Sklyarenko’s choice, in his latest posting, to refer to “Terra” as “Land” [quote: “ Terra is Latin for “land.” Aqua (Marina’s poor mad twin sister) passionately believed in the existence of Terra (Demonia’s twin planet”…] was inspiring - since I was longing for a pretext to return to the corpus of Nabokov’s novels at the VN-List, to “Ada or Ardor” in particular, with its inventions: jiggers, dorophones, telegas, teleseats and a retake of B. Boyd’s notes.# The indirect highlight on “ Terra (land)/Earth” reminded me of the ancient philosophers’ solid element, accompanied by liquid, gas and plasma (water, air, fire).
In fact, although Van Veen himself mentions the “four elements,” the connections he establishes for these are quite surprising because, unlike the widespread theories related to them, he chooses to avoid considerations about space and instead he sets into focus human mortality [ “Numbers and rows and series — the nightmare and malediction harrowing pure thought and pure time — seemed bent on mechanizing his mind. Three elements, fire, water, and air, destroyed, in that sequence, Marina, Lucette, and Demon. Terra waited.” 2,1 ]. I had never before tried to search for any specific references to them and already my first look into the Wikipedia brought up an illustration in which the name of one of the Durmanov sisters, Aqua in “Ada or Ardor,” was shown in close proximity to “Terra” - an interesting coincidence.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_element
Aqua’s conversations with gurgling fountains and even her twin sister’s twin name, Marina, suggest the “Water” element.
Earth/Terra´s (and anti-Terra) spread can be felt all the time as inescapable as gravity’s pull.
With the exception of “aerograms” and Dedalus’s myth-like invention of flying jiggers, perhaps also Van Veen’s maniambulations, until now I found no other important indication of “Air,” though.
“Fire” is present in the title “Ada or Ardor” and extended to the ardent passions at Ardis or the obsession of “ignicologists”*. Forest fires are not uncommon but here the most important one is lovingly described and mentioned with capital letters: the baronial “Burning Barn” ( “zdravstvuyte: apofeoz, the Night of the Burning Barn.” Cf. p.92/ I,18)
Two slightly diverging examples:
“A sort of hoary riddle: [ ] did the Burning Barn come before the Cockloft or the Cockloft come first. Oh, first! We had long been kissing cousins when the fire started. In fact, I was getting some Château Baignet cold cream from Ladore for my poor chapped lips. And we both were roused in our separate rooms by her crying au feu! July 28? August 4?//Who cried? Stopchin cried? Larivière cried? Larivière? Answer! Crying that the barn flambait?//Oh, of course! But not Marina’s poor French — it was our little goose Blanche. Yes, she rushed down the corridor and lost a miniver-trimmed slipper on the grand staircase, like Ashette in the English version.” (I,19)
Cf. Darkbloom: p.92. au feu!: fire! p.92. flambait: was in flames. p.92. Ashette: ‘Cendrillon’ in the French original.” Note a curious link between passion, fire and ashes/cinder in Cinderella’s (not Ada’s) close to midnight flight down palatial stairs.
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“The tumult in the house and the maid’s shriek interrupted a rare, brilliant, dramatic dream, whose subject he was unable to recollect later, although he still held it in a saved jewel box. [ ] Van gleaned from subsiding cries that the so-called ‘baronial barn,’ a huge beloved structure three miles away, was on fire[ ] Placing a bare knee on the shaggy divan under the window, Van drew back the heavy red curtains. [ ] The entire domestic staff seemed to be taking off to enjoy the fire (an infrequent event in our damp windless region), using every contraption available or imaginable: telegas, teleseats, roadboats, tandem bicycles [ ] That multiple departure really presented a marvelous sight against the pale star-dusted firmament of practically subtropical Ardis, tinted between the black trees with a distant flamingo flush at the spot where the Barn was Burning. [ ] Van was delighted and shocked to distinguish, right there in the inky shrubbery, Ada in her long nightgown passing by with a lighted candle in one hand and a shoe in the other as if stealing after the belated ignicolists. It was only her reflection in the glass.” (I,19)
Thoughts?
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#Brian Boyd -AdaOnline (the numbering of the pages in the digital below and in the printed editions are distinct. The overall reference is to Part I, ch. 19)
115.31: telegas, teleseats: A trap for the Anglophone reader, since in the context of the invented teleseats (Nabokov’s aptly bumpy translation of the French télésiege, “chairlift”), telegas suggests tele-gas but is in fact the English plural of the Russian telega (W2), “[Russ.] A rude four-wheeled, springless wagon, used among the Russians.”115.31: roadboats: A comic nonce-word, invented on the model of the genuine but shortlived roadcar, roadwagon? Amphibian vehicles? Boats for a roadstead (W2, “A protected place where ships may ride at anchor”), since some at least reach the barn by crossing the reservoir, 116.13-17...And a lot more.
* “Poor Aqua, whose fancies were apt to fall for all the fangles of cranks and Christians… saw giant flying sharks with lateral eyes taking barely one night to carry pilgrims through black ether across an entire continent from dark to shining sea, before booming back to Seattle or Wark” I,3. Perhaps it’s not a coincidence in this novel that “Aqua” and the word “ether” appear in proximity ( “ether” is the fifth element, related to conflicting views by Marat, indirectly referred to in the novel, and Lavoisier), or as B.Boyd notes: 21.17: through black ether: a concept of nineteenth-century physics in the midst of these visions of twentieth-century technology.