-----Original Message-----
From: Jerry Katsell [mailto:jerry3@adelphia.net]
Sent: Sunday, July 02, 2006 8:50 PM
To: 'NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU'
Subject: Speaking of Ties and "Os" and Bows

 

                       

 

            Dear List, Dmitri and Bill Delaney,

 

Sorry if I’ve been misleading or unclear. Nabokov, of course, was not known as a wearer of bow ties. I’ve never ever seen a picture of him wearing one, at Cornell or elsewhere. I made up the sentence: “Nabokov, wearing his signature butterfly blue bow tie, spoke off the cuff about the difficulties of pronouncing his family name.” My purpose was to illustrate the near twinning of the last two syllables of the surname, Nabokov, and “spoke off”. Also, I tried to hide, apparently all too well because I was obscure, the name Nabokov in “…his signature butterfly blue bow tie, spoke off…” [signature… bow… spoke off] I thought I was giving a hint with “signature,” in the word’s other meaning of one’s signed name. As to “blue bow tie,” I was thinking of the enlightening book Nabokov’s Blues by Kurt Johnson and Steve Coates, as well as the strikingly beautiful picture of a male Karner Blue butterfly (aka Lycaeides samuelis Nabokov) in the book Nabokov at Cornell.

 

Once again, I apologize for any confusion. My intent was to come up with near equivalents in English that would aid an English speaker with no Russian to pronounce “Nabokov” as closely as possible to the way the surname should be pronounced.

 

Best wishes to all,

 

Jerry Katsell