-------- Original Message --------
Dear Penny McCarthy,
Thank you for bringing attention to my
piece in The Nabokovian. Unfortunately, this is an incomplete version,
for I noticed too late, already after I had submitted my note to the
magazine, that two words in Nabokov's "logogriph," golos
(voice) and slovo (word), also occur in Tyutchev's poem
"Columbus" which in a sense is a key to the whole Ada. Once I had seen
this, I made several further conclusions. For instance, Nabokov
disguises himself in Ada behind the alias "Christopher Vinelander,"
that of Andrey's brother (who never appears in the novel, but is once
mentioned by Greg Erminin), and is thus the heroine's brother-in-law
(or, in Russian, dever' ). I hope to publish someday (maybe,
in Zembla?) the full version of my essay .
I hasten to correct your mistake: I'm
not a "Professor" and not even a "professional" Nabokov specialist. I
hold a master's degree (German language & lit) of the St.
Petersburg State University. I can still remember that my degree thesis
was on Goethe's Wilhelm Meister and Hesse's Glass Bead Game.
I haven't read Sidney's Arcadia, nor
your article in which you compare it to Ada (it would be difficult to
find the issues of MLR in libraries here).
sincerely,
Alexey