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Re: Query:" Rabbit foot of a poplar"
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My question is "Why the "rabbit foot" of a poplar. What is it, asked our tireless List-Founder..
Some time in the past I sent Don B.Johnson several images I had scanned from a strange book illustrating how plants became animals ( fern-rhyzomes did metamorphose into rabbit-feet and suddenly escape the ground as a flock of bunnies ) but now he is wondering about Nabokov and Pale Fire, while luck-bringing rabbit-feet arise in relation to the poplar. Even before consulting my books on "The Ancient Trees I met" ( and such), I realized something else that might be of interest to those more topological or mathematical minded contributors to the list.
We often encounter in Nabokov what has been currently described under "Metamorphosis". Now there is another transformative occurrence related to mirrors, actually some kind of mirror-reflexion or duplication is as fundamental it is in Nabokov.
There is a famous painting by Holbein in London. In the internet image obtained from Holbein's The Ambassadors and Renaissance Ideas of Knowledge: "Gratiae invisibilis visibilia signa" we see a shape that, after a torsion, we perceive as a human skull. This kind of transformation is one of many the possible expressions of what is called "Anamorphosis". I was once given a tea-cup with a curious decoration and the saucer was silvery like a mirror and only there the image could be understood: the decoration was modelled on Van Gogh's painting of his room...
Is it too far-fetched to suppose that Nabokov knew about "anamorphosis" and, going a step further from Gogol and his pumpkin carriage (which Nabokov analysed in his Gogol Biography and also employed in "Ada") , Nabokov twisted his transformations into something anamorphic?
If Van Veen literally stood "metaphors on their heads" by hoisting up his legs in maniambulation, why not stand metamorphosis on their heads too like "Crimea Capitulates" read upsidedown in a mirror reflection ( a scene where Van meets his father cum paper )? Notice the word "capitulates" that indicates "caput" ( head) ...
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Some time in the past I sent Don B.Johnson several images I had scanned from a strange book illustrating how plants became animals ( fern-rhyzomes did metamorphose into rabbit-feet and suddenly escape the ground as a flock of bunnies ) but now he is wondering about Nabokov and Pale Fire, while luck-bringing rabbit-feet arise in relation to the poplar. Even before consulting my books on "The Ancient Trees I met" ( and such), I realized something else that might be of interest to those more topological or mathematical minded contributors to the list.
We often encounter in Nabokov what has been currently described under "Metamorphosis". Now there is another transformative occurrence related to mirrors, actually some kind of mirror-reflexion or duplication is as fundamental it is in Nabokov.
There is a famous painting by Holbein in London. In the internet image obtained from Holbein's The Ambassadors and Renaissance Ideas of Knowledge: "Gratiae invisibilis visibilia signa" we see a shape that, after a torsion, we perceive as a human skull. This kind of transformation is one of many the possible expressions of what is called "Anamorphosis". I was once given a tea-cup with a curious decoration and the saucer was silvery like a mirror and only there the image could be understood: the decoration was modelled on Van Gogh's painting of his room...
Is it too far-fetched to suppose that Nabokov knew about "anamorphosis" and, going a step further from Gogol and his pumpkin carriage (which Nabokov analysed in his Gogol Biography and also employed in "Ada") , Nabokov twisted his transformations into something anamorphic?
If Van Veen literally stood "metaphors on their heads" by hoisting up his legs in maniambulation, why not stand metamorphosis on their heads too like "Crimea Capitulates" read upsidedown in a mirror reflection ( a scene where Van meets his father cum paper )? Notice the word "capitulates" that indicates "caput" ( head) ...
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
