Subject
Query: Fatal Lozenges (fwd)
Date
Body
EDITORIAL NOTE. The following query is from Dieter E. ZImmer, editor of
the elegant twenty-odd volume "Collected Works" of Nabokov being put out
by the German publisher Rowohlt. Although the English (or Russian) reader
may wonder why they might be interested in the German volumes, there is
good reason why any major Nabokov research collection should hold this
set. It is meticulously researched and most works are extensively
annotated--often with information that is either difficult of access or,
in some cases, unavailable elsewhere in published form. This is
illustrated in the newest volume in the series which contains the
Nabokov-Wilson Letters. The German edition contains some 50-odd letters
that were not available when Simon Karlinsky published his English
language volume of the correspondence. In addition to this new material,
Zimmer's edition contains annotations beyond those in the excellent 1980
Karlinsky edition.
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QUERY:
In one of his letters to Edmund Wilson (February 27, 1961: one of the new
letters), Nabokov thanks Wilson "for the very funny and very artistic Fatal
Lozenges." Query: what are these fatal lozenges? Do they come from some work of
literature both correspondents knew? (I have checked that they are not in
Sherlock Holmes.) Are they part of some Halloween ritual or the like? There is a
verse-and-drawings story by Edward Gorey entitled "The Fatal Lozenge" (1960).
Needless to say, no lozenge makes its appearance in it, whether fatal or not.
However, on the cover drawing a woman serves a drink to a man, and her dress in
the region of her pudendum has a lozenge-like ornamentation, a bit like a
lozengoform spider. Would anyone know what to make of those Fatal Lozenges?
Dieter E.Zimmer, Erikastrasse 81a, D-20251 Hamburg, Germany
Phone +49-40-488140, Fax +49-40-4606129
E-mail 100126.2576@compuserve com
the elegant twenty-odd volume "Collected Works" of Nabokov being put out
by the German publisher Rowohlt. Although the English (or Russian) reader
may wonder why they might be interested in the German volumes, there is
good reason why any major Nabokov research collection should hold this
set. It is meticulously researched and most works are extensively
annotated--often with information that is either difficult of access or,
in some cases, unavailable elsewhere in published form. This is
illustrated in the newest volume in the series which contains the
Nabokov-Wilson Letters. The German edition contains some 50-odd letters
that were not available when Simon Karlinsky published his English
language volume of the correspondence. In addition to this new material,
Zimmer's edition contains annotations beyond those in the excellent 1980
Karlinsky edition.
------------------------------------
QUERY:
In one of his letters to Edmund Wilson (February 27, 1961: one of the new
letters), Nabokov thanks Wilson "for the very funny and very artistic Fatal
Lozenges." Query: what are these fatal lozenges? Do they come from some work of
literature both correspondents knew? (I have checked that they are not in
Sherlock Holmes.) Are they part of some Halloween ritual or the like? There is a
verse-and-drawings story by Edward Gorey entitled "The Fatal Lozenge" (1960).
Needless to say, no lozenge makes its appearance in it, whether fatal or not.
However, on the cover drawing a woman serves a drink to a man, and her dress in
the region of her pudendum has a lozenge-like ornamentation, a bit like a
lozengoform spider. Would anyone know what to make of those Fatal Lozenges?
Dieter E.Zimmer, Erikastrasse 81a, D-20251 Hamburg, Germany
Phone +49-40-488140, Fax +49-40-4606129
E-mail 100126.2576@compuserve com