----- Original Message -----
From: alex
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
Sent: Sunday, April 18, 2004 12:24 PM
Subject: Re: Kunin response to Mr Sklyarenko

Dear Carolyn,
 
"You and I disagree on one thing certainly: I do not confuse Vladimir Nabokov with God."
 
And yet it is you, not me, who assert that VN can transform water into wine, sorry, "dross into gold." While not questioning his capability to perform that sort of miracles, I, at the same time, doubt very much that VN knew v. Lichberg's Lolita. God probably would.
 
Alexey
----- Original Message -----
From: D. Barton Johnson
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Sunday, April 18, 2004 9:51 PM
Subject: Kunin response to Mr Sklyarenko

 
----- Original Message -----
From: Carolyn Kunin
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
Sent: Sunday, April 18, 2004 9:03 AM
Subject: response to Mr Sklyarenko


"So, I suggest VN has somehow foreseen not only the future accusation of plagiarism, but also your message to the List in which you mention a gypsy tune "stolen" by Beethoven."


Dear Alexey,


I congratulated Michael Maar on making a discovery. I do not know if Nabokov read the von Lichberg story, nor have I read it -- as you know it hasn't been re-published and I don't read German anyhow.

My argument is simply that this deserves to be followed up. Why is this so dreadfully upsetting?

You did not read my note very closely. I never said Walter Starkie was my professor (he wasn't) and I never said that Beethoven "stole" anything. Walter Starkie did his research and established that Beethoven frequented a pub in Vienna where gypsies provided the musical entertainment, and that therefore Beethoven certainly could have heard the tune.

I am fascinated by such sources (for lack of a better word), and I find that they throw light on the ability of creative genius to transform dross into gold. Most of the examples I am aware of are musical and I am fascinated by them. Tschaikovsky re-worked (just barely) a melody by Offenbach to create the famous Sleeping Beauty waltz. If I were a musicologist I would find this a delightful riddle to solve: Did Tschaikovsky realize he did it or not?

There is no shame cast either by Michael Maar or myself by this interest.

Carolyn

p.s.