Subject
Re: DN on feathering, nobility, etc
From
Date
Body
Dmitri Nabokov wrote: Feathering, Jansy, besides what oarsmen and certain birds (logically) do to decrease drag on their blades or wings, and various other meanings, became a widely used term with the advent of aviation... This ability can be important in certain instances, e.g., feathering the blades of the propeller (via rotation at the hub) on an inoperative engine so as to minimize air resistance, etc.
Jansy to Dmitri Nabokov: Thank you for your explanation. My curiosity was aroused by certain possible uses for the word "feathering" by your father. The motion has no apparent relation to birds or rowing and oars, and yet describes the rower's and bird's motion of the shoulder-blades when reversing the oars, or folding wings to dive speedily.
In KQK there is a beautiful example of this:
page 766/767
He yawned and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Perhaps it would be wiser to change at once and then read for half and hour on the terrace. Martha threw off her organge peignoir, and as she drew back her elbows to adjust a necklace her angelically lovely bare shoulder blades came together like folding wings.
Mel Gibson's character as a policeman in a famous movie series could extricate himself from ropes that bound him tightly ( like Houdini?), because he suffered from a common orthopaedic quirk that allowed him to dislodge his shoulder-blades. In "Ada", Van Veen lost his maniambulatory abilities because "a precious sinestral sinew had stopped functioning" (quoting from memory) and he had problems with the same shoulderblades.
I wonder if VN's wonderful exploration of this "magic shoulder trick" ( lying so close to the raised spinal hairs) indicates that he was also able to perform the same.
Thank you, Dmitri, for the reply: RE classification of the substantially
revised-in-translation KQK: maybe we could call it VN's German novel.
There is are two corrections on former postings that I'm trying to fit in. The first applies to "seasons": the Red Admiral in KQK was spotted in Autumun, not during Summer.
The second has to do with German authors. I was uncertain if Baron v. Munchhausen was the author of the ballad of "A Page in High Burgundy" written by Borries v. Munchhausen. The original story-teller had served as a page to the court of the Duke of Braunschweig, but he left no written records. Carolyn Kunin solved the riddle for me. Borries was a German poet who took advantage of Hitler's rise to advance his position in the Prussian Academy and committed suicide when the Allied armies advanced to his estate.
VN must have been amused by a Munchhausen writing about an older namesake. At the time VN wrote KQK (in Russian, 1926/7) this German poet had not had occasion to write in praise of Hitler, adding a particular edge to VN's satire.
I don't know if his verses are quoted in the Russian and German edition, or only in the edition in English.
JM addressing mainly S K-B: To exhaust ( drain off/ "esgotar") my contribution on "gutter-percher" ( that, according to Victor Fet's explanation must simply imply something "flexible and pliable like rubber" ) :
I forgot to add that there is a piece of fabric named "sarja/sarjeta" that is woven with silk thread forming diagonal welts across the cloth that looks similar to the "gutter" surgical incision. In English it is named "sarge" ( or "serge") and its derivation apparently comes from the Chinese for silk, no relation at all to the Malayan "guta-percha", although diagonal identations are found linked to both. These are rather curious "coincidences", if my poor dictionaries have been behaving properly ...
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
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
Jansy to Dmitri Nabokov: Thank you for your explanation. My curiosity was aroused by certain possible uses for the word "feathering" by your father. The motion has no apparent relation to birds or rowing and oars, and yet describes the rower's and bird's motion of the shoulder-blades when reversing the oars, or folding wings to dive speedily.
In KQK there is a beautiful example of this:
page 766/767
He yawned and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Perhaps it would be wiser to change at once and then read for half and hour on the terrace. Martha threw off her organge peignoir, and as she drew back her elbows to adjust a necklace her angelically lovely bare shoulder blades came together like folding wings.
Mel Gibson's character as a policeman in a famous movie series could extricate himself from ropes that bound him tightly ( like Houdini?), because he suffered from a common orthopaedic quirk that allowed him to dislodge his shoulder-blades. In "Ada", Van Veen lost his maniambulatory abilities because "a precious sinestral sinew had stopped functioning" (quoting from memory) and he had problems with the same shoulderblades.
I wonder if VN's wonderful exploration of this "magic shoulder trick" ( lying so close to the raised spinal hairs) indicates that he was also able to perform the same.
Thank you, Dmitri, for the reply: RE classification of the substantially
revised-in-translation KQK: maybe we could call it VN's German novel.
There is are two corrections on former postings that I'm trying to fit in. The first applies to "seasons": the Red Admiral in KQK was spotted in Autumun, not during Summer.
The second has to do with German authors. I was uncertain if Baron v. Munchhausen was the author of the ballad of "A Page in High Burgundy" written by Borries v. Munchhausen. The original story-teller had served as a page to the court of the Duke of Braunschweig, but he left no written records. Carolyn Kunin solved the riddle for me. Borries was a German poet who took advantage of Hitler's rise to advance his position in the Prussian Academy and committed suicide when the Allied armies advanced to his estate.
VN must have been amused by a Munchhausen writing about an older namesake. At the time VN wrote KQK (in Russian, 1926/7) this German poet had not had occasion to write in praise of Hitler, adding a particular edge to VN's satire.
I don't know if his verses are quoted in the Russian and German edition, or only in the edition in English.
JM addressing mainly S K-B: To exhaust ( drain off/ "esgotar") my contribution on "gutter-percher" ( that, according to Victor Fet's explanation must simply imply something "flexible and pliable like rubber" ) :
I forgot to add that there is a piece of fabric named "sarja/sarjeta" that is woven with silk thread forming diagonal welts across the cloth that looks similar to the "gutter" surgical incision. In English it is named "sarge" ( or "serge") and its derivation apparently comes from the Chinese for silk, no relation at all to the Malayan "guta-percha", although diagonal identations are found linked to both. These are rather curious "coincidences", if my poor dictionaries have been behaving properly ...
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
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