alexander II was assassinated, and the markings on the underside of its two hind wings seem to read '1881.' The Red Admirable's ability to travel so far is matched by many
other migratory butterflies." (_Strong Opinions_, 170)
Probably Nabokov selected this association bt. the Red Admiral and DOOM ( in Pale Fire it appears as a "heraldic butterfly", somewhere) to signal not only death or madness but, also, an authorial intervention.
At least, this is what I gathered from VN's introductory remarks to Bend Sinister where, as he explains, the term "bend sinister" points to the heraldic bar which splits
an escutcheon in two from left to right : "This choice of title [ for the novel BS] was an
attempt to suggest an outline broken by refraction, a distortion in the mirror of being".
The theme rises again at the end with his coming in to rescue Adam: "it was then that I felt a pang of pity for Adam and slid towards him along an inclined beam of pale light causing instantaneous madness, but at least saving him from the senseless agony of his logical
fate". "The inclined beam of pale light", with color variations, often occurs in VN's novels and it is inserted with such elegance that it often may escape our notice.
Jansy
----- Original Message -----
From: "Donald B. Johnson" <chtodel@GSS.UCSB.EDU>
To: <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
Sent: Monday, January 22, 2007 4:04 PM
Subject: Re: [NABOKV-L] Red Admiral vs Cabbage White
Hi, Carolyn. Many thanks for the Red Admiral Rothschild reference. I'll
check it out today. What I had in mind was not so much that the general
proposition that Red Admiral = death but that VN's inteview comment that the asserted
presence of the figure 1881 on the hind wind heralded the death of Tsar Alexander
II. I have not been abl
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
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