Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0013066, Fri, 11 Aug 2006 14:17:22 -0400

Subject
Re: monte-fonte
Date
Body
>>>>Is it fanciful to suppose VN was familiar with such wordplay?

He had to be, because he translated "Alice in Wonderland" !

During the Tea Party, the Alice is asked how a raven is like a writing
desk.

"Have you guessed the riddle yet?" the Hatter said, turning to Alice
again.
"No, I give it up," Alice replied. "What's the answer?"
"I haven't the slightest idea," said the Hatter.
"Nor I," said the March Hare.
Alice sighed wearily. "I think you might do something better with the
time," she said, "than wasting it in asking riddles that have no
answers." [sounds somewhat Kinbotean]
According to the specialists,

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5_266.html

"....Lewis Carroll himself got bugged about this so much that he was
moved to write the following in the preface to the 1896 edition of his
book:

Enquiries have been so often addressed to me, as to whether any
answer to the Hatter's Riddle can be imagined, that I may as well put on
record here what seems to me to be a fairly appropriate answer, viz:
`Because it can produce a few notes, tho they are very flat; and it is
never put with the wrong end in front!' This, however, is merely an
afterthought; the Riddle, as originally invented, had no answer at all.

Did this discourage people? No. They figured, that dope Carroll, he's
too dumb to figure out his own riddle, setting aside the halfhearted
attempt just quoted. So they ventured answers of their own, some of the
more notable of which are recorded in Martin Gardner's The Annotated
Alice and More Annotated Alice:

* Because the notes for which they are noted are not noted for
being musical notes. (Puzzle maven Sam Loyd, 1914)
* Because Poe wrote on both. (Loyd again)
* Because there is a B in both and an N in neither. (Get it?
Aldous Huxley, 1928)
* Because it slopes with a flap. (Cyril Pearson, undated)

Not bad for amateurs. But the real answer, to which the careers of Poe
and Carroll bear ample testimony, is that you can baffle the billions
with both.

Postscript: In 1976 Carroll admirer Denis Crutch pointed out that in the
1896 preface quoted above, the author had originally written: "It is
nevar put with the wrong end in front." Nevar of course is raven spelled
backward. Big joke! However, said joke did not survive the ministrations
of the proofreaders, who, thinking they understood the author's
intentions better than the author, changed nevar to never in subsequent
editions. The indignities we authors suffer! Sure, it's partly made up
for by the money and groupies, but still, if in some book (e.g., this
one) you come across a line that really clanks, be assured: it was funny
before."

See also http://www.lewiscarroll.org/bull.html

Sorry for a Carrollian interlude but there is always a lot of common
things to be found, including intentional (?) "spelling errors".


Victor Fet




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From: Vladimir Nabokov Forum [mailto:NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU] On
Behalf Of Nabokv-L
Sent: Friday, August 11, 2006 1:37 PM
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Subject: [NABOKV-L] [Fwd: Re: [NABOKV-L] monte-fonte]




-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [NABOKV-L] monte-fonte
Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2006 17:42:22 +0100
From: skb@bootle.biz
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
<mailto:NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
References: <44DA280D.7060200@utk.edu>
<mailto:44DA280D.7060200@utk.edu>

Jansy: switching the first letters of noun-pairs has generated a
dedicated
corpus of weak quips with the template "What's the difference between X
and
Y?"

What's the difference between a goldfish and a goat?"
The goldfish mucks around the fountain.

Note the payoff line is usually omitted -- you are left to deduce what
the goat
does. Is it fanciful to suppose VN was familiar with such wordplay?

The difference between a Russian detective and a sex-maniac?
The former is a Rostov Tec.

skb





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