Subject
Fwd: Prisons,Ada and Voltemand
From
Date
Body
----- Forwarded message from jansy@aetern.us -----
Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2005 16:06:16 -0300
From: Jansy Berndt de Souza Mello <jansy@aetern.us>
Reply-To: Jansy Berndt de Souza Mello <jansy@aetern.us>
Subject: Prisons,Ada and Voltemand
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum <>
Dear List,
Still harping on "prison bars", Apes and art in LOLITA, I shifted to ADA :
" Are we really free? Certain caged birds, say Chinese amateurs shaking with
fatman mirth, knock themselves out against the bars (and lie unconscious for a
few minutes) every blessed morning, right upon awakening, in an automatic,
dream-continuing, dreamlined dash - although they are, those iridescent
prisoners, quite perky and docile and talkative the rest of the time". ( 'Ada'
)
Actually, I had been researching information on the "Mascodagama" act and was
led to explore another pen-name that Van had chosen: " Voltemand" , a courtier
in Shakespeare´s "Hamlet". I decided to check Voltemand´s lines and I
discovered he only said one in the entire play, in Act 2, scene 2.
This act 2/2 ( another two-two?) seemed by itself very significant because
there were exchanges bt. Van and Lucette at the "Voltemand Hall" when Van
quoted a line from this same Act 2,scene 2 ( "whilst the machine is to him" )
and indirectly reassured Lucette of his love, like in Hamlet´s lines to
Ophelia. It is where in Hamlet we find references to betrayal, madness and the
"play scene" used by Hamlet to disturb King Claudius.
Shakespeare: "O dear Ophelia, I am ill at these numbers. I have not art to
reckon my groans, but that I love thee best, O most best, believe it. adieu.
Thine evermore, most dear lady, whilst this machine is to him". Hamlet" (Act 2,
Scene 2, Lines 128-132).
VN in "ADA": "I hope I've thoroughly got you mixed up, Van, because la plus
laide fille au monde peut donner beaucoup plus qu'elle n'a, and now let us say
adieu, yours ever.'
'Whilst the machine is to him,' murmured Van.
'Hamlet,' said the assistant lecturer's brightest student."
I thought that I could bring this to our List because we were just talking about
"prison bars" ( concerning "Lolita" and the Ape in the Jardin des Plantes that
drew his prison bars ) and the idea of a "prison" is quite marked in this
scene, too.
"Hamlet" (Act 2, Scene 2, Lines 128-132).
HAMLET
Why, then, 'tis none to you; for there is nothing
either good or bad, but thinking makes it so: to me (2.2.250)
it is a prison.
ROSENCRANTZ
Why then, your ambition makes it one; 'tis too
narrow for your mind.
HAMLET
O God, I could be bounded in a nut shell and count
myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I
have bad dreams. (2.2.256)
I had been suggesting that an attempt to escape from madness is the result of a
certain kind of deluded artistic effort ( as it had been HH´s in "Lolita",
perhaps also as Van´s "Mascodagama" act) . Young Van becan to practice his
Mascodagama act because he felt his school was a prison:
Two years earlier, when about to begin his first prison term at the fashionable
and brutal boarding school, to which other Veens had gone before him (as far
back as the days 'when Washingtonias were Wellingtonias'), Van had resolved to
study some striking stunt that would give him an immediate and brilliant
ascendancy...
Also Lucette had been placed into a "liquid prison" in her bath, when he tried
to escape her vigilance and make love with Ada.
Like Ophelia´s , Lucette´s love was also a prison and drove her to suicide ( and
she also drowned like Ophelia ).: " The liquid prison was now ready and an alarm
clock given a full quarter of an hour to live".
There are other references to "prison" in ADA that are linked to Lucette and
Van´s exchanges in Voltemand Hall. This is brought about by the letters in
scrabble and flavita games and prison, plus the quotation of "Hamlet":
1.'Well,' said Van, 'you can always make a little cream, KREM or KREME - or even
better - there's KREMLI, which means Yukon prisons. Go through her ORHIDEYA.'
'Through her silly orchid,' said Lucette.
The link between Kremli & Yukon prisons, Voltemand Hall scene and Hamlet :
'- I got stuck with six Buchstaben in the last round of a Flavita game. Mind
you, I was eight and had not studied anatomy, but was doing my poor little best
to keep up with two Wunderkinder. You examined and fingered my groove and
quickly redistributed the haphazard sequence which made, say, LIKROT or ROTIKL
and Ada flooded us both with her raven silks as she looked over our heads, and
when you had completed the rearrangement, you and she came simultaneously, si
je puis le mettre comme ça (Canady French), came falling on the black carpet in
a paroxysm of incomprehensible merriment; so finally I quietly composed ROTIK
('little mouth') and was left with my own cheap initial. I hope I've thoroughly
got you mixed up, Van, because la plus laide fille au monde peut donner beaucoup
plus qu'elle n'a, and now let us say adieu, yours ever.'
'Whilst the machine is to him,' murmured Van.
'Hamlet,' said the assistant lecturer's brightest student.
'Okay, okay,' replied her and his tormentor, 'but, you know, a medically minded
English Scrabbler, having two more letters to cope with, could make, for
example, STIRCOIL, a well-known, sweat-gland stimulant, or CITROILS, which
grooms use for rubbing fillies.'
Perhaps there are too many allusions, but I discovered another one through the
idea of treason and deceit:
In the Hamlet scene 2 we find also a reference to Pyrrhus and to the Trojan
Horse and above we have the "stircoil used for rubbing fillies".
There are also Hamlet´s words that he should turn like a horse when it goes
back to a place he had left, turn like "mascodagama"?
Jansy
----- End forwarded message -----