In a
message dated 20/01/2008 21:50:25 GMT Standard Time, chaiselongue@EARTHLINK.NET (C.Kunin) writes:What is
interesting in a Nabokovian sort of way about the following words? banana dresser grammar potato revive uneven
A.Stadlen
observes:Each is a palindrome preceded by a single letter.
And so...?
In a similar vein we have:
"Well, when you remove the first letter of each word, what
remains is a palindrome. But I'm stumped on what's especially "Nabokovian"
about that. Invitation to a beheading?" (J.
Morris) and "I don't see what is Nabokovian about
those six words other than that they involve an odd bit of wordplay: Drop the
first letter of each word and you have a palindrome." (Michael
Juliar).
Personally, I enjoyed
C.Kunin's light-hearted puzzle in a sort of Nabokovian way. They reveal the
difference bt. mere wordplay and THE master's stroke that unfolds level upon
level of "poliseminal" discoveries, only latent and almost as
dead as nails in their simple palindromic shape, puns, or
onomatopaic linkages.
Take, for
example, Ashette, as in Brian Boyd's additional
annotations to ADAonline, at http://www.ada.auckland.ac.nz/ - duly visited and which led me at first to ADA
1.19, with their reference to the "Hachette" editors, and VN's
transformation of the firm into "ashette"...
We find in Hachette-Ashette a sort of
Nabokovian "Invitation to a Beheading" indeed - with hatchet and all
- as playfully indicated by J. Morris. But not simply that, when we realize that Ashette might also apply to Cinderella ( as VN lets us conclude quite
easily by his comments about Blanche).
Now the puzzle can grow into: what is the
link bt. the editorial firm, beheading, Blanche or metamorphosis? Is
there any intended additional meaning anyway?