Subject
Genesis of ADA query
From
Date
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In his essay "on Inspiration" VN says that ADA's first breath was the following passage:
"Sea crashing, retreating with shuffle of pebbles, Juan and beloved young whore--is her name, as they say, Adora? Is she Italian, Roumanian, Irish?--asleep in his lap, his opera cloak puled over her, candle messily burning in its tin cup, next to it a paper-wrapped bunch of long roses, his silk hat on the stone floor near a patch of moonlight, all this in a corner of a decrepit, once palatial whorehouse, Villa Venus, on a rocky Mediterranean coast, a door standing ajar gives on what seems to be a moonlit gallery but is really a half-demolished reception room with a broken outer wall, through a great rip in it the naked sea is heard as a panting space separated from time, it dully booms, dully withdraws dragging is its patter of wet pebbles."
This passage, much expanded, gives rise to chapter 4, Part II.
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My question. Sound effects notwithstanding, this passage strikes me as "painterly." Can anyone suggest a painting or paintings that might underlie it?
"Sea crashing, retreating with shuffle of pebbles, Juan and beloved young whore--is her name, as they say, Adora? Is she Italian, Roumanian, Irish?--asleep in his lap, his opera cloak puled over her, candle messily burning in its tin cup, next to it a paper-wrapped bunch of long roses, his silk hat on the stone floor near a patch of moonlight, all this in a corner of a decrepit, once palatial whorehouse, Villa Venus, on a rocky Mediterranean coast, a door standing ajar gives on what seems to be a moonlit gallery but is really a half-demolished reception room with a broken outer wall, through a great rip in it the naked sea is heard as a panting space separated from time, it dully booms, dully withdraws dragging is its patter of wet pebbles."
This passage, much expanded, gives rise to chapter 4, Part II.
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My question. Sound effects notwithstanding, this passage strikes me as "painterly." Can anyone suggest a painting or paintings that might underlie it?