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Re: Zemblan heraldry: other trivia
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Kinbote notes (lines 1-4) that the “armorial bearings of the Zemblan King”
included “a merman azure, crined or”. A few years ago I came across this
merman’s mate, a mermaid azure, crined or, in the northern French seaside town
of Wimereux. Her name is Iodie. She represents the spirit of the town, and
there’s a picture of her below, which might amuse.
Jansy wrote that in Bend Sinister VN remarked that the term ‘bend sinister’
points to the heraldic bar which splits an escutcheon in two from left to
right: "This choice of title was an attempt to suggest an outline broken by
refraction, a distortion in the mirror of being.” This reminded me of the
Nattochdag escutcheon, which Iodie is gazing at with raised eyebrows. The shield
dates at least from 1280, around the time when the Swedish tribe of Rus were
laying the foundations of what eventually became Russia.
In her Gothic Tales Karen Blixen danished the name to Nat-og-dag, and
rotated the shield’s split from horizontal to vertical, also changing the tinctures
to black and white. Her version seems to have more direct application to the
window mirror in PF. I still harbour a submerged hankering to nail Professor
Nattochdag, whom Kinbote saw every day, “the dear man”, as the ultimate
author of everything, but realise that he, and the womb of nations, have sparked
relatively little interest among Nabokovians --- Priscilla Meyer being an
exception. Kinbote omits to include this Professor in his index. Two branches
of descendants of the Nattochdag family currently live in America, under the
unexplained names of Dagg and DeRemee.
On the topic of whether the Nabokovs were aristocrats, or not, I found that
a detailed family tree had been worked out, presented on the “Nabokov Family
Web”, by Dieter Zimmer, here:
_http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/nfw_toc.htm_
(http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/nfw_toc.htm)
Unfortunately the diagram of the tree itself failed to appear when I
accessed the site.
On the topic of whether anybody still reads Carl Sandburg I was slightly
stunned, when I slipped a dvd from a just recently received order into my
machine, to be greeted by the weirdly coincidental sight of a recording of Orson
Welles, would you believe, giving a reading of Sandburg’s Prairie, on American
television. This was in 1955 or ’56, so Sandburg may well have sunk into
total obscurity since then. Paradoxically enough, given his politics, Sandburg
included the Swedish royal house of Vasa in his ancestry.
Various films have been mentioned recently in connection with VN on the
list. Watching Bergman’s Persona (1966) again, I noticed that the young boy, who
is either the neglected son of one of the women, or the aborted feotus of the
other (interchangeable) woman, is briefly shown reading A Hero of Our Time,
in Swedish, of course. One wonders why. In Shakespeare Wallah (1965) one of
the travelling troupe of actors, an Indian, is more pointedly shown to be
reading Lolita. Other films which come to mind, as addressing the themes of
immortality and identity in what strikes me as a post-Nabokovian manner, are
Last Year at Marienbad (1961) and Bertolucci’s The Conformist (1970). A more
recent American film which also appears to me similarly to treat the question
of identity is The Usual Suspects (1970).
After finishing Melville’s Pierre, I certainly felt I’d been through one
of the more extraordinary reading experiences of my life. Although greatly
daunted, I now must really try to get to grips with Ada. Some time soon. The
Nabokov Companion has arrived, and I’ve read SES's and Pifer’s articles. I’ll
avoid resuscitating the question of literary national identity, however.
Neither Amis nor Rand are among my favourite authors. In reading a review of the
marvellous Helen Mirren’s impersonation of the latter, nevertheless, I noted
that Rand is evidently a name to conjure with. Mirren was described as taking
the lead in The Passion of Ann Rynd. Even VN might have been tickled by
that.
Jansy’s question about “feather” as a rowing term [SS on self-references:
Tue, 23 Jan] seems to have fallen through the interstices of this reticulated
or decussated internetwork, as I don’t appear to have received it. However,
SB’s careful explanation again impels me to bring up Carroll’s deathless
masterpiece, and quote: “Why do you say ‘Feather’ so often?” Alice asked at
last, rather vexed. “I’m not a bird!” “You are,” said the Sheep: “you’re a
little goose.” See Gardner, The Annotated Alice, p.254, Meridian 1960.
Charles
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