Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0010840, Sun, 19 Dec 2004 18:42:09 -0800

Subject
Re: Fwd: TT-26 Introductory Notes
Date
Body

>

Some of my comments with a few patches on to Akiko's usual fine
matrix for this ultimate chapter

> ----- Forwarded message from a-nakata@courante.plala.or.jp -----
> Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2004 23:13:35 +0900
> From: Akiko Nakata <a-nakata@courante.plala.or.jp>
> Reply-To: Akiko Nakata <a-nakata@courante.plala.or.jp>

100.07 "a new homely girl" -- more likely English would be
either "a homely new girl" or perhaps "a new, homely girl"

>
> 100.18: "tangled time" might be a pun on *A Tangled Tale* by Lewis
> Carroll whose middle name, Ludwidge, appears in Ch. 12.

I believe he spelled it "Lutwidge"
>
> 100.21-22: if ins and outs, doors and beds still endured: "Ins and outs"
> probably has another meaning, but I leave it to John.

"ins and outs [of].. beds" seems quite clear: no need for a triple
meaning!

>
> 101.01-02: which shone through the double kix: Brian Boyd's note to "kix":
> "The husk of case of a chrysalis; hence, a protective covering."
> The double kix literally stands for the box and the wrapping paper. It is
> also a kind of double cocoon that warps both time (we are looking at the
> figurine that we saw 18 years ago) and space (as if it were miniature
> Armande ).

I hear a reverberation of "double helix", but then my ears are not my
best bit of equipment.
>
101.12 Americans will first understand "commode" as "toilet"

>
> 101.13: (sericanette): Seric, archaic, "Chinese." In a "Words" file Nabokov
> kept, he marked off as used in TT "Sericana, region of SW China (in Milton)"
> (Brian Boyd's note to the LoA edition).
>
> Q: Why does VN use the word here?

One recalls that James Joyce kept a number of notebooks containing lists
of words and phrases (often from many other languages) names, etc.
On part of his method of composition for Finnegans Wake was to add these
into the earlier manuscript "preliminary" versions of the various
sub-part, carefully crossing out the words thus used, in a variety
of different colored pencils. Scholars engaged in "genetic criticism"
of the Wake have industriously studied this aspect of its ontogeny'
>
102.03 Appel would surely glossed "gousset" as French for armpit.
> >

102.13 "shallow hollow in a pillow" cute word play
>
102.29=30 "her...dawning through the limpid door" -- seems to invoke
Romeo and Juliet "what light through yonder window breaks? It is the
east and Juliet is the sun."

(I think Akiko's next few items should be renumbered as being on page
103 -- another of my distasteful quibbles: as per 101.18 supra)


> 102.21-22: The fire, . . . and then helped up by lighter fluid: Lighter
> fluid is, of course, the fluid for a lighter. On the other hand, "lighter"
> suggests Armande, who was described as "lightly followed light Jacques" (Ch.
> 14).

And lighter fluid is a favorite for arsonists "lighting" fires.
>

> 103.15: This is, I believe, *it*: The italicized "it" stands for something
> unspeakable (Wittgenstein again!). In the world of TT, where we (or they)
> have no mystery and everything is transparent, the only thing the narrator
> cannot name is this *it*. I would like to write more about that later.

And of course the pronout "it" is in good company with "You" person,
and with the Russian pronoun "Ya" -- and we might want to include the
French "on" which is commonly used as a first person plural pronoun"
>

> Thank you very much for reading all!
>
> Akiko

And I want to express my thanks and admiration for our "fearless leader"
Akiko.

John

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