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[NABOKOV-L] Cock robin: a robinsonnada in TRLSK
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Dear List,
Still harping on VN's first novel written in English, TRLSK, we can follow the mutation of SK's novel's title, from "Cock Robin Hits Back" into "the prismatic edge" and, at last, as "The Prismatic Bezel." (Sebastian's quasi-wife, Clare Bishop, had not approved the "well-known nursery-rhyme" (p.64).
I had been wondering if Clare's surname "Bishop" might relate to "Knight", or to something else.
On page 77 there is a curious doubling, for Clare's husband's surname is also "Bishop": "no relation either, just pure coincidence". (cf.p.77). So, perhaps, there is "something else"... because another coincidence derives from a 1928 detective novel, "The Bishop Murder Case", by S.S. van Dine, which used lines extracted from the same nursery-rhyme satirized in SK's rejected title, now appended to the body of a certain Christopher Robbin.
I learned that this "nursery-rhyme" detective novel is "significant in the history of the mystery novel because it is the first time that a narrative is organized around such a formal scheme of parallels; this format was duplicated many times in the genre afterwards by Agatha Christie and others."
Now I wonder if these duplicated Bishops are merely a "robinsonnada" (p.127)... For in VN's satire we find that Sebastian "derived a morbid pleasure from dissecting platitudes.[...] The decayed idea [...]the merest trifle, as say, the adopted method of a detective story, became a bloated and malodorous corpse."[...] But The Prismatic Bezel is not only a rollicking parody of the setting of a detective tale; it is also a wicked imitation of many other things[...] For V. "the heroes of the book are what can be loosely called 'methods of composition." whereas Sebastian's second book, "Success", "deals mainly with the methods of human fate[...]all the magic and force of his art are summoned in order to discover the exact way in which two lines of life were made to come into contact.*
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* - as I see it, this plot seems to follow the general idea of Thornton Wilder's "The Bridge of San Luis Rey", a book that V. discovers in SK's book-shelves,together with Hamlet, La morte d'Arthur, Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, South Wind, The Lady with the Dog.[...]"(p.41)
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Still harping on VN's first novel written in English, TRLSK, we can follow the mutation of SK's novel's title, from "Cock Robin Hits Back" into "the prismatic edge" and, at last, as "The Prismatic Bezel." (Sebastian's quasi-wife, Clare Bishop, had not approved the "well-known nursery-rhyme" (p.64).
I had been wondering if Clare's surname "Bishop" might relate to "Knight", or to something else.
On page 77 there is a curious doubling, for Clare's husband's surname is also "Bishop": "no relation either, just pure coincidence". (cf.p.77). So, perhaps, there is "something else"... because another coincidence derives from a 1928 detective novel, "The Bishop Murder Case", by S.S. van Dine, which used lines extracted from the same nursery-rhyme satirized in SK's rejected title, now appended to the body of a certain Christopher Robbin.
I learned that this "nursery-rhyme" detective novel is "significant in the history of the mystery novel because it is the first time that a narrative is organized around such a formal scheme of parallels; this format was duplicated many times in the genre afterwards by Agatha Christie and others."
Now I wonder if these duplicated Bishops are merely a "robinsonnada" (p.127)... For in VN's satire we find that Sebastian "derived a morbid pleasure from dissecting platitudes.[...] The decayed idea [...]the merest trifle, as say, the adopted method of a detective story, became a bloated and malodorous corpse."[...] But The Prismatic Bezel is not only a rollicking parody of the setting of a detective tale; it is also a wicked imitation of many other things[...] For V. "the heroes of the book are what can be loosely called 'methods of composition." whereas Sebastian's second book, "Success", "deals mainly with the methods of human fate[...]all the magic and force of his art are summoned in order to discover the exact way in which two lines of life were made to come into contact.*
.............................................................................................................................................................
* - as I see it, this plot seems to follow the general idea of Thornton Wilder's "The Bridge of San Luis Rey", a book that V. discovers in SK's book-shelves,together with Hamlet, La morte d'Arthur, Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, South Wind, The Lady with the Dog.[...]"(p.41)
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/