Priscilla Meyer's own comments in her book "Find
What the Sailor Has Hidden: Vladimir Nabokov's 'Pale Fire' must not be
forgotten. A quick extract on the crown jewels and index issue ( page
105):
..."the search for the Zemblan crown
jewels...has its referent in the history of the reign of Charles II: in 1671 the
notorius Colonel Blood plotted to steal the crown and regalia from the Tower of
London"... "Hunting the crown jewels in Pale Fire, we are sent on a merru chase
through three index references that form a closed and em´ty circle, a
zero..."
"After the Semblan revolution, the new
administration engages two Soviet experts to find the crown jewels...In Speak,
Memory Nabokov describes a similar scene that took place at his parents' house
after the Russian Revolution..."
"The index to Speak,Memory leads us not to a
closed circle, but to a spiral that opens outwards: from Jewels we are sent to
Stained Glass, thence to Pavilion. "Etymnologically," Nabokov writes, "
'pavilion' and 'papilio' ( butterfly) are closely related (p.216). There was an
actual wooden pavilion on the Vyra estate, and that is where Nabokov's 'first
poem began'...The image of the pavilion concentrates Nabokov's love of
butteflies, rainbows, the light of the sun filetered through colored glass, and
the creation of literary art."
Concerning Doppelgänger motifs and
Dr.Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Priscilla Meyer observes ( op.cit, page 25)
"Nabokov has puzzled critics by reviling the
concept of Doppelgänger while making extensive use of it.But his reasons are
clear: he calls the allegory of the struggle between Good and Evil in
Stevenson's 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde' "tasteless, childish, a superb Punch and
Judy show", hence he has Humberto call Quilty 'Punch (p.298) in the duel scene
at Pavor Manor and Humbert call himself Mr.Hyde (p.208). Humbert's Quilty
parodies the allegory's simplistic division of two undefinable qualitities that
is traditionally motifvated psychologically - Quilty being the projection of
Humbert's guilt..."
Jansy Mello
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, October 01, 2006 4:56
PM
Subject: Re: [NABOKV-L] PF Index
Yes. And we should add that Maria Malikova has an excellent
article in PRO ET CONTRA I, pp. 741-782 ("'Pervoe stikhotvorenie' V. Nabokova:
perevod i kommentarii") discussing in detail how both the
jewels-pavilion-stained-glass index circle and chapter 11 of Speak,
Memory are absent in Conclusive Evidence and Drugie
berega.
Priscilla
On Oct 1, 2006, at 1:17 PM, D. Barton
Johnson wrote:
Anent the exchange re the
role of VN's indexes, I immpdestly call attention to my discussion of the
topic in both SM & PF in my 1985 Worlds in Regression Nabokov
study. D. Barton Johnson
Search
the Nabokv-L archive at
UCSB
Contact the Editors
All private editorial communications, without
exception, are read by both co-editors.
Visit
Zembla
View Nabokv-L Policies
...mais
pourquoi tous vos livres me donnent-ils cette impression 'fâcheuse' d'être une
mauvaise traduction du flamand?
--letter of Jean Paulhan to Jacques
Sternberg
Priscilla
Meyer
Russian Department
212 Fisk Hall
Wesleyan
University
Middletown CT 06459
(860) 685-3127 (work)
(860) 347-0059
(home)
http://pmeyer.web.wesleyan.edu