Stan Kelly-Bootle: The verb
Surrender can be gloriously INTRANSITIVE to Anglophone ears. Whatever
Nabokov is against, he is announcing his eternal opposition. I don’t think his
meaning needs any special dissection. The cry NO SURRENDER has a searing
resonance for me, brought up amidst Catholic-Green/Protestant-Orange strife. The
slogan is embedded in many protest songs.
JM: This is a most
unexpected information (the "gloriously intransitive"
surrender!) that indicates Nabokov's "eternal
opposition."
Returning to the former posting on glory and fame,
in the Ode to Brunanburh, the anglo saxon word for glory is "tyr" ( from
'earldorlangne tyr' literally meaning "the long Mars' ) - or, at
least, this is what I interpret following JLBorges.