Subject
Figs, fauns and faunlets
From
Date
Body
In the attach there is a photograph taken by Baron Adolf de Meyer from Vaslav Nijinski (1914) in "L 'Après-midi d'un faune". It was scanned from the book "The Fugitive Gesture", edited by W.A.Ewing, 1994, Thames & Hudson. Ltd.
The Nabokovian, number 57 ( Fall, 2006) brings a note by Monica Manolescu with the title: " 'Old, Mad, Gray Nijinsky' in Lolita.", in which MM describes a passage about Quilty's death, when he rose like Nijinsky ..."like Old Faithful, like some old nightmare of mine, to a phenomenal altitude..."
Manolescu identified the particular 1939 photograph that had been mentioned by Nabokov as one "very similar to the style of German expressionist films, suggesting an expiring soul mounting to heaven, hence the nightmarish impression."
Manolescu mentions that Nijinsky appears twice in "Lolita", "the first time in Gaston Godin's "orientally furbished den," one whose wall one finds a picture of Nijinski "all thighs and fig leaves" and informs us that Susan Elizabeth Sweeny had linked this reference to N's role as the faun in the Debussy ballett.
MM also informs us that Nijinski appears episodically in "Ada" where Diaghilev is named "Dangleleaf".
There also might be a reference to some of the Nijinski photographs in "Pale Fire" - - at least, indirectly when we find again "Old Faithful" and "fig leaves".
In Shade's poem he describes his near-death nightmare with the white fountain: ( lines 737-745)
" My vision reeked with truth... As time went on,/ Its constant vertical in triumph shone./...There in the background of my soul it stood,/ Old Faithful! And its presence always would/ Console me wonderfully.
Then there come the sentences mentioning "fig leaves/trees"and fauns:
1. Aunt Maud's scrapbook with images ..."from the same family magazine Life, so justly famed for its pudibundity in regard to the mysteries of the male sex... the Talon Trouser Fastener ... It shows a young gent radiating virility among several ecstatic lady-friends", another issue carrying an ad of Hanes Fig Leaf Brief. "It shows a modern Eve worshipfully peeping from behind a potted tree of knowledge at a leering young Adam in rather ordinary but clean underwear, with the front of his advertised brief conspicuously and compactly shaded, and the inscription reads: Nothing beats a fig leaf."
2. John Lavender, his faunlet Gordon, Gradus and Donald Odon: " Gradus was also unaware that the ombrioles Lavender collected (and I am sure Joe will not resent this indiscretion) combined exquisite beauty with highly indecent subject matter - nudities blending with fig trees, oversize ardors, softly shaded hindercheeks, and also a dapple of female charms.";
3. An advice: "Writers should see the world, pluck its figs and peaches, and not keep constantly meditating in a tower of yellow ivory - which was also John Shade's mistake, in a way...We should not forget that when Conmal began his stupendous task no English author was available in Zemblan except Jane de Faun, a lady novelist in ten volumes whose works, strangely enough, are unknown in England, and some fragments of Byron translated from French versions."
The information that surprised me in particular was the new interpretation, now possible, for Shade's nightmare and the "Old Faithful". Through Nijinski we may approach "fig leaves" and "fauns", brought up by Kinbote, to Shade himself.
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
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
The Nabokovian, number 57 ( Fall, 2006) brings a note by Monica Manolescu with the title: " 'Old, Mad, Gray Nijinsky' in Lolita.", in which MM describes a passage about Quilty's death, when he rose like Nijinsky ..."like Old Faithful, like some old nightmare of mine, to a phenomenal altitude..."
Manolescu identified the particular 1939 photograph that had been mentioned by Nabokov as one "very similar to the style of German expressionist films, suggesting an expiring soul mounting to heaven, hence the nightmarish impression."
Manolescu mentions that Nijinsky appears twice in "Lolita", "the first time in Gaston Godin's "orientally furbished den," one whose wall one finds a picture of Nijinski "all thighs and fig leaves" and informs us that Susan Elizabeth Sweeny had linked this reference to N's role as the faun in the Debussy ballett.
MM also informs us that Nijinski appears episodically in "Ada" where Diaghilev is named "Dangleleaf".
There also might be a reference to some of the Nijinski photographs in "Pale Fire" - - at least, indirectly when we find again "Old Faithful" and "fig leaves".
In Shade's poem he describes his near-death nightmare with the white fountain: ( lines 737-745)
" My vision reeked with truth... As time went on,/ Its constant vertical in triumph shone./...There in the background of my soul it stood,/ Old Faithful! And its presence always would/ Console me wonderfully.
Then there come the sentences mentioning "fig leaves/trees"and fauns:
1. Aunt Maud's scrapbook with images ..."from the same family magazine Life, so justly famed for its pudibundity in regard to the mysteries of the male sex... the Talon Trouser Fastener ... It shows a young gent radiating virility among several ecstatic lady-friends", another issue carrying an ad of Hanes Fig Leaf Brief. "It shows a modern Eve worshipfully peeping from behind a potted tree of knowledge at a leering young Adam in rather ordinary but clean underwear, with the front of his advertised brief conspicuously and compactly shaded, and the inscription reads: Nothing beats a fig leaf."
2. John Lavender, his faunlet Gordon, Gradus and Donald Odon: " Gradus was also unaware that the ombrioles Lavender collected (and I am sure Joe will not resent this indiscretion) combined exquisite beauty with highly indecent subject matter - nudities blending with fig trees, oversize ardors, softly shaded hindercheeks, and also a dapple of female charms.";
3. An advice: "Writers should see the world, pluck its figs and peaches, and not keep constantly meditating in a tower of yellow ivory - which was also John Shade's mistake, in a way...We should not forget that when Conmal began his stupendous task no English author was available in Zemblan except Jane de Faun, a lady novelist in ten volumes whose works, strangely enough, are unknown in England, and some fragments of Byron translated from French versions."
The information that surprised me in particular was the new interpretation, now possible, for Shade's nightmare and the "Old Faithful". Through Nijinski we may approach "fig leaves" and "fauns", brought up by Kinbote, to Shade himself.
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
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
