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Fw: IPH & Blavatsky
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Carolyn Kunin" <chaiselongue@earthlink.net>
>
> ----------------- Message requiring your approval (27
lines) ------------------
>
> Dear Suellen Stringer-Hye,
>
> Madame Blavatsky (her married name,* but it suits her) was hardly an
> aristocrat. If you can get hold of a real biography (i.e. not written by a
> Thesophist) you will find her life was quite a hoot.
>
> She is apparently still going strong. There is a Theosophist Society
> publishing house here in Pasadena, and I believe some of her ashes are
here
> as well.
>
> I have detected echoes of Helena Petrovna in VV, though, you are certainly
> right about that, and IPH certainly seems very TheosoPHI**cal.
>
> Carolyn
>
> *from her first marriage that didn't "take."
> **I was taught to pronounce it like "pfee."
>
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Stringer-Hye, Suellen" <suellen.stringer-hye@vanderbilt.edu>
>
> I have often thought that IPH might be (amongst other things) a
> humorous critique of Theosophy founded by the Russian aristocrat
> Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831-1891)and popular in Russia during
> Nabokov's childhood.
>
From: "Carolyn Kunin" <chaiselongue@earthlink.net>
>
> ----------------- Message requiring your approval (27
lines) ------------------
>
> Dear Suellen Stringer-Hye,
>
> Madame Blavatsky (her married name,* but it suits her) was hardly an
> aristocrat. If you can get hold of a real biography (i.e. not written by a
> Thesophist) you will find her life was quite a hoot.
>
> She is apparently still going strong. There is a Theosophist Society
> publishing house here in Pasadena, and I believe some of her ashes are
here
> as well.
>
> I have detected echoes of Helena Petrovna in VV, though, you are certainly
> right about that, and IPH certainly seems very TheosoPHI**cal.
>
> Carolyn
>
> *from her first marriage that didn't "take."
> **I was taught to pronounce it like "pfee."
>
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Stringer-Hye, Suellen" <suellen.stringer-hye@vanderbilt.edu>
>
> I have often thought that IPH might be (amongst other things) a
> humorous critique of Theosophy founded by the Russian aristocrat
> Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831-1891)and popular in Russia during
> Nabokov's childhood.
>