Regarding the chess problem as published in "the Exile," I have just received a copy and will look at it, but doubt I will understand any better. I still do not know what "subtle chess problem" lurks in the Tenniel frontispiece to A in W'land either.
I did find several copies of the Tanner book (1830) for sale with a detailed description which I will copy below. I can only speculate that in the American "red Indian" Pushkin found something similar to the natives in his "Prisoner of the Caucasus." Kavkazkiy Plennik, I believe. I'm sure the Georgians would not be thrilled at the comparison. VN was also fascinated by Chateaubriand who also wove romances about the aboriginals in America. Pushkin on Chateaubriand?
Anyone?
Book Description: London. Haldwin & Cradock and Thomas War. 1830., 1830. 8vo, 22.6cm, the First London Edition, 426p., engraved frontis portrait, text illustrations (many pictographs), in contemporary quarter dark red morocco, gilt and blind ruled raised bands, gilt titles, gilt pictorial (arrows motif) in the panel centers with gilt decorations and borders at the panel edges, red cloth boards, marbled boards and endpapers, t.e.g., expertly restored a fine copy of the particularly rare London edition (cgc) - Provence: from the library of P.G. Downes, whose book "Sleeping Island" is a northern classic. Captured by Indians in Ohio about 1790, Tanner fought, hunted and traded in the Middle West until about 1820 and gives a graphic picture of Indian life and the fur trade. Part of the time he lodged in Red River district and touches upon the relations of the Hudson's
Bay company, Northwest company and the Selkirk settlement. Later he visited his white relatives, then returned to the Indian country. His narrative closes in 1828-30. Part II, pp285-426, prepared by the editor, comprises chapters on Indian customs, lore music, poetry, languages, etc. (TPL). " The editor of this work obtained the material for its construction from the lips of John Tanner, a captive who had resided among the Indians for thirty years. James was a man of much information upon Indian affairs and must have been able to discriminate between the probable and the uncertain portions of Tanner's narrative. The renegade himself (for he had during his long sojourn among the Indians become even more savage than they) was a person of retentive memory and fair intelligence. His relation of his life among the Northern Indians, is probably the most minute if not authentic detail of their habits, modes of living, and social customs ever printed. The
perils and privations in which they constantly exist, the tribal distinction and family associations and quarrels, the hunter's painful struggles to over-match the cunning and instinct of the animals upon which he must feed or starve and the labor of the squaws, alternate with days and weeks of gnawing famine awaiting his return, are all minutely and vividly related". (Sabin). " The details of Tanner's captivity include Indian feasts, catalogue of plants and animals found in the country of the Ojibbeways, a catalogue in Chippeway of the totems among the Ottawas and Ojibbeways, with their descriptions, knowledge of astronomy, a comparison of Chippeway numerals with nearly fifty other American dialects, a large collection of songs in the Indian language, and language of the American Indians". (Lande). Of twenty-six copies at auction since 1975, only one was the London edition.
From: Jansy <jansy@AETERN.US>
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Fri, May 31, 2013 1:51:27 PM
Subject: Re: [NABOKV-L] Chess problem
Steve Norquist: From the diagram of VN's problem in my
earlier post*, the solution for White supposedly begins with 1. Bc2, but I don't
recall where I read that, and I am much more fond of playing chess than of
solving chess problems.
Jansy Mello: Your earlier post (which I reproduced as a
foot-note here) was very informative and carefully researched and was a good
answer to several queries posted by Carolyn Kunin. Unlike most of you, I neither
play chess nor solve chess problems and this is why there's nothing I can add
here by way of a comment, except to thank you for.posting it.
Robert Ropert's query about John Tanner mentioned
Pushkin's "affection" for A Narrative of the Captivity and Adventures of
John Tanner (1830). The name Tanner seemed to ring a bell for me
and I tried to check why. Unfortunately, I drew a blank but I found out that,
perhaps, Pushkin's interest in the book could be derived from his critical
point of view.: "As
an essayist Pushkin was prolific but most of his writings remained in draft
form...Chiefly Pushkin concentrated on literature and history, but he did not
develop a systematic philosophical view – it has been said that Pushkin lacked
"central vision".... The responsibility of the Decembrist Rebellion Pushkin
shifted onto foreign influences. He was fascinated by democratic republicanism
but perceived the tendency to idealize the natural state of life, as exemplified
both in the work of James Fenimore Cooper and in political discussion in the
United States, as was shown in his essay "Dzhon Tenner" (1836, John
Tanner)." [Some rights reserved Petri Liukkonen (author) & Ari Pesonen.
Kuusankosken kaupunginkirjasto 2008] .
America as seen through European eyes must have interested
Nabokov, at least there are suggestive paragraphs in "Lolita" (dealing
with Chateaubriand, tigers and wide plains, if memory serves me
right.) Some of these visions were espoused by authors
who never actually visited America (I have Coleridge in mind,
after one of JLBorges's lectures on English Literature... )
Concerning the "tendency to idealize the natural state of
life" perhaps VN's views are kept hidden, despite his indirect
reference to JJ Rousseau in Pale
Fire, when John Shade affirms, in French, that “l’homme est né bon,”**
...................................................................
* Nabokov engaged in an intriguing duel against Lewis Carroll - played out
in the symbolic language of chess. Nabokov's key chess problem and its
accompanying commentary were originally published in the article 'Exile' in the
Partisan Review in early 1951, following its earlier rejection by the New Yorker
magazine. A letter sent in March 1950 by Nabokov to his New Yorker editor and
friend Katharine White confirms that the author thought
this chess problem was extremely important and was related, in some mysterious way, to the chess game plotted by Lewis Carroll in Through the Looking-glass. As Nabokov explained:"When coming to the last pages of the piece 'Exile,' please remember that the frontispiece to the first edition of 'Alice in the Looking Glass' carries a very subtle and difficult chess problem, and I would not like to think that New Yorker readers could be more bewildered by my chess problem (which occupies only a few lines) than Dodgson's little readers" (Selected Letters, 99).
Shortly after its publication in the Partisan Review, the chess problem in question was incorporated by Nabokov into Chapter Fourteen of his autobiography, Speak, Memory/Conclusive Evidence. It has since been reproduced in chess diagram format, in Poems and Problems (1972, p.182) where it is accompanied by Nabokov's succinct comment "composed in Paris, mid-May 1940…The irresistible try is for the bafflement of sophisticated solvers". V. Nabokov "Speak Memory" 1951
#2
But the 'succinct comment' by the author (in the Gallimard 1999 reprint of "Poems and Problems") was: "Composé à Paris à la mi-mai 1940 (quelques jours avant d'émigrer aus États-Unis). Publié dans "Speak, Memory", 1951, et inclus par Lipton, Matthews, et Rice dans "Chess Problems", Londres, 1963. Un essai auquel il est difficile de résister et qui comblera d'aise les solutionnistes avertis."
this chess problem was extremely important and was related, in some mysterious way, to the chess game plotted by Lewis Carroll in Through the Looking-glass. As Nabokov explained:"When coming to the last pages of the piece 'Exile,' please remember that the frontispiece to the first edition of 'Alice in the Looking Glass' carries a very subtle and difficult chess problem, and I would not like to think that New Yorker readers could be more bewildered by my chess problem (which occupies only a few lines) than Dodgson's little readers" (Selected Letters, 99).
Shortly after its publication in the Partisan Review, the chess problem in question was incorporated by Nabokov into Chapter Fourteen of his autobiography, Speak, Memory/Conclusive Evidence. It has since been reproduced in chess diagram format, in Poems and Problems (1972, p.182) where it is accompanied by Nabokov's succinct comment "composed in Paris, mid-May 1940…The irresistible try is for the bafflement of sophisticated solvers". V. Nabokov "Speak Memory" 1951
But the 'succinct comment' by the author (in the Gallimard 1999 reprint of "Poems and Problems") was: "Composé à Paris à la mi-mai 1940 (quelques jours avant d'émigrer aus États-Unis). Publié dans "Speak, Memory", 1951, et inclus par Lipton, Matthews, et Rice dans "Chess Problems", Londres, 1963. Un essai auquel il est difficile de résister et qui comblera d'aise les solutionnistes avertis."
** - PF: Charles Kinbote note to line 549:
shade: All religions are based upon obsolete terminology.
kinbote: What we term Original Sin can never grow obsolete.
shade: I know nothing about that. In fact when I was small I thought it meant Cain killing Abel. Personally, I am with the old snuff-takers: L’homme est né bon.
kinbote: Yet disobeying the Divine Will is a fundamental definition of Sin.
All private editorial communications are read by both co-editors.