Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0008327, Mon, 4 Aug 2003 08:44:46 -0700

Subject
Fw: Correction for Glenn Scheper of Pynchon List
Date
Body
----- Original Message -----
From: "Glenn Scheper" <glenn_scheper@earthlink.net>
>
> ----------------- Message requiring your approval (28
lines) ------------------
> Certainly a cordial enough greeting from Dimitri!
> I was afraid my peculiar view might offend him, a
> son, above all others. But I esteem Vladimir from
> the signs I detect as only a handful of other men
> across epochs, including Jesus, our prime example.
>
> I may have been less than a diligent student, but
> my Russian was taught by the US Army, after which
> I was stationed in Germany and never saw it again.
> I count features on strange cyrillic glyphs, with
> so many representing multiple sibilants, so I say,
> now is that one shsh or zh or ts? I read part way
> into a line of text, and like one treading water,
> forget I can float. Then I start verbalizing rules
> for glyphs, like, That can't be B, because B looks
> like D, so is that the B that is silent or half a
> glyph for the vowel BI? I need Hooked on Phonics.
>
> Maybe a schizophrenic minority interpretation is
> the only access to a domain whose referents are
> denied the majority--transcendental to all folks.
>
> Yours truly,
> Glenn Scheper
> http://home.earthlink.net/~glenn_scheper/
> glenn_scheper + at + earthlink.net
> Copyleft(!) Forward freely.
-------------------------------------------
DN correction

Without wishing to offend anyone, let me say that in some cases clutching at
transliterated straws is what the French call "looking for noon at two
o'clock". When Glenn Scheper (29 July 2003) consulted his new
English-Russian dictionary, his thumb should have noticed that 1) the
Russian word he has in mind for "crackling" etc. is "трещание",
transliterated as "treshchanie", not, as he would have it, "treststanie". So
much for the "three pillars and a tale" (cute but no cigar). And I would
attribute little importance to oral and gastrointestinal nuances, and none
to the schizoid connotation. Yes, I know it is easy to overdo things, and to
get derailed without a thorough knowledge of context, especially with Ada.

With all best wishes,

DN


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