Subject
Lolita, Lolitas, Osberg, Lichberg : suppositions (fwd)
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------------------ Hello,
I am a french nabokophile (so please forgive my akward english) and I am
re-reading “Ada or Ador”. The first sentence of chapter 13 struck me in a
strange way that I will try to explain .
1. Nabokov writes that for the big picnic organised on her twelfth
birthday, “the child was permitted to wear her lolita (thus dubbed after
the little Andulasian gipsy of that name in OsbergÂ’s novel and pronounced,
incidentally, with a Spanish ‘t’, not a thick english one)”.
2. I know “Osberg” is an anagram for “Borges” (cf. infra 3), and I do
not know if there is an “Andulasian gispy” in Borges’ works... But does
not “Osberg” sound a little like “Lichberg” ? Is “Osberg” not only an
anagram, but also a sort of pun ? The question is at stake.
3. Lolita, in LichbergÂ’s tale, is a Spanish girl. She lives in
Alicante, which is not located in the actuel Andulasia county stricto
sensu, but is nevertheless located in south Spain, just above Andulasia.
4. Vivian Darkbloom’s note specifies : “Osberg : an another good-
natured anagram, scrambling the name of a writer with whom the author of
Lolita has been rather comically compared”. I guess this “author of
Lolita” hints to Nabokov himself and not to Lichberg... But when I read
these phrase and note, I had a strange feeling : it was as if Nabokov had
foreseen what happened last April in the international press after the
discover of LichbergÂ’s tale, and if, many years in advance, he had given
us an ironic answer in his own specific way...
Sincerely yours,
Olivia Cham
---------- End Forwarded Message ----------
D. Barton Johnson
NABOKV-L
I am a french nabokophile (so please forgive my akward english) and I am
re-reading “Ada or Ador”. The first sentence of chapter 13 struck me in a
strange way that I will try to explain .
1. Nabokov writes that for the big picnic organised on her twelfth
birthday, “the child was permitted to wear her lolita (thus dubbed after
the little Andulasian gipsy of that name in OsbergÂ’s novel and pronounced,
incidentally, with a Spanish ‘t’, not a thick english one)”.
2. I know “Osberg” is an anagram for “Borges” (cf. infra 3), and I do
not know if there is an “Andulasian gispy” in Borges’ works... But does
not “Osberg” sound a little like “Lichberg” ? Is “Osberg” not only an
anagram, but also a sort of pun ? The question is at stake.
3. Lolita, in LichbergÂ’s tale, is a Spanish girl. She lives in
Alicante, which is not located in the actuel Andulasia county stricto
sensu, but is nevertheless located in south Spain, just above Andulasia.
4. Vivian Darkbloom’s note specifies : “Osberg : an another good-
natured anagram, scrambling the name of a writer with whom the author of
Lolita has been rather comically compared”. I guess this “author of
Lolita” hints to Nabokov himself and not to Lichberg... But when I read
these phrase and note, I had a strange feeling : it was as if Nabokov had
foreseen what happened last April in the international press after the
discover of LichbergÂ’s tale, and if, many years in advance, he had given
us an ironic answer in his own specific way...
Sincerely yours,
Olivia Cham
---------- End Forwarded Message ----------
D. Barton Johnson
NABOKV-L