Sergei asked: VN liked the idea that literary fiction sometimes shapes the
reality -
for example, the plot of "Revizor" by Gogol reproduced ironically
by Lopatin
(a revolutionary) trying to liberate Chernyshevsky.
Did anybody notice
strange similarity between Andronnikov and Niagarin in
Pale Fire and the
personages of a real story...
Jansy Mello: SS, "Literary fiction
sometimes shapes the reality" but it may also happen that with one added
twist, it is mirrored back in fiction.
What do you make of this observation of VN on French
novelists? In KQK Martha " would wear bed slippers with crimson pompoms. This pair of
slippers ( his modest but considerate gift) our lovers kept in the lower drawer
of the corner chest, for life not unfrequently imitates the French
novelists".
Several pages later (page 831) we find Franz
asking: 'No pompons today?' She did
not hear the sweet euphemism.. "I'm closed for repairs today' ( another sweet
euphemism)
The rendering is curious: where are "crimson pompons", or
slippers hidden in a corner chest, found in a French novel? VN's
reference to "pompom" as an euphemism for menses and their color (
crimson) made me think about A. Dumas novel about a Dame with red or
white camelias...Could this
interpretation be correct?
VN also describes a character's pudgy hand with
rings: Piffke wore "a second-rate diamond on his plump
auricular" (page 792). The idea of
the auricular is quite good. The finger where wedding-bands and rings
are worn is ccalled "the annular" ( for Lat. "anulus":ring). The "auricular"
must refer to the index when it is often used to scratch the ears, but it also
carries a reference to the heart ( auricles and ventricles) and to
gold.
In Pale Fire Hazel holds a "stang" when riding in a
bus. Franz sits in the subway and watches the "shiny
stangs" (778). Is this a common word in English? I
couldn't find it in the COD, nor in other modest dictionaires. I remember it
from the German, though, "Stange" as
a...perch!