A.S: Note that thespionym has both English "spy" and
Russian shpion ("spy") in it[...] GAMA
+ GALILEO = GAMALIEL + GOA = GAME + LOLITA + GORA – ROT = MAGELLAN + GOYA +
I - NY
JM:
Besides the inclusion of "spy", we find that in VN's creation there is
also "thespian" :"A citizen of the ancient Greek city of Thespiae"
and "An actor; this usage is derived from Thespis of Icaria, the
legendary first actor" (Wiki)*.
GOA
is an interesting reference in AS's anagrams related to "Mascodagama" and
to Vasco da Gama**.
[Ada: “Per contra, she
suggested to Van that verbal circuses, ‘performing words,’ ‘poodle-doodles,’ and
so forth, might be redeemable by the quality of the brain work required for the
creation of a great logogriph or inspired pun and should not preclude the help
of a dictionary, gruff or complacent” (A,176).
]
.............................................................................................................
Addenda
for dedicated readers of "ADA" ( from my personal collection of
leftover reminders):
*Thespis
who, in the 6th century BC, introduced masks and costumes in Greek theatre and
pushed a handcart around Athens to improvise his one-man acts that dealt with
the corruption of mankind. VN´s reference to a thespian handcart brings up Van´s
half-sister Lucette whom he “carted around” (“ploughing” at Ada´s first birthday
picnic in Ardis). Van was sometimes recognized behind his disguises and yet
“pseudonymity” (such as “Voltemand”) did not “tickle him in
reverse – as it did when he danced on his hands
(A,338)”.
** Priscilla Meyer wrote about
E.G.Ravenstein ( mentioned in Pale Fire): “ He wrote on tropical Africa and
translated A Journal of the First Voyage of Vasco da Gama ( 1898). Vasco da Gama
appears in Nabokov´s next novel, Ada (…) He is the hemispheric mirror of
Christopher Columbus, having gone in the opposite direction. Ravenstein drew
maps for many books (…) “ Find What the Sailor Has Hidden,Vladimir Nabokov´s
Pale Fire” (245) Wesleyan University Press,1988. The poet Luis
Vaz de Camões (1524-1580) was born in the same year in which the explorer Vasco
da Gama died, and like him crossed oceans and fought battles. He lost one
eye during an expedition against the Moors and reached Goa in 1553.Three years
later he started to write “Os Lusíadas”. He suffered shipwreck, but managed to
save himself and keep his manuscript free from the engulfing waters of the
Mecong. A classic epic of the Portuguese language, “The Lusiads” extolled
Gama´s achievements, presented as a new Aeneas under the protection of Venus,
and it exalted the glories of the Portuguese and Don Sebastian.
Magellan traveled westwards while Gama went
eastwards.As Vivien Darkbloom observed in his appended notes to “Ada”:
“Counter-Fogg: Phileas Fogg, Jules Verne’s globetrotter, travelled from West to
East”. Lisianski Urey was deputy commander of
Kruzenshtern's expedition and discovered the island that carries his name
in the Hawaiian Chain. It is also in Gavaille (Hawaii) where we find the Laysan
island (paired to Lisianski island). Lisiansky himself translated into English
his book “A Voyage round the World”, published in 1814, with a picture of
Goa. In ADA, "Demon, she said, had told
her, last year at the funeral, that he was buying an island in the
Gavailles” and he also referred to Hawaii (Demon´s Gavailles over which
his plane exploded and Tobakoff suffered a shipwreck). B.Boyd observed that the words “a doubled ocean”
could mean, among other things, “the Atlantic and the Pacific, as marking the
east and west boundaries of the Americas and the west and east of Russia
(18:01)”, a meaning that might have been suggested by the Lisianski
island reference in Ada.