Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0016967, Wed, 27 Aug 2008 13:35:12 -0300

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[NABOKOV-L] Cock robin: a robinsonnada in TRLSK
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Dear List,

In my transcription of book-titles ["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) ] I followed the wording used in VN's novel: "La morte d' Arthur", but it is incorrect, no?
It should have been Le morte d'Arthur?

Pursuing, like V., SK's dark love after following a trail that started with his mother Virginia, passing on to Clare and Nina, I came across "silver shoes" and "puddles" ( a variant of the Cinderella and ghostly themes?):
1.They were all about to start and very eager and all that, and Clare had 'phoned for a taxi and her new silver shoes glittered and she had found her bag, when suddenly Sebastian seemed to lose all interest in the proceedings;
2.The man is the book; the book itself is heaving and dying [...] They are, these lives, but commentaries to the main subject. We follow the [...] lovely tall prima donna steps in her haste into a puddle, and her silver shoes are ruined;[Helene von Graun sings Russian songs]
3.Virginia reappeared in 1908. She was an inveterate traveller[...] gliding move into darkness; the passing glimpse of a lone woman touching silver-bright things in her travelling-case on the blue plush of a lighted compartment';
4.A woman had scrambled out of the car right into a puddle.
'Yes, it's she all right [Helene von Graun],"said Madame Lecerf. 'Now you stay where you are, please.'

There are more references, thru silver, to inquisitive Mr. Silbermann (plus the bushy-eyebrowed, patiently waiting Siller), silver pencils, Russian silver-marshes and boats, a dying man afloat and silver bowls...

Darkness, light and passing shadows ( a familiar trope related to "serial souls"?).


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