An interviewer once saw fit to lump Vladimir Nabokov with his illustrious
contemporaries Jorge Luis Borges and Samuel Beckett. Nabokov replied that the
comparison made him feel like a "thief between two
Christs."
JM:Two different readings of
VN's texts plus S K-B's last posting engendered a juxtaposition
of themes.
In S.Klein's attach I read of VN impatiently
comparing both Borges and Beckett to "Christ" ( although I'm sure VN didn't
mean "martyrs" at this point, more probably as
fake "Messiahs").
I had mentioned TRLSK's martyrs ( St.Sebastian,
St.Joan...) and, after re-reading Dmitri Nabokov's appendix to "The
Enchanter", I was reminded of Juanita Dark ( Jeanne d'Arc,
St.Joan) in relation to Lolita.
At the same time I had been
searching something related to TT's Musset's lines, as presented
in Hugh's: 'my mother's Canadian accent, though I hear it
clearly when I whisper French words. Ouvre ta robe, Déjanire that I may
mount sur mon bucher..." when I became aware of
malicious meaning related to "Oleg" and other "O"s related to saints and
governesses.
Just for starters: if "being
burned at the stake", as in Musset, means sex (entering a hot woman), VN's
considerations about the name Juanita, before choosing Lolita, are
already revelatory of copulation and violence.
It might be important to examine VN's
religious imagery for this hint about the proximity bt. sex and
death.
And it occurred to me that TRLSK's quip on Olga
Olegovna Orlova's name forshadows VN's choice of the name Oleg in
PF.