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Fw: JM on Sly Zemblan and Proust's Edith Valcourt
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Architraves and Remorse (JF), 06 FEb 2007.
Vic Perry: In reply to JF, Kinbote is a very sly Zemblan - but he also is a
classic unreliable narrator who inadvertently allows readers any number of glimpses of truths beyond him.
JF: No doubt about that. I'm still hoping to hear anyone's theory of what
the truth is behind his re-Englished lines from /Timon/.
JM: I wondered about this sly Zemblan's mnemonic feats which apparent in the notes he wrote when already secluded in his Cedarn cave.
We may be curious about Conmal's Timon and the re-Englished lines. But what about the rendering of the exchanges involving Mme.Mortemart and Edith? CK gets very close to the original, but maintains a special, almost deliberate clumsiness.
First ( of course!) I checked the correctness of CK's reference to a 1954 Pléiade's edition in three volumes, and the contentes of the last one for the quote (number 102). ( something that has probably been ascertained before but I wanted to be on the safe side)
PALE FIRE
Sybil... "Please, dip or redip, spider, into this book [offering it], you will find a pretty marker in it bought in France, I want John to keep it."..."I am a very sly Zemblan. Just in case, I had brought with me in my pocket the third and last volume of the Bibliothèque de la Pléiade edition, Paris, 1954, of Proust's work, wherein I had marked certain passages on pages 269-271. Mme. de Mortemart, having decided that Mme. de Valcourt would not be among the "elected" at her soirée, intended to send her a note on the next day saying "Dear Edith, I miss you, last night I did not expect you too much (Edith would wonder: how could she at all, since she did not invite me?) because I know you are not overfond of this sort of parties which, if anything, bore you."
So much for John Shade's last birthday.
PROUST: A la recherche du temps perdu. Coll La Pléiade, 1954, trois volumes, N°s 100, 101, 102.
TOME III, Volume Numéro 102 de la Bibliothèque de la Pléiade. Édition publiée sous la direction de Jean-Yves Tadié avec , pour ce volume, la collaboration d'Antoine Compagnon et Pierre Edmond Robert. Ce Volume Contient:- Sodome et Gomorrhe ; - La Prisonnière ; - Esquisses
The Captive ( chapter II): The Verdurins quarrel with M. de Charlus:
Before she had even thought of what Morel was to play... Mme. de Mortemart, having decided that Mme. de Valcourt was not to be one of the elect, had automatically assumed that air of conspiracy, of a secret plotting which so degrades even those women in society who can most easily afford to ignore what 'people will say.She intended, on the morning after the party, to write her one of those letters...For instance: "Dear Edith, I am so sorry about you, I did not really expect you last night" ("How could she have expected me," Edith would ask herself, "since she never invited me?") "as I know that you are not very fond of parties of that sort, which rather bore you. We should have been greatly honoured, all the same, by your company" (never did Mme. de Mortemart employ the word 'honoured,' except in the letters in which she attempted to cloak a lie in the semblance of truth). "
(The Captive, translated from the French by C.K.Scott Moncrieff. Rendered into HTML by Steve Thomas for the University of Adelaide Library ElectronicTexts Collection)
I think there is a clue in Mme.de Mortemart's use of words, such as "greatly honoured... to cloak a lie in the semblance of truth" ( our commentator omitted that part)
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
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Vic Perry: In reply to JF, Kinbote is a very sly Zemblan - but he also is a
classic unreliable narrator who inadvertently allows readers any number of glimpses of truths beyond him.
JF: No doubt about that. I'm still hoping to hear anyone's theory of what
the truth is behind his re-Englished lines from /Timon/.
JM: I wondered about this sly Zemblan's mnemonic feats which apparent in the notes he wrote when already secluded in his Cedarn cave.
We may be curious about Conmal's Timon and the re-Englished lines. But what about the rendering of the exchanges involving Mme.Mortemart and Edith? CK gets very close to the original, but maintains a special, almost deliberate clumsiness.
First ( of course!) I checked the correctness of CK's reference to a 1954 Pléiade's edition in three volumes, and the contentes of the last one for the quote (number 102). ( something that has probably been ascertained before but I wanted to be on the safe side)
PALE FIRE
Sybil... "Please, dip or redip, spider, into this book [offering it], you will find a pretty marker in it bought in France, I want John to keep it."..."I am a very sly Zemblan. Just in case, I had brought with me in my pocket the third and last volume of the Bibliothèque de la Pléiade edition, Paris, 1954, of Proust's work, wherein I had marked certain passages on pages 269-271. Mme. de Mortemart, having decided that Mme. de Valcourt would not be among the "elected" at her soirée, intended to send her a note on the next day saying "Dear Edith, I miss you, last night I did not expect you too much (Edith would wonder: how could she at all, since she did not invite me?) because I know you are not overfond of this sort of parties which, if anything, bore you."
So much for John Shade's last birthday.
PROUST: A la recherche du temps perdu. Coll La Pléiade, 1954, trois volumes, N°s 100, 101, 102.
TOME III, Volume Numéro 102 de la Bibliothèque de la Pléiade. Édition publiée sous la direction de Jean-Yves Tadié avec , pour ce volume, la collaboration d'Antoine Compagnon et Pierre Edmond Robert. Ce Volume Contient:- Sodome et Gomorrhe ; - La Prisonnière ; - Esquisses
The Captive ( chapter II): The Verdurins quarrel with M. de Charlus:
Before she had even thought of what Morel was to play... Mme. de Mortemart, having decided that Mme. de Valcourt was not to be one of the elect, had automatically assumed that air of conspiracy, of a secret plotting which so degrades even those women in society who can most easily afford to ignore what 'people will say.She intended, on the morning after the party, to write her one of those letters...For instance: "Dear Edith, I am so sorry about you, I did not really expect you last night" ("How could she have expected me," Edith would ask herself, "since she never invited me?") "as I know that you are not very fond of parties of that sort, which rather bore you. We should have been greatly honoured, all the same, by your company" (never did Mme. de Mortemart employ the word 'honoured,' except in the letters in which she attempted to cloak a lie in the semblance of truth). "
(The Captive, translated from the French by C.K.Scott Moncrieff. Rendered into HTML by Steve Thomas for the University of Adelaide Library ElectronicTexts Collection)
I think there is a clue in Mme.de Mortemart's use of words, such as "greatly honoured... to cloak a lie in the semblance of truth" ( our commentator omitted that part)
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