Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0024613, Sat, 21 Sep 2013 23:02:54 +0300

Subject
Corso Orsini in LATH
Date
Body
COROSO* + SIRIN = CORSO ORSINI (a street at Gandora, in the Tessin, that Vadim crosses a few moments before he gets paralized).

In Kuzmin's Kryl'ya (The Wings, 1908) the Roman street Corso is mentioned. The novella's characters include the musical critic Orsini and Vanya Smurov, a youth whose name brings to mind Smurov, the narrator and main character in The Eye, and Vanya (Varvara's strange diminutive), the girl with whom Smurov is in love. According to Roman Bogdanovich (a character in The Eye), Smurov is "a sexual lefty." Kuzmin (1875-1936), a poet, prose writer and composer was openly gay. Several characters in LATH (including, perhaps, Iris's brother Ivor Black) are "sexual lefties."

KALIOSTRO + LESKOV = KALI + OSTROV + LESKO

Kaliostro - Cagliostro in Russian spelling. Kuzmin is the author of The Marvelous Life of Giuseppe Balsamo, Count Cagliostro (1916).
Kali - the Hindu goddess of death
ostrov - Russ., island
Lesko - Lescaut in Russian spelling. One of Kuzmin's best poems is Nadpis' na knige (Inscription on a Book, 1909), with the dedication to Gumilyov. The book in this charming rondeau is Manon Lescaut (L'Abbe Prevost's L'Histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut, 1731).

*an invented word, khorosho (Russ., good) pronounced with Chinese or Japanese accent ("Vladim Vladimych" Mayakovski is the author of Khorosho, 1927. One of Kuzmin's odes is dedicated to Mayakovski)

Alexey Sklyarenko


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