In a collection of poems, with the title "Homage
to Eros" (selected and introduced by Dannie Abse, Robson books, 2005,p.111) I
read that Robert Lowell "soon earned the reputation of being the greatest
American poet of his time." Another item also caught my interest. Abse mentions
that Lowell "was born into an old aristocratic Boston family - the
Lowells, it was said, talked only to the Cabots and the Cabots talked only to
God. "
I couldn't fail to remember Van Veen's words in "Ada" and
little shreds of information from various sources:
"The Veens speak
only to Tobaks/ But Tobaks speak only to dogs."
In a Nab-L posting, mentioning these lines,
Alexey added that when "translated back to Russian, the language in which
Van addresses his former mistress, as the rhyme seems to suggest, these lines go
as follows: "Viny govoryat lish' s Tobakami, / A Tobaki govoryat lish' s
sobakami." listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi.../wa?...
In the BBC-2 1969 Mossman's interview Nabokov
answers his questions about a parody of the poet W. H. Auden in Ada or
why did Nabokov think "so little of him."
Nabokov:
I do not parody Mr. Auden anywhere in Ada. I'm not
sufficiently familiar with his poetry for that. I
do know, however, a few of his translations-- and deplore the
blunders he so lightheartedly permits himself. Robert Lowell, of course, is the
greater offender.
A direct reference to Lowell is made by
Darkbloom in his note 16* An indirect one, apparently, is his creation
of "Lowden." **
..............................................
* Brian Boyd, in Ada Online offers more
information:
11.27: Georgian tribesmen . . . popping raspberries:
Darkbloom: "Raspberries, ribbon [11.33]: allusions to ludicrous blunders
in Lowell's versions of Mandelshtam's poems (in the N.Y. Review [of Books], 23
December 1965)." For Nabokov and Lowell, see 3.04n2. Lowell translated the last
two lines of Mandelshtam's famous November 1933 anti-Stalin epigram ("My zhivem,
pod soboiu ne chuia strany," "We live, feeling no land beneath us") for which
the poet was arrested: "After each death, he is like a Georgian tribesman, /
putting a raspberry into his mouth." The lines read: "Chto ni kazn' u nego, --to
malina / I shirokaia grud' osetina." As is usual in Mandelshtam, the sense is
highly compacted and elliptical, but the lines mean literally: "Whatever the
execution, it's a raspberry / And the broad chest of an Ossete." Stalin, a
Georgian, admired Georgian folklore and here seems to be imagining the sweet
raspberry taste of each execution and puffing out his chest as if it proves
himself once again a Georgian hero. MOTIF: translation.
11.33: kurva or "ribbon boule": see
Darkbloom at 11.27n. Lowell translated Mandelshtam's phrase kurvu-Moskvu
("Moscow the Whore") as "Moscow's ribbon of boulevards" in his translation of
the poem "Net, ne spriatat'sia mne ot velikoi mury" ("No, I won't hide behind
the great nonsense") (written April 1931). Mandelshtam's "a ia ne risknu, / U
kogo pod perchatkoi ne khvatit tepla, / Chtob ob'ekhat' vsiu kurvu-Moskvu" ("but
I won't chance it, / There's not enough warmth inside my glove / To ride around
the whole of Moscow the whore") becomes in Lowell's version: "I am not afraid--
/ who has enough heat behind his gloves to hold the reins, / and ride around
Moscow's ribbon of boulevards?" (New York Review of Books, 23 December
1965, p. 5). MOTIF: translation.
Cf also BB's The American Years,
p.508.
** In a site with an homage to Elizabeth
Bishop there are more details about Nabokov/Lowell tiffs:
"In March, 1970,
Lowell mentions V.'s novel Ada in his account to E. of accepting the National
Book Award in her stead...While Lowell was indignant about Rexroth's omission of
Pound, he may not have been too concerned about the failure to include Ada, in
which V. had included a parody of Lowell as the character "Lowden" (Lowell's
mother's name was Ada); the two men had previously exchanged swipes in
letters to the editor of Encounter, who did not publish any of of them. Lowell's
included an attack on Pale Fire; V.'s were counter-thrusts claiming that Lowell
was an incompetent translator: "The couplets that Mr. Lowell
refers to are not at the end but at the beginning of Pale Fire. This is exactly
the kind of lousy ignorance that one might expect from the mutilator of his
betters -- Mandelstam, Rimbaud, and others."[Nabokov/Bruccoli, 385]"
/.../ V. then improved upon this four days later in a substitute reply:
To the Editor:
I do
not mind Mr. Lowell's disliking my books, but I wish he would stop mutilating
his betters -- Mandelstam, Rimbaud, and others. I regret not having entitled my
article "Rhyme and Punishment" [Nabokov/Bruccoli, 386] E. had tried to spare
Lowell just such attacks five years earlier, when she suggested revisions to
Imitations, his collection of free translations: "I don't think you should lay
yourself open to charges of carelessness or ignorance or willful
perversity..." [Travisano/Hamilton, 356].
I wonder if she would have
caught the parody of Lowell in Ada -- we know from a letter to Randall Jarrell
that she had read both it and Portnoy's Complaint. [Giroux/Schwartz, 867]." The
author thanks her colleague, Yuri Leving, for help locating the letters
associated with the Nabokov/Lowell Encounter tiff, and for the reference to
Boyd's account of the 1951 awards (Cf. elizabethbishopcentenary.blogspot.com/.../wednesday-wonder-question-ii-bishop-and.html
)