-----Mensagem Original-----

De: Alexey Sklyarenko

Para: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU

Enviada em: domingo, 22 de dezembro de 2013 18:42

Assunto: [NABOKV-L] certicle storms in Ada

'What was that?' exclaimed Marina, whom certicle storms terrified even more than they did the Antiamberians of Ladore County.

'Sheet lightning,' suggested Van.

'If you ask me,' said Demon, turning on his chair to consider the billowing drapery, 'I'd guess it was a photographer's flash. After all, we have here a famous actress and a sensational acrobat.'

Ada ran to the window. From under the anxious magnolias a white-faced boy flanked by two gaping handmaids stood aiming a camera at the harmless, gay family group. But it was only a nocturnal mirage, not unusual in July. Nobody was taking pictures except Perun, the unmentionable god of thunder. (1.38)

 

In his poem Groza momental'naya navek ("The Thunderstorm Instantaneous Forever") included in Sestra moya zhizn' (My Sister Life) Pasternak, too, has grom (thunder) take pictures:

 

Sto slepyashchikh fotografiy

Noch'yu snyal na pamyat' grom.

In memory [of summer] the thunder took at night

a hundred blinding photographs.

 

In his Vysokaya bolezn' ("The Sublime Disease") Pasternak compares Lenin's govorok (speech) to shorokh moln'i sharovoy (the rustle of a ball lightning).

 

Certicle is an anagram of electric. On Antiterra (Earth's twin planet on which Ada is set) electricity is banned after the L disaster. L is Lenin's (and Lucette's, and Lolita's*) initial. Bliznets v tuchakh ("A Twin in the Thunderclouds," 1914) was Pasternak's first book of poetry. Bliznetsy ("The Twins," 1852) is a poem by Tyutchev

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