Subject
April 15 & Zina Mertz
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Date
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**Poor Vera who had to do their taxes since VN wouldn't touch it -- and
hated it, apparently, with all her might. So ever after they came to
the US she had to associate that dreadful day with their anniversary?!** GD
Date: Thu, 15 Apr 1999 12:55:43 +0800
From: Vladimir Mylnikov <mylnikov@jingxian.xmu.edu.cn>
Dear List,
Today - April 15 - is a special day for Nabokov. First, the day when he
left Russia and the second, the day he married Vera Slonim. So, I would
like to suggest my interpretation of the name Zina Mertz in Nabokov's last
Russian novel "Dar".
Everybody knows that the protagonist, Feydor Godunov-Cherdyntsev, is very
close to Vladimir Nabokov and it is almost the same with Zina Mertz and
Vera Slonim.
My suggestion: the first letter in the name Zina(Ç) in Russian looks like
W, if you move it following the watch hand. Mertz is also ends with Z. So,
we have here a circle -- from Z to Z the same pattern as we have in Pale
Fire, Dar, and in many other Nabokov's writings. Also in English the
letters Z and A are the first and the last letter of the alphabet. VN used
the same model in Pale Fire - compare -- Zembla.
Also in English W one can easily recognize V+V which can stand for the
letters in the names of Vladimir and Vera.
It also can mean a reunion after 'casus Guadanini' (I am not insisting of
this). Also I do not think that the day of Nabokov's marriage(April 15) was
chosen by accident. It should imply to reunion (leaving the country but
gaining the wife). I am very positive that the idea of the union of
Vladimir and Vera is implanted in the name Zina Mertz.
Vladimir Mylnikov
hated it, apparently, with all her might. So ever after they came to
the US she had to associate that dreadful day with their anniversary?!** GD
Date: Thu, 15 Apr 1999 12:55:43 +0800
From: Vladimir Mylnikov <mylnikov@jingxian.xmu.edu.cn>
Dear List,
Today - April 15 - is a special day for Nabokov. First, the day when he
left Russia and the second, the day he married Vera Slonim. So, I would
like to suggest my interpretation of the name Zina Mertz in Nabokov's last
Russian novel "Dar".
Everybody knows that the protagonist, Feydor Godunov-Cherdyntsev, is very
close to Vladimir Nabokov and it is almost the same with Zina Mertz and
Vera Slonim.
My suggestion: the first letter in the name Zina(Ç) in Russian looks like
W, if you move it following the watch hand. Mertz is also ends with Z. So,
we have here a circle -- from Z to Z the same pattern as we have in Pale
Fire, Dar, and in many other Nabokov's writings. Also in English the
letters Z and A are the first and the last letter of the alphabet. VN used
the same model in Pale Fire - compare -- Zembla.
Also in English W one can easily recognize V+V which can stand for the
letters in the names of Vladimir and Vera.
It also can mean a reunion after 'casus Guadanini' (I am not insisting of
this). Also I do not think that the day of Nabokov's marriage(April 15) was
chosen by accident. It should imply to reunion (leaving the country but
gaining the wife). I am very positive that the idea of the union of
Vladimir and Vera is implanted in the name Zina Mertz.
Vladimir Mylnikov