Alexey Sklyarenko[to AP's message about "Nabokov's usage of the term "ha-ha" there insofar as it is, as was noted by Alexey, a thinly veiled allusion to Jane Austen's Mansfield Park"] Alexey who noted this is not me, for I never mentioned Jane Austen and her novel...VN was Taurus; Aqua married Demon Veen and Andrey Vinelander died on April 23, VN's birthday...

 

JM: I wanted to find Nabokov's words (probably in Strong Opinions) about his motivations for choosing familiar birthdates for his characters for I remember the reason was more strategical than allusive to anything special. As usual, though, I came across something else and gave up my original search.

In the interview n.6, in September 1966, with Alfred Appel Jr. (SO,Vintage,p.71) who asked him: "ideally, how should a reader experience of react to 'the end' of one of your novels...What common assumptions about literature are you assaulting?" and got:

"...what I would welcome at the close of a book of mine is a sensation of its world receding in the distance and stopping somewhere there, suspended afar like a picture in a picture: " The Artist's Studio by Van Bock." 

A footnote observes that "Research has failed to confirm  the existence of this alleged 'Dutch Master' whose name is only an alphabetical step away from being a significant anagram..." 

This note amused me because I was reminded of Nabokv-L's electronic address in which the author's registered name was "alphabetical step away"from the original, thereby adding significance to the Van Bock anagram. However, the List is equally a step away from an "artist's studio"...

...........................................................................................................................