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: Fw: One Letter
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----- Original Message -----
From: A. Bouazza
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
Sent: Monday, May 03, 2004 12:28 PM
Subject: Re: Fw: Fw: Fw: One Letter
The James Jones instance is reminiscent of another instant in LOLITA:
"On the other side of the street a garage said in its sleep -genuflexion lubricity; and corrected itself to Gulflex Lubrication." p. 284 (1st Annotated ed. ), Part II, ch. 30.
A commuter myself, I do succeed in reading newspaper headlines when reflected in the window pane of my daily train.
I would also like to add that scabrous misreadings are not uncommon.
A. Bouazza.
----- Original Message -----
From: D. Barton Johnson
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Monday, May 03, 2004 3:36 AM
Subject: Fw: Fw: Fw: One Letter
----- Original Message -----
From: alex
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
Sent: Sunday, May 02, 2004 12:48 PM
Subject: Re: Fw: Fw: One Letter
What called my attention here were the first letters of "a dream America" ( adA...)
Thank you, Jansy, for your interesting observation.
The acronymous title Ada is reversed, so to say, as if it were seen in a mirror of a newspaper article (the actually mirrored letters would yield a slightly different image though).
I suggest no special parallel, but also want to make a minor observation. In the beginning of Ada's Part Two, Van catches a mirrored glimpse of his father Demon who sits reading a newspaper that says in reversed characters: 'Crimea Capitulates.' (I wonder if anyone can read the title of a newspaper article in a mirror? I tried several times, but invariably failed.) A moment later he sees the VPL messenger James Jones glancing through 'Crime Copulates Bessaremenia.'
It is as if the first newspaper (that Demon reads) were the serious and sedate Golos ("The Voice") and the second (glanced through by J.J.), the mocking and pun-addicted Logos. But, on Antiterra, it seems to be one and the same newspaper, and a Russian-language one at that.
May be the British newspaper Daily Mirror has anything to do with all this? And, if I'm not mistaken, the boom of the London Times began during the Crimean War of 1853-1856?
best,
Alexey
----- Original Message -----
From: D. Barton Johnson
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Sunday, May 02, 2004 6:03 AM
Subject: Fw: Fw: One Letter
----- Original Message -----
From: Jansy Berndt de Souza Mello
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
Sent: Saturday, May 01, 2004 6:50 PM
Subject: Re: Fw: One Letter
Hello, Alexey
While explaining about the missing "L" in word, ( or the surplus "L" in world ! ), you told us that "word" is slovo in Russian, and "Slovo" is the name of the magazine where both the electricity article and the Paul Alexis story appeared.
Perhaps it is worth remembering what Nabokov wrote ( Strong Opinions, Vintage International, page 112 ) abour the word world....
"The accepted notion of a "modern world" continuously flowing around us belongs to the same type of abstraction as say, the "quaternary period" of paleontology. What I feel to be the real modern world is the world the artist creates, his own mirage, which becomes a new mir ( "world" in Russian ) by the very act of his shedding, as it were, the age he lives in. My mirage is produced in my private desert, an arid but ardent place, with the sign No Caravans Allowed on the trunk of a lone palm..." ( Feb.17,1968)
Just as a curious "coincidence", I want to note that on page 116 ( September 3,1968) when asked about " the novel on which you are working" Nabokov replied:
" My new novel ( now 800 pages long) is a family chronicle, mostly set in a dream America".
Jansy
----- Original Message -----
From: D. Barton Johnson
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Saturday, May 01, 2004 9:47 PM
Subject: Fw: One Letter
EDNOTE: Corr4ected
----- Original Message -----
From: alex
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
Sent: Saturday, May 01, 2004 5:05 PM
Subject: Fw: One Letter
I thought of the possibility that the disappearance of l from "world" might have something to do with the L disaster. But it is unclear how this l-dropping in "world" making out of it "word" could cause the notion of 'Terra' and the ban on electricity on Antiterra. True, "word" is slovo in Russian, and "Slovo" is the name of the magazine where both the electricity article and the Paul Alexis story ("La fin de Lucie Pelegrin") that I think is used by Lucette's spirit for sending Van a dream from Terra appeared. But, still, the connection, if it exists at all, seems too vague to me.
Alexey
----- Original Message -----
From: D. Barton Johnson
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Saturday, May 01, 2004 7:29 PM
Subject: Fw: One Letter
----- Original Message -----
From: Oleg Dorman
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
Sent: Saturday, May 01, 2004 2:56 AM
Subject: One Letter
Reading the sparkling discussion on Terra and Logos (in fact, A. Sklyarenko brilliant argumentation) I want to make a tiny footnote:
Nabokov points that difference between cosmic and comic is one letter S. I'd add, that difference between Word and World is also in one letter.