Subject
Re: Chess problem
From
Date
Body
From the diagram of VN's problem in my earlier post, the solution for White
supposedly begins with 1. Bc2, but I don't recall where I read that, and I
am much more fond of playing chess than of solving chess problems.
On Sat, May 25, 2013 at 4:38 PM, stan@bootle.biz <stan@bootle.biz> wrote:
> Carolyn/Jansy: I’m delighted you have triggered some serious,
> professional comments on VN’s diverse interactions with the wonderfully
> wide world of Chess. Especially the two links offered by Dave Haan, both
> dripping with goodies previously unknown to moi:
>
>
> *The problem referred to (described) in Speak, Memory is the first of
> those listed in
> http://www.italiascacchistica.com/a_nabokov.htm
> (This is the only online reference I've found; for further discussion see
> http://nnyhav.blogspot.com/2005/09/nabokovs-theme.html
>
> *
> My limited command of Italian, *Dio sia lodato*, is no impediment to
> following VN’s problems’ and annotated solutions. But, I’m sure many of us
> would welcome an English translation of those “non-technical literary”
> sections not found in “Speak, Memory.” Any offers? Also, I remain confused
> about which “Speak, Memory” problem* it was that VN claimed to have
> resisted solution?
> * For the complex titular& publicational variants, see
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speak,_Memory
>
> The nnyhav.blogspot deserves the highest Nabokovian praise, although its
> author’s name seems modestly concealed. Note the sweet pun: “going out on a
> LIMB/LIMN.”
>
> *Nabokov himself makes use of this cross-over potential in a variety of
> ways, some less obvious than others. It may be going out on a limn to
> assert the relevance of Poe and Carroll, two prime resources for Lolita,
> sharing not only a predeliction for too-young girls (asked what scenes he
> would have liked to seen filmed, Nabokov included: "Poe's wedding. Lewis
> Carroll's picnics."), but also for essaying chess (Poe in Maelzel's
> Chess-Player, Carroll in Wonderland); nevertheless, Humbert's relation to
> Quilty is much that of would-be solver to composer.
> *
> Less-well-known are Poe’s genuinely ORIGINAL solutions to long-standing
> ASTROPHYSICAL problems. E.g., OLBERS’ Paradox asks why the SKY gets DARK at
> NIGHT?! Edgar Allan Poe's essay *Eureka* (1848) cleverly anticipated some
> qualitative aspects of Kelvin's explanation:
>
> *Were the succession of stars endless, then the background of the sky
> would present us a uniform luminosity, like that displayed by the Galaxy –
> since there could be absolutely no point, in all that background, at which
> would not exist a star. The only mode, therefore, in which, under such a
> state of affairs, we could comprehend the voids which our telescopes find
> in innumerable directions, would be by supposing the distance of the
> invisible background so immense that no ray from it has yet been able to
> reach us at all.
> *See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olbers'_paradox#The_paradox
> and
>
> http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/science/2011/01/edgar-allan-poe-and-the-world-of-astronomy/
>
> Stan Kelly-Bootle, MA (Cantab), ACM, MAA, AMS, ASCAP.
> ------------
>
> On 22/05/2013 01:10, "Jansy" <jansy@AETERN.US> wrote:
>
> *Carolyn Kunin*: "... *it got me to thinking about Nabokov as a chess
> player.Google led me to an interview done with the author before fame
> struck, but in 1951, the latest book was .a volume called "Conclusive
> Evidence." It was an autobiography and yet it wasn't altogether so. Would
> Mr. Nabokov talk a bit about it? He would.[ ] The memoir became the
> meeting point of an impersonal art form and a very personal life story*."[
> ] "*With me, Mr. Nabokov said, 'it is a kind of composition. I am a
> composer of chess problems. Nobody,' he said, 'has yet solved the chess
> problem in 'Conclusive Evidence' ." What about a professional, a Reuben
> Fine, a Reshevsky, or someone like that? 'I'm waiting for one to come
> along,' Mr. Nabokov said in a voice that could have been as ambivalent as
> Joyce's when people were starting to guess at the title of what turned out
> to be 'Finnegans Wake'*."
>
> *Jansy Mello*: You reminded me of two things. In the first place, that
> Nabokov wasn't as keen on playing chess as he was in devising chess
> problems.So, his invitation in "Conclusive Evidence" turns the reader into
> a chess player and this promotes a distancing distinction bt. him and those
> readers whose joy depends on solving the problem and winning the game,
> instead of following the malicious turns and clever devices of his mind
> (another kind of "discovery game").
>
> Still stuck with Kinbote's mention of Proust's "*flora of metaphors*," I
> started to read again Beckett's essay, which was not a true academic work,
> filled with footnotes, references and quotes, although his work already
> carried the mark of his future writings (a variation of VN's Memoir that
> isn't just a Memoir, i.e, an Essay that's not an academic feat). Beckett
> became close to James Joyce during his stay in Paris. Joyce, noticing the
> young man's talent, invited him to join a collective travail evolving
> around what he'd been writing in 1922, namely, his "Work in Progress,
> published much later, in 1939, as *Finnegans Wak*e (Beckett was in charge
> of researching Bruno, Vico and Dante and his results were published as a
> part of "*Our Exagmination Round his Factification for Incamination of
> Work in Progress*") ..
>
> Factifications, indeed! And these carry me to the second association to
> your comment. It's a quote, from Mark Twain's *Autobiography *(which I
> haven't read) After all, if Clement's observation is true, he must have
> inadvertently transformed his "very personal life story" into literary
> fiction then and there. ( "*When I was younger, I could remember
> anything, whether it had happened or not; but my faculties are decaying now
> and soon I shall be so I cannot remember any but the things that never happ
> *ened.")
>
>
> Google Search the archive<http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en> Contact
> the Editors <nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu> Visit "Nabokov
> Online Journal" <http://www.nabokovonline.com> Visit Zembla<http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm> View
> Nabokv-L Policies <http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm> Manage
> subscription options <http://listserv.ucsb.edu/> Visit AdaOnline<http://www.ada.auckland.ac.nz/> View
> NSJ Ada Annotations <http://vnjapan.org/main/ada/index.html> Temporary
> L-Soft Search the archive<https://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A0=NABOKV-L&X=58B9943B29972AFF64&Y=nabokv-l%40utk.edu>
>
> ****All private editorial communications are read by both co-editors.
>
--
Norky
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/
supposedly begins with 1. Bc2, but I don't recall where I read that, and I
am much more fond of playing chess than of solving chess problems.
On Sat, May 25, 2013 at 4:38 PM, stan@bootle.biz <stan@bootle.biz> wrote:
> Carolyn/Jansy: I’m delighted you have triggered some serious,
> professional comments on VN’s diverse interactions with the wonderfully
> wide world of Chess. Especially the two links offered by Dave Haan, both
> dripping with goodies previously unknown to moi:
>
>
> *The problem referred to (described) in Speak, Memory is the first of
> those listed in
> http://www.italiascacchistica.com/a_nabokov.htm
> (This is the only online reference I've found; for further discussion see
> http://nnyhav.blogspot.com/2005/09/nabokovs-theme.html
>
> *
> My limited command of Italian, *Dio sia lodato*, is no impediment to
> following VN’s problems’ and annotated solutions. But, I’m sure many of us
> would welcome an English translation of those “non-technical literary”
> sections not found in “Speak, Memory.” Any offers? Also, I remain confused
> about which “Speak, Memory” problem* it was that VN claimed to have
> resisted solution?
> * For the complex titular& publicational variants, see
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speak,_Memory
>
> The nnyhav.blogspot deserves the highest Nabokovian praise, although its
> author’s name seems modestly concealed. Note the sweet pun: “going out on a
> LIMB/LIMN.”
>
> *Nabokov himself makes use of this cross-over potential in a variety of
> ways, some less obvious than others. It may be going out on a limn to
> assert the relevance of Poe and Carroll, two prime resources for Lolita,
> sharing not only a predeliction for too-young girls (asked what scenes he
> would have liked to seen filmed, Nabokov included: "Poe's wedding. Lewis
> Carroll's picnics."), but also for essaying chess (Poe in Maelzel's
> Chess-Player, Carroll in Wonderland); nevertheless, Humbert's relation to
> Quilty is much that of would-be solver to composer.
> *
> Less-well-known are Poe’s genuinely ORIGINAL solutions to long-standing
> ASTROPHYSICAL problems. E.g., OLBERS’ Paradox asks why the SKY gets DARK at
> NIGHT?! Edgar Allan Poe's essay *Eureka* (1848) cleverly anticipated some
> qualitative aspects of Kelvin's explanation:
>
> *Were the succession of stars endless, then the background of the sky
> would present us a uniform luminosity, like that displayed by the Galaxy –
> since there could be absolutely no point, in all that background, at which
> would not exist a star. The only mode, therefore, in which, under such a
> state of affairs, we could comprehend the voids which our telescopes find
> in innumerable directions, would be by supposing the distance of the
> invisible background so immense that no ray from it has yet been able to
> reach us at all.
> *See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olbers'_paradox#The_paradox
> and
>
> http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/science/2011/01/edgar-allan-poe-and-the-world-of-astronomy/
>
> Stan Kelly-Bootle, MA (Cantab), ACM, MAA, AMS, ASCAP.
> ------------
>
> On 22/05/2013 01:10, "Jansy" <jansy@AETERN.US> wrote:
>
> *Carolyn Kunin*: "... *it got me to thinking about Nabokov as a chess
> player.Google led me to an interview done with the author before fame
> struck, but in 1951, the latest book was .a volume called "Conclusive
> Evidence." It was an autobiography and yet it wasn't altogether so. Would
> Mr. Nabokov talk a bit about it? He would.[ ] The memoir became the
> meeting point of an impersonal art form and a very personal life story*."[
> ] "*With me, Mr. Nabokov said, 'it is a kind of composition. I am a
> composer of chess problems. Nobody,' he said, 'has yet solved the chess
> problem in 'Conclusive Evidence' ." What about a professional, a Reuben
> Fine, a Reshevsky, or someone like that? 'I'm waiting for one to come
> along,' Mr. Nabokov said in a voice that could have been as ambivalent as
> Joyce's when people were starting to guess at the title of what turned out
> to be 'Finnegans Wake'*."
>
> *Jansy Mello*: You reminded me of two things. In the first place, that
> Nabokov wasn't as keen on playing chess as he was in devising chess
> problems.So, his invitation in "Conclusive Evidence" turns the reader into
> a chess player and this promotes a distancing distinction bt. him and those
> readers whose joy depends on solving the problem and winning the game,
> instead of following the malicious turns and clever devices of his mind
> (another kind of "discovery game").
>
> Still stuck with Kinbote's mention of Proust's "*flora of metaphors*," I
> started to read again Beckett's essay, which was not a true academic work,
> filled with footnotes, references and quotes, although his work already
> carried the mark of his future writings (a variation of VN's Memoir that
> isn't just a Memoir, i.e, an Essay that's not an academic feat). Beckett
> became close to James Joyce during his stay in Paris. Joyce, noticing the
> young man's talent, invited him to join a collective travail evolving
> around what he'd been writing in 1922, namely, his "Work in Progress,
> published much later, in 1939, as *Finnegans Wak*e (Beckett was in charge
> of researching Bruno, Vico and Dante and his results were published as a
> part of "*Our Exagmination Round his Factification for Incamination of
> Work in Progress*") ..
>
> Factifications, indeed! And these carry me to the second association to
> your comment. It's a quote, from Mark Twain's *Autobiography *(which I
> haven't read) After all, if Clement's observation is true, he must have
> inadvertently transformed his "very personal life story" into literary
> fiction then and there. ( "*When I was younger, I could remember
> anything, whether it had happened or not; but my faculties are decaying now
> and soon I shall be so I cannot remember any but the things that never happ
> *ened.")
>
>
> Google Search the archive<http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en> Contact
> the Editors <nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu> Visit "Nabokov
> Online Journal" <http://www.nabokovonline.com> Visit Zembla<http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm> View
> Nabokv-L Policies <http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm> Manage
> subscription options <http://listserv.ucsb.edu/> Visit AdaOnline<http://www.ada.auckland.ac.nz/> View
> NSJ Ada Annotations <http://vnjapan.org/main/ada/index.html> Temporary
> L-Soft Search the archive<https://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A0=NABOKV-L&X=58B9943B29972AFF64&Y=nabokv-l%40utk.edu>
>
> ****All private editorial communications are read by both co-editors.
>
--
Norky
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/