Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0017944, Sun, 15 Mar 2009 07:37:02 -0700

Subject
Re: one damned mind after the other
Date
Body
Dear mathmatiStan,

I'm way ahead of you - - I have heard your beautiful baritone voice
and know that you wrote a song made famous by Judy Collins (I've never
understood that girl's great appeal but she did sing some wonderful
songs including yourn).

The reading you propose of PF - - everyone's first reading I think - -
is in itself a masterpiece, no doubt about it. I loved it! But there
are disturbances in those waters that I think really should lead one
to seek the story behind that story.

I am not trying to prove my reading, if I were an academic I would
have to. Thanks God I dodged that shoe. I would be delighted to find
others (and as I wrote in previous post there are others) who have
solved the puzzle.

In fact when I started writing to the List in '01 or '02 I didn't have
the solution. When I found it and derived such pleasure from finding
and proving it to myself, I was in fact reluctant to let out the
secret. I hoped that others would have the experience I had of
1) understanding that PF is a puzzle
2) the frustration of trying and failing to solve it and
3) the near bliss of breaking through to a possible answer and
4) the sheer exhilarating fun of chasing down the proofs i.e. reading
the books I thought VN wanted the reader to read - - the Alice books,
J & H, Dorian Gray and the odd Hogg book and finding in them the
delightful cherries you and others pooh-pooh.

But I was the object of much ridicule at the time and was more or less
forced into divulging the solution though it did me absolutely no
good. I was ridiculed the more. At least these days I am ridiculed
with r-e-s-p-e-c-t, and believe me I do appreciate the improvement in
tone.

I feel rather like ardnassaC - - predicting fun and frolic but no one
will believe me!

Carolyn

p.s. I thought picadillos did mean tiny sins - - or does it have
something to do with bull-fighting? LC called them "portmanteau words"
didn't he? Slithy for example being a portmanteau of blithe and
slippery? I forget now.

p.p.s. If you google me you will also find my double, a lovely very
liberal reformed Jewish woman and physician who lives in Croton and
whose son Seth has written some fascinating books. Please to not
confuse us!! I am one of those "horrid" conservatives, both
politically and Jewishly, and I live in Pasadena. I did not follow in
my medical father's footsteps and have, alas, no children.





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