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Fw: Are Van and Ada really siblings?
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----- Forwarded message from jansy@aetern.us -----
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 15:40:07 -0300
From: Jansy Berndt de Souza Mello <jansy@aetern.us>
Reply-To: Jansy Berndt de Souza Mello <jansy@aetern.us>
Subject: Fw: Are Van and Ada really siblings?
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
Dear Don and list,
Carolyn Kunin mailed me part of B. Boyd´s annotations concerning the matter
Pimpernele/Pimprenelle, and Nicolette in the attic.
(I hope they can be forwarded together with this message, with no copyright
restrictions).
In my opinion there is still a mistery in the attic of Ardis concerning Van´s
and Ada´s discovery about their common parentage, or a " sort of hoary riddle
(Les Sophismes de Sophie by Mlle Stopchin in the Bibliothèque Vieux Rose
series): did the Burning Barn come before the Cockloft or the Cockloft come
first. Oh, first! We had long been kissing cousins when the fire
started".(AdaI, ch.18)
The volume itself had been either lost or stolen or lay concealed in the attic
among Uncle Ivan's effects, some of them pretty bizarre. Van could not
recollect whose picture it was that he had in mind, but thought it might have
been attributed to Michelangelo da Caravaggio in his youth. It was an oil on
unframed canvas depicting two misbehaving nudes, boy and girl, in an ivied or
vined grotto ...(AdaI,ch.22)
Children, yes. In point of fact, how puzzling to keep seeing that recent past in
nursery terms. Because nothing had changed - you are with me, aren't you? -
(Ada,I ch31)
........................................................................................................
Brian Boyd´s Annotations on-line
6.01-03: on its funnies page the now long defunct Goodnight Kids, Nicky and
Pimpernella (sweet siblings who shared a narrow bed): Darkbloom: "Goodnight
Kids: their names are borrowed, with distortions, from a comic strip for
French-speaking children." In fact a very popular television puppet series for
French-speaking children, Bonne Nuit les Petits (Goodnight Kids), created by
Claude Laydu and broadcast in 570 5- to 7-minute episodes between December 1962
and December 1970 on the first channel of ORTF. The first year the show was
called simply Bonne Nuit, and the characters P'tit Louis, Mirabelle, Gros Ours
(Big Bear) and Ulysse, the Marchand de Sable (Sandman). In 1963 Laydu renamed
the first three principals Nicolas (about three, a dark-haired, two-foot high
puppet), Pimprenelle (about four, blonde, same height) and Nounours (a big
brown bear with a big heart, who like the Marchand de Sable stood about four
feet tall). Nicolas and Pimprenelle were indeed close siblings, very much alike
in voice, vocabulary and moods. Always wearing nightdress--like the children who
watched the 7.30 p.m. program, they were scrubbed after their evening bath and
ready for bed--they would be visited by Nounours who came down by rope ladder
from the steerable cloud he shared with his friend the Marchand de Sable. After
being asked "Vous avez été sages?," the sweet siblings would play with their
visitor then head off to sleep in the narrow wooden bed they shared. As
Nounours intoned a husky but gentle "Bonne nuit les petits," the bedclothes
would heave gently in time with the children's sleepy respiration. (Information
from Institut National de l'Audovisuel, Bry-sur-Marne, France, by way of
Geraldine Chouard and Eric Roman.)
Cf. "two children being put to bed . . . --no, not children, but . . .
honeymooners " (492.10-12); "As lovers and siblings,' she cried . . . "
(583.21); "a little book in the Ardis Hall nursery, could no longer prop up in
the mysterious first picture: two people in one bed" (588.02-04). MOTIF:
Pompeianella; sibling.
Pompeianella motif : 6.22-23: an echo perhaps of The Scarlet Pimpernel (1905) by
Baroness Orczy (1865-1947) and certainly of the medieval French tale Aucassin et
Nicolette (13th century), which Nabokov studied at Cambridge.
9.06: Pompeianella: because of the Nicky and Pimpernella comic strip (6.02) and
Stabiae's proximity to Pompeii. MOTIF: Pompeianella
113.21-22 Pompeian Villa with mosaics and paintings inside: Cf. 8.31-9.08and n.:
"the Stabian flower-girl's . . . . whom I admired last summer in a Naples
museum."MOTIF: Pompeianella; Villa
............................................................................................
The Attic motif ( and loft, and "Ardis Hall nursery" ) seems to have a
connection to the name Nicolette. Baroness Orcsy not only created the Scarlet
Pimpernel series of adventures, but she also had a heroine named Nicolette in
1922 (Cf. Boyd´s Pompeianella motif). Orczy's Nicolette is a re-telling of
Aucassin and Nicolette & has nothing to do with her Pimpernel.
Would there be another link between Pimpernel and Nicolette, found in "nursery
books", beside the one already described by Darkbloom as "Goodnight Kids: their
names are borrowed, with distortions, from a comic strip for French-speaking
children." ?
( I never trust Darkbloom´s explicitation... "Borrowed with distortions? Is the
alliteration bt. Pimpernella and Pimprenella to be taken lightly? A toxic plant
growing in marshlands versus a salad herb? )
The Goodnight kids ( at least in the TV series, as described by B.Boyd) were
named Nicolas and Pimprenelle. This could simply be another of VN´s allusions
to swamps and toxic drugs ( belladona, Aqua Tofana, marijuana...). But it could
become more meaningful if connected to the Attic (where comic-strip uncle Dan,
Uncle Ivan and Marina´s mementoes were kept! ) and the year 1922.
The attic is presented from the very begining in the novel´s chronology and
referred back again in part V, when ailing Van begins to write "Ada" and has
his efforts printed on "Attica" paper soon before he and Ada die ( a couple of
siblings lying in the same bed, cf.B.Boyd).
Uncle Dan is sitting beside a baguenaudier plant ( in 1884 and remembered in
1922), and we learn that bladder senna (baguenaudier in English) is necessary
for keeping butterflies and grows close to vines ( a reference to Ada´s husband
Vinelander who dies in 1922? ). Baguenaudier also names a puzzle that is used to
lock chests.
Are Van and Ada really siblings? Is there anything left to unlock in the attic
concerning Uncle Dan´s adventures? How does Uncle Ivan come in: could he have
been Marina´s lover in another sibling incest story ( Marina sheds unexplained
tears thinking about him...)? He is dead long before Ada,Van or Lucette were
born.
We usually distinguish the D.V.Veen ( Daniel and Dementii) cousins by the color
of their hair ( Red Veen and Raven Veen).
I´ve recently discovered in Carroll´s book on Alice that the chess pieces can be
Red or Black - versus Whites. We think of Van and Ada ( black haired) and
Lucette ( copperhead) as proof that the first pair descends from Raven Veen.
Lucette is described as the only legitimate daughter of Red Veen: is there then
an illegitimate child of Uncle Dan´s?
I wonder what old Provence´s Nicolette may disclose about it and why does she
appear close to revolutionary Pimpernel.
----- End forwarded message -----