Subject
Re: Source for _Despair_? (fwd)
Date
Body
Peter Kartsev and I have located a number of congruencies between the
confession of Alfred Arthur Rouse and Despair which indicate that VN
must have had access to the newspaper accounts of the murder in 1930 and
1931. Perhaps the most startling, however, is to be found in the sixth
paragraph from the end of Chapter Ten of Despair, in which Hermann is
caterwauling about the scandal sheet newspapers that report murders and
says: "All that drivel and dirt incensed me at the outset, especially
the fact of my being associated with this or that oaf with vampirish
tastes, who, in his day, had helped to raise the number of sold copies.
There was, for instance, that fellow who burned his car with his
victim's body inside, after having wisely sawed off part of the feet, as
the corpse had turned out to exceed his, the car owner's, measure."
Subtract the Nabokovian twist on the tale, and you have Rouse.
Phil Howerton
confession of Alfred Arthur Rouse and Despair which indicate that VN
must have had access to the newspaper accounts of the murder in 1930 and
1931. Perhaps the most startling, however, is to be found in the sixth
paragraph from the end of Chapter Ten of Despair, in which Hermann is
caterwauling about the scandal sheet newspapers that report murders and
says: "All that drivel and dirt incensed me at the outset, especially
the fact of my being associated with this or that oaf with vampirish
tastes, who, in his day, had helped to raise the number of sold copies.
There was, for instance, that fellow who burned his car with his
victim's body inside, after having wisely sawed off part of the feet, as
the corpse had turned out to exceed his, the car owner's, measure."
Subtract the Nabokovian twist on the tale, and you have Rouse.
Phil Howerton