PS to James Twiggs: "‘The word is not a
shadow. The word is a thing’ – Nabokov as anti-Symbolist." by Glynn,
Michael michael.glynn@btinternet.com )
European Journal of American Culture; 2006, Vol. 25 Issue 1, p3-30,
28p
JM: There is a sentence in
Nabokov's article condemning Rowe (Cf. SKB's link to "Nabokov’s Deceptive
World (NYU Press, 1971) http://lib.ru/NABOKOW/Rowe.txt )
which might clarify Glynn's emphasis on "The word is a thing" for Nabokov.
The latter wrote that the
"fatal flaw in Mr.
Rowe's treatment of recurrent words, such as "garden" or "water," is his
regarding them as abstractions, and not realizing that the sound of a bath
being filled, say, in the world of Laughter in the Dark,
is as different from the limes rustling in the rain of Speak, Memory
as the Garden of Delights in Ada
is from the lawns in Lolita."
It appears that, for Nabokov, every word is
bound to the sentence in which it has been applied, while its material
singularity is garanteed by its sound in its given context. Therefore, we'd
read about as many distinct "water" and "garden" as there
are lines in which they are inserted (or help to constitute) in
Nabokov. Nevertheless, the literary world teems with more "fatal flaws"
than the one committed by Rowe...
The explanation about "Ada"'s mention to a
certain "Abraham Milton" has never truly satisfied me. I'm throwing in another
connection, but it is still flimsy.
Abraham Lincoln's private secretary (who
worked with tesselated terran boundaries and treaties) was called John
Milton Hay.*
Although I doubt it that many list-readers
were interested in yesterday's quoted items, from "Ada", there is one mistake in
them that muddles my point completely. Close to "teil" I wrote [elm] and I
should have placed [linde] instead.
Two other electronic links to
ancient translations of the Bible on the matter of oak, elm and linde:
(1) elm - The choice of this tree may have been
influenced by Luther's translation of this verse, where he has eiche and linde.
in that order. The translation teil ... books.google.com.br/books?id=0g49AAAAIAAJ... ; (2) scripturetext.com/isaiah/6-13.htm
-
.............................................................................................................................................................................
* - John
Milton Hay (October 8, 1838 – July 1, 1905) was an American statesman, diplomat,
author, journalist, and private secretary and assistant to Abraham
Lincoln: John Milton Hay's "contributions included the adoption of an
Open Door Policy in China (announced on January 2, 1900) which may have been a
contributing factor in the Boxer Rebellion, and the preparations for the Panama
Canal. He negotiated the Hay–Pauncefote Treaty (1901), the Hay–Herran Treaty
(1903), and the Hay–Bunau Varilla Treaty (1903), all of which were instrumental
in clearing the way for the construction and use of the Canal. In all, he
brought about more than 50 treaties, including the settlement of the Samoan
dispute, as a result of which the United States secured Tutuila, with a harbor
in the Pacific; a definitive Alaskan boundary treaty in 1903; the negotiation of
reciprocity treaties with Argentina, France, Germany, Cuba, and the British West
Indies; the negotiation of new treaties with Spain; and the negotiation of a
treaty with Denmark for the cession of the Danish West India Islands.[5]
In
1904, Hay was one of the first seven chosen for membership in the American
Academy of Arts and Letters.
Hay appears as a prominent character in Gore
Vidal's historical novels Lincoln and Empire. He appears, portrayed by John
Huston, in the 1975 film The Wind and the Lion, a fictionalization of the
Perdicaris Affair in Morocco in 1904. He is portrayed in the 1997 miniseries
Rough Riders by actor and legendary United States Marine R. Lee
Ermey."