----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, April 26, 2004 2:19 AM
Subject: Re: Fw: Fw: Fw: Fw: Translation of German Lolita -- page 3
of 4
Nabokov doesn't "attribute" the story to Gogol. He faithfully quotes a
passage from L. I. Arnoldi's reminiscences "Moyo znakomstvo s Gogolem" (My
Acquaintanceship with Gogol), first published in Russkiy Vestnik in 1862.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, April 26, 2004 3:50
AM
Subject: Fw: Fw: Fw: Fw: Translation of
German Lolita -- page 3 of 4
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, April 25, 2004 4:40 PM
Subject: Re: Fw: Fw: Fw: Translation of German Lolita -- page 3 of
4
...."the
prelude to the adventure of riding the
swan..."
What does this
mean?
EDNOTE. A good
question. The faint bells it tinkles for me are: 1) I think VN in his
GOGOL book uses the swan shtick as an an example of
"poshlost'
Yes, that's it.
Actually, I have never quite understood why hitching a ride on a swan to
impress a girl is any more poshlustish than any other foolish daredevil stunt.
. . (Would someone please tell me why this story so
epitomizes poshlust.)
There is a joke
about catching the next swan ( Lohengrin ) in "Laughter in the
Dark"
Yes, the image in Gogol, like the new text, does have the ring of
grand German opera: "And since that time a curse lies on the family. The women
all give birth to a daughter, and within weeks of their child's birth, they
always go mad. . . ." But perhaps Nabokov did not steal the image from
Lichberg; a closer reading of the texts suggests it could have been planted in
him by a ghost.
, but I'll hang on to my notions like a crackpot.
Walter Miale