Alexey Sklyarenko: "The obsolete
meaning of krasnyi (red) is krasivyi (fair). Btw., Ada's TORFYaNUYu went
through two red squares on the Flavita board (see my Krasnyi tsvetok zla, "The
Red Flower of Evil in Nabokov's Ada," available in Zembla)."
[to JM's Alexey Sklyarenko also considers the
raspberry theme and speaks "of Mandelshtam, the poet who is important in Ada, in
my article 'Flowers into Bloomers: Mistranslation as the Original Sin'. "]
as: " I never wrote that article."
JM: You said that you never
wrote the article but I suppose you meant that you didn't write it in the end...
I got the information from the Nab-L Archives:
Since January 3, OS, corresponds to January 15, NS,
today is Mandelshtam's 120th birthday. Like Nabokov, Mandelshtam finished the
Tenishev school. Mistranslations from Mandelshtam (who is mentioned by Vivian
Darkbloom in his 'Notes to ADA') are important in ADA. I mention OM in several
articles on ADA, including "The Red Flower of Evil."... In Ada, Rita is a
Crimean cabaret dancer, a pretty red-haired girl who is Van's partner in his
Mascodagama stunt...M is the first letter in French mal ("evil;".. there is mal
in animal and its Russian anagram, malina, raspberries, mentioned by Mandelshtam
in his satire on Stalin; cf. "several merry young gardeners wearing for some
reason the garb of Georgian tribesmen were popping raspberries into their
mouths:" 1.2; note that only one letter is different in Marina and malina) and
English male. Both mal and male are present in malen'kiy. I will speak
of Mandelshtam, the poet who is important in Ada, in my article "Flowers into
Bloomers: Mistranslation as the Original Sin." alenkiy refers to Alen'kiy
tsvetochek ("The Scarlet Flowerlet"), a fairy tale by S. T. Aksakov (Cf. Sat, 15 Jan 2011 13:25:42 +0300 - Mandelshtam's 120th birthday)
AS: "Also, I recently mentioned
in Nabokv-L Krasnaya ploshchad' (incorrectly translated as Red
Square)"
JM: What an interesting
connection you made between the famous muscovite "Red Square" and the
Flavita (Van explains that there were a few yellows among the reds and the
blacks, to explain the game's designation), particularly clear in your
example of Ada's Torfyanuyu which "went through two red
squares"
I always thought that jasp was the same stone as
jade. I found out that it was something altogether different quite recently so,
from Pale Fire, there's another dark x red
contrast.
"How to locate in blackness,
with a gasp, / Terra the Fair, an orbicle of jasp" And Kinbote
finds this the "loveliest couplet in this
canto," even if he ignored Ada's Terra and Anti-Terra...
Stan Kelly-Bootle: "English, of course, also
plays figuratively exchanging month for moon: Many long moons have passed and
gone ..."
JM: ...And I'd always considered that the
figurative exchange of month for moon ( "many long moons") had been an
invention of a Welsh poet (Dylan Thomas*)
...........................................................................
*- Probably he meant something different (day and
night?)
Cf. Fern Hill Part II. :
"And nightly under the simple stars
As I rode to sleep the
owls were bearing the farm away,
All the moon long I heard, blessed
among stables, the nightjars
Flying with the ricks, and the
horses
Flashing into the dark."