Matt Roth [to JM]: I don't know if it is necessary to
wonder where VN got his impressions of "Et in Arcadia Ego." In Letter 248
(August 7, 1957) of the VN-Wilson letters, VN writes, "My source for
understanding et in Arcadia ego, meaning 'I (Death) (exist) even in Arcady,' is
an excellent essay in Erwin Panofsky's The Meaning of the Visual Arts, Anchor
Books, New York, 1955."...Panofsky's book remains widely
available.
La trama sembra complessa e densa, e si rivelerà, forse, uno strumento
utile per fare luce sul personaggio di Humbert Humbert e di Lolita stessa. Wild,
uno studioso corpulento, è sposato con Flora, donna magrissima che lo tradisce
con tutti. L’ha sposata perché assomiglia a Aurora Lee, una ragazza di cui era
innamorato da giovane. L’uomo è ossessionato dal pensiero della morte, un tema
sempre presente in Nabokov, e decide di auto-cancellarsi, con la meditazione, a
partire dalle dita dei piedi e risalendo per il corpo. Giuliana
Manganelli
JM: Thank you, Matt.
Brazilian humorist Millôr once quipped:"Apenas a morte é imortal"
("Only death is immortal"), following the line of Pope Clement's wisdom.
However, they seem to ignore the interdependence bt.death and
life ( ie, only where there's life there's death.)
I skipped the quote from Letter 248 you brought
up, but I abutted in Panofsky through a winding road that kept
me wonderwandering. For I unearthed your former
posting, the one where you mentioned that: "the 'aunts and orphans' thread and the Cedarn thread unite in Mrs.
Browning's 'Aurora Leigh'," in the nick of time to find
its eerie resonance with TOoL's Aurora Lee - as it
has just been mentioned Manganelli's review sent by Klein,
and to death's presence in Arcadian life.
From the Panofsky couple (Pandora), the Browning
pair and Joyce we may realize how Loleeta's "wordsmithi" tigris
will roar on in "Pale Fire," just as Poe's Annabel Lee is fragmentarily
heard through Joyce's Anna Lívia Plurabelle.
Will they recur in "The Original of Laura"
and the story of feminine carnal infidelity versus a man's
imaginary betrayal by his adherence to an arcadian first
love?
In AL, Alfred Appel notes: "Joyce himself helped to introduce Nabokov to Finnegans
Wake. In Paris in 1937 or 1938, he gave Nabokov Haveth Childers
Everywhere...Future commentators will no doubt find several echoes of Finnegans
Wake in Lolita; but it could hardly be otherwise, since Joyce's book is so
inclusive, so monstruously allusive...The only persistent 'smudge' is a trace of
Anna Livia Plurabelle." (p.414).
Duly warned, I'm
still after Nabokovian references
to Joyce, particularly those with a link to ALP, like the one in
part I, ch.14, page 207: "She watched the listless pale
fountain girl put in the ice, pour in the coke, add the cherry syrup ... Mr. Pim
watched Pippa suck in the concoction...J'ai toujours admiré l'œuvre
ormonde du sublime Dublinois. And in the meantime the rain had become a
voluptuous shower." They may lead us from PF towards TOoL.
After all, among its various interpretative
inroads, "Lolita" (with a humping Humph of a Humber rivuleting into
her nymphic liffey) may be seen as a precise satire, or a
denunciation, of Joyce's Wake, its sheer virulent albeit
hilarious violence and smug "felix culpa" in rape.
VN's "nymphancy"
and subsequent silence in relation to "nymphets" is significant,
also because he was probably aware that the word "infant" means "voiceless,
wordless." Like Humbert's pubescent prey - but VN's denunciation
doesn't stop in "Lolita" for, through this special paragraph on ch 14, we may
surmise that graceless Hazel Shade, a dyslexic young woman, may
also be connected to Humbert's
delicate nymphet.
Browning's presence in
both novels, and (H)umber/Shade's recollected fountainism and Wordsmith's
Dulwich road indicate that both girls are the silent victims
of verbal control. And yet, contrary to Joyce's excruciating
oceanic richness, Lolita and Hazel, as fictional characters with
a definite shape, may be seen from a distance. This is why VN's readers are
able to explore their own unquenchable "voice," to grieve for
them. What does TOoL have in store for us?