Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0026469, Wed, 23 Sep 2015 17:19:12 +0300

Subject
Iris Acht in Pale Fire
Date
Body
JM: So there’s a poem by Nik. T-o (Nobody) with the infinite as its title.
It gives an additional intricacy to the pattern when we remember include
PF’s actress Iris Acht (Acht: eight,8…attention), as it’s been discussed
in the past.



In fact, at the beginning of his poem ∞ Annenski (Nik. T-o) compares the
infinity symbol to 8 (in German, acht) toppled over:



Девиз Таинственной похож
На опрокинутое 8:
Она - отраднейшая ложь
Из всех, что мы в сознаньи носим.



According to Annenski, of all the lies that we keep in our consciousness
infinity is the most comforting one.



Iris Acht was a celebrated actress. The characters of Annenski’s Famira
kifared. Vakkhicheskaya drama (“Thamyras Cytharoede: A Bacchic Drama,”
1906) include Irida (i. e. Iris, a messenger of the gods, regarded as the
goddess of the rainbow). Iris Acht was the mistress of Thurgus the Third,
K.’s grandfather who liked to bicycle in the park (Index to PF).



Iris + nikto + svet + Lolita = Sirin + svitok + leto + tail/lait



nikto - nobody

svet - light; world; in Sirin’s novel Otchayanie (“Despair,” 1932)
Hermann (Felix’s “double”) quotes Pushkin’s poem Na svete schast’ya net
… (“There is no bliss in the world…” 1835)

svitok - roll, scroll; in his wonderful poem Vospominanie (“Reminiscence,”
1828) Pushkin mentions dlinnyi svitok (a lengthy roll) that his memory
unfolds

leto - summer; Shade composes his poem in July

lait - Fr., milk



Alexey Sklyarenko


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