Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0018642, Wed, 7 Oct 2009 16:40:12 -0400

Subject
Re: [NABOKOV-L] [ Sighting] [QUERY] Ada's first lines: Pontius
Date
Body
Dear Jensy,

The title of Leo Tolstoy's trilogy
in question has been partly omitted, partly
mistranslated. It should read Childhood. Adolescence (or Boyhood).Youth.

Best,

Gavriel Shapiro


At 02:26 PM 10/7/2009, you wrote:
>In a Brazilian writer's blog a small contest was
>created concerning the choice for best first
>lines. The winner was Tolstoi's Anna Karenin,
>followed by Nabokov's "Lolita" and, next. Camus
>("L' Étranger").
><http://colunistas.ig.com.br/sergiorodrigues/2009/10/07/comecos-inesqueciveis-tolstoi-e-o-campeao/>Começos
>inesquecíveis: Tolstoi é o campeão: Sérgio Rodrigues, 07/10/2009.
>
>The first lines in "Ada or Ardor" are more or
>less dissimilar to Tolstoy's winning sentence: "
>‘All happy families are more or less dissimilar;
>all unhappy ones are more or less alike,’ says a
>great Russian writer in the beginning of a
>famous novel (Anna Arkadievitch Karenina,
>transfigured into English by R.G. Stonelower,
>Mount Tabor Ltd., 1880). That pronouncement has
>little if any relation to the story to be
>unfolded now, a family chronicle, the first part
>of which is, perhaps, closer to another Tolstoy
>work, Detstvo i Otrochestvo (Childhood and Fatherland, Pontius Press, 1858)."
>Curious about the added information on Tolstoy's
>work, by Pontius Press, I googled for more data.
>I was unable to discover to which work Nabokov was referring.
>One of Tolstoy's first writings, in 1852, signed
>with the initials L.N, was "Dietstvo" (
>Childhood), which he sent to N. A. Niekrassov to
>get it published in the magazine
>"Sovriemiênik." He was very displeased with the
>title, as it came out ( as about other editorial alterations).
>Two other entries were intriguing:
>
>1.<http://www.archive.org/stream/selectedessayswi00schu/selectedessayswi00schu_djvu.txt>Full
>text of "Selected essays; with a memoir"
>Childhood " (Dietstvo)
>EUGENE SCHUYLER: SELECTED ESSAYS; WITH A MEMOIR BY EVELYN SCHUYLER SCHAEFFER
>NEW YORK - CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS - 1901
>
> 2.
> <http://www.fonds-thorez.ivry94.fr/thorez_cin/bibliotheque-2004-maurice_thorez__staline_enfance_et_adolescence__popee_livre_premier.html>Thorez,
> Maurice Thorez Staline Enfance et adolescence
> Épopée Livre
> <http://www.fonds-thorez.ivry94.fr/thorez_cin/bibliotheque-2004-maurice_thorez__staline_enfance_et_adolescence__popee_livre_premier.html>...
>
>Titre (en vo), Stalin Dietstvo i otrotchestvo
>Èpopeya Kniga piervaya. Auteur, LEONIDZE,
>Gueorguiï. Autres collaborateurs, TIKHONOVA, N.
>[traduit du géorgien
>...
><http://www.fonds-thorez.ivry94.fr/.../bibliotheque-2004-maurice_thorez__staline_enfance_et_adolescence__popee_livre_premier.ht>www.fonds-thorez.ivry94.fr/.../bibliotheque-2004-maurice_thorez__staline_enfance_et_adolescence__popee_livre_premier.ht...
>-
>Lieu d'édition Moscou Pays d'édition Russie : ex-URSS Année1947
>
>Is there a Pontius (Pilate) press?
> <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
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