Subject
Marx frere
From
Date
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On Antiterra Karl Marx (1818-83) is known as Marx pere, the popular author of 'historical' plays (Ada, 2.5). In his poem "Vladimir Il'yich Lenin" (1925) VN's "late namesake" calls Karl Marx "Lenin's elder brother":
Время часы капитала крало.
Побивая прожекторов яркость,
время родило брата Карла, -
старший Ленинский брат Маркс.
Time was stealing the hours of capital.
Beating the search-lights's brightness,
Time gave birth to brother Karl, -
Marx is Lenin's elder brother.
The (imperfect) rhyme kralo (was stealing) - Karla (Karl, acc.) reminds one of the tongue-twister: Karl u Klary ukral korally, Klara u Karla ukrala klarnet (Karl from Klara stole her corals, Klara from Karl stole his clarinet). There is one Klara in Ada:
Romantically inclined handmaids, whose reading consisted of Gwen de Vere and Klara Mertvago, adored Van, adored Ada, adored Ardis's ardors in arbors. (2.7)
Klara Mertvago hints at Pasternak's "Doctor Zhivago", the novel (one of its main characters, Lara Antipov is Zhivago's mistress) known on Antiterra as Les Amours du Docteur Mertvago, a mystical romance by a pastor, and Mertvago Forever. As Vivian Darkbloom explains in his 'Notes to Ada,' zhiv means in Russian 'alive' and mertv 'dead'. In "Vladimir Il'yich Lenin" Mayakovski says that Lenin (who died in 1924) is zhivee vsekh zhivykh (more alive than all the living) and calls Il'yich samyi chelovechnyi chelovek (the most humane human being):
Что он сделал, кто он и откуда
этот самый человечный человек?
What did he do, who is he and where is he from
this most humane human being?
Chelovek is mentioned by Aqua (Marina's poor mad twin sister) in her suicide note:
Similarly, chelovek (human being) must know where he stands and let others know, otherwise he is not even a klok (piece) of a chelovek, neither a he, nor she, but 'a tit of it' as poor Ruby, my little Van, used to say of her scanty right breast. (1.3)
Aqua is Latin for "water". In "Vladimir Il'yich Lenin" Mayakovski says that we all love toloch' vodu v stupe ("to mill the wind," literally: "to crush water in a mortar"):
Мы спим ночь.
Днём совершаем поступки.
Любим свою толочь
воду в своей ступке.
At night we sleep.
In the day-time we perform actions.
We love to mill the wind
with our windmills.
Van's wet nurse, Ruby Black, born Black, was a negro girl. A negro slave flogged to death and his Nile are mentioned in "Vladimir Il'yich Lenin":
Вон среди золотистых плантаций
засеченный вымычал негр.
У - у - у - у - у у - у - у
Нил, мой Нил.
Cf. Van's words to Ada in the Night of the Burning Barn: 'Well, now the Nile is settled stop Speke.' (1.19)
From Ada's letter to Van: Take the fastest flying machine you can rent straight to El Paso, your Ada will be waiting for you there, waving like mad, and we'll continue, by the New World Express, in a suite I'll obtain, to the burning tip of Patagonia, Captain Grant's Horn, a Villa in Verna, my jewel, my agony. Send me an aerogram with one Russian word - the end of my name and wit. (2.1)
"The snows of Russia, the delirium of Patogonia" (sic) are mentioned in "Vladimir Il'yich Lenin":
В снегах России, в бреду Патогонии
расставило время станки потогонные.
According to Mayakovski, Lenin was born not in 1870, but much earlier (probably two hundred years ago):
Далеко давным годов за двести
первые про Ленина восходят вести.
According to Van, a gap of up to a hundred years one way or another existed between the two earths [Terra and Antiterra]; a gap marked by a bizarre confusion of directional signs at the crossroads of passing time with not all the no-longers of one world corresponding to the not-yets of the other. (1.3)
All of which seems to confirm my hypothesis that L in the Antiterran L disaster hints at Lenin.
Alexey Sklyarenko (whose next post will be on "The Holy Family" by Marx & Engels)
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Время часы капитала крало.
Побивая прожекторов яркость,
время родило брата Карла, -
старший Ленинский брат Маркс.
Time was stealing the hours of capital.
Beating the search-lights's brightness,
Time gave birth to brother Karl, -
Marx is Lenin's elder brother.
The (imperfect) rhyme kralo (was stealing) - Karla (Karl, acc.) reminds one of the tongue-twister: Karl u Klary ukral korally, Klara u Karla ukrala klarnet (Karl from Klara stole her corals, Klara from Karl stole his clarinet). There is one Klara in Ada:
Romantically inclined handmaids, whose reading consisted of Gwen de Vere and Klara Mertvago, adored Van, adored Ada, adored Ardis's ardors in arbors. (2.7)
Klara Mertvago hints at Pasternak's "Doctor Zhivago", the novel (one of its main characters, Lara Antipov is Zhivago's mistress) known on Antiterra as Les Amours du Docteur Mertvago, a mystical romance by a pastor, and Mertvago Forever. As Vivian Darkbloom explains in his 'Notes to Ada,' zhiv means in Russian 'alive' and mertv 'dead'. In "Vladimir Il'yich Lenin" Mayakovski says that Lenin (who died in 1924) is zhivee vsekh zhivykh (more alive than all the living) and calls Il'yich samyi chelovechnyi chelovek (the most humane human being):
Что он сделал, кто он и откуда
этот самый человечный человек?
What did he do, who is he and where is he from
this most humane human being?
Chelovek is mentioned by Aqua (Marina's poor mad twin sister) in her suicide note:
Similarly, chelovek (human being) must know where he stands and let others know, otherwise he is not even a klok (piece) of a chelovek, neither a he, nor she, but 'a tit of it' as poor Ruby, my little Van, used to say of her scanty right breast. (1.3)
Aqua is Latin for "water". In "Vladimir Il'yich Lenin" Mayakovski says that we all love toloch' vodu v stupe ("to mill the wind," literally: "to crush water in a mortar"):
Мы спим ночь.
Днём совершаем поступки.
Любим свою толочь
воду в своей ступке.
At night we sleep.
In the day-time we perform actions.
We love to mill the wind
with our windmills.
Van's wet nurse, Ruby Black, born Black, was a negro girl. A negro slave flogged to death and his Nile are mentioned in "Vladimir Il'yich Lenin":
Вон среди золотистых плантаций
засеченный вымычал негр.
У - у - у - у - у у - у - у
Нил, мой Нил.
Cf. Van's words to Ada in the Night of the Burning Barn: 'Well, now the Nile is settled stop Speke.' (1.19)
From Ada's letter to Van: Take the fastest flying machine you can rent straight to El Paso, your Ada will be waiting for you there, waving like mad, and we'll continue, by the New World Express, in a suite I'll obtain, to the burning tip of Patagonia, Captain Grant's Horn, a Villa in Verna, my jewel, my agony. Send me an aerogram with one Russian word - the end of my name and wit. (2.1)
"The snows of Russia, the delirium of Patogonia" (sic) are mentioned in "Vladimir Il'yich Lenin":
В снегах России, в бреду Патогонии
расставило время станки потогонные.
According to Mayakovski, Lenin was born not in 1870, but much earlier (probably two hundred years ago):
Далеко давным годов за двести
первые про Ленина восходят вести.
According to Van, a gap of up to a hundred years one way or another existed between the two earths [Terra and Antiterra]; a gap marked by a bizarre confusion of directional signs at the crossroads of passing time with not all the no-longers of one world corresponding to the not-yets of the other. (1.3)
All of which seems to confirm my hypothesis that L in the Antiterran L disaster hints at Lenin.
Alexey Sklyarenko (whose next post will be on "The Holy Family" by Marx & Engels)
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/