Content-Type: message/rfc822 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Return-Path: Received: from ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu ([128.111.125.82]) by mtapop2.verizon.net (InterMail vM.4.01.03.00 201-229-121) with ESMTP id <20001103160917.ELEV8941330.mtapop2.verizon.net@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu> for ; Fri, 3 Nov 2000 10:09:17 -0600 Received: from ucsbuxa (ucsbuxa [128.111.125.82]) by ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id IAA03737 for ; Fri, 3 Nov 2000 08:09:15 -0800 (PST) Received: from postoffice.mail.cornell.edu (postoffice.mail.cornell.edu [132.236.56.7]) by ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id IAA03733 for ; Fri, 3 Nov 2000 08:09:14 -0800 (PST) Received: from [128.253.157.167] (d7b167.dialup.cornell.edu [128.253.157.167]) by postoffice.mail.cornell.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id LAA04948 for ; Fri, 3 Nov 2000 11:09:13 -0500 (EST) Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Sender: ss51@postoffice.mail.cornell.edu Message-Id: Date: Fri, 3 Nov 2000 11:10:16 -0400 To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum From: senderovich Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="============_-1238858273==_ma============" X-Mozilla-Status2: 00000000 --============_-1238858273==_ma============ Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Kiran K. recently has enthusiastically recommended Gavriel Shapiro's article on Nabokov's signatures. His expertise must be balanced by the opinion of a different expert, Alexander Dolinin of University of Wisconsin at Madison and Pushkin House, St. Petersburg. In a recent article Dolinin wrote: "A great interest in seemingly forgotten topic, anagrams in Nabokov, has recently flared up. Gavriel Shapiro, for example, in his recent work, discovered a whole series of anagrams in Nabokov's Invitation to a Beheading. The methodology of these discoveries is highly dubious. He takes a fragment of a text, e.g., three-four lines and extracts from them, by manipulating letters, name or name-cum-patronimic of Nabokov (Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov, or Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov-Sirin). This method is statistically absurd, for in any fragment of a text taken at random from any piece of Russian prose, one can, given a desire, to discover, by the same token, almost any namne-cum-partonomic or last name. I checked the fragments suggested by Shapiro in his writings and easily discovered in them Vladimir Ilich Ulianov-Lenin, Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoi and Alexader Alexeevich Dolinin." (A. Dolinin, "Of some anagrams in the work of Vladimir Nabokov," -- Culture of Russian Diaspora: Vladimir Nabokov - 100, Tallinn, 2000, p. 99. Transl. from the Russian by me. S.S.). ********************* Savely Senderovich Professor of Russian Literature & Medieval Studies Dept. of Russian Lit. 226 Morrill Hall Cornell University Ithaca, NY 14853 Tel: 607/255-8350. Fax: 607/255-2044 --============_-1238858273==_ma============ Content-Type: text/enriched; charset="us-ascii" Kiran K. recently has enthusiastically recommended Gavriel Shapiro's article on Nabokov's signatures. His expertise must be balanced by the opinion of a different expert, Alexander Dolinin of University of Wisconsin at Madison and Pushkin House, St. Petersburg. In a recent article Dolinin wrote: "A great interest in seemingly forgotten topic, anagrams in Nabokov, has recently flared up. Gavriel Shapiro, for example, in his recent work, discovered a whole series of anagrams in Nabokov's Invitation to a Beheading. The methodology of these discoveries is highly dubious. He takes a fragment of a text, e.g., three-four lines and extracts from them, by manipulating letters, name or name-cum-patronimic of Nabokov (Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov, or Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov-Sirin). This method is statistically absurd, for in any fragment of a text taken at random from any piece of Russian prose, one can, given a desire, to discover, by the same token, almost any namne-cum-partonomic or last name. I checked the fragments suggested by Shapiro in his writings and easily discovered in them Vladimir Ilich Ulianov-Lenin, Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoi and Alexader Alexeevich Dolinin." (A. Dolinin, "Of some anagrams in the work of Vladimir Nabokov," -- Culture of Russian Diaspora: Vladimir Nabokov - 100, Tallinn, 2000, p. 99. Transl. from the Russian by me. S.S.). ********************* Savely Senderovich Professor of Russian Literature & Medieval Studies Dept. of Russian Lit. 226 Morrill Hall Cornell University Ithaca, NY 14853 Tel: 607/255-8350. Fax: 607/255-2044 --============_-1238858273==_ma============--