Subject
Adamastor
From
Date
Body
Mascodagama’s performance
Brian Boyd: "Van’s singular stage name first evokes the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama (c.1460-1524), the first European to sail to southern and eastern Africa and to India. He is the hero of the epic Os Lusiadas ("The Lusiads," 1572) by Portugal’s greatest poet, Luis Vas de Camoes (Camoens, c. 1524-1580). There Camoes invents a Greek god, Adamastor, as the Spirit of the Cape of Storms (now the Cape of Good Hope), whose domain is the Indian Ocean and who represents the natural dangers Vasco da Gama’s fleet had to face rounding the Cape."
In Memoires d'outre-tombe (Book Twenty Four, chapter 14) Chateaubriand calls Napoleon exiled to St. Helena "the new Adamastor:"
Each step made by the new Adamastor in the Southern Hemisphere can be heard by the inhabitants of the Northern one.
Unlike Chateaubriand, Napoleon (who, like Vasco da Gama, seems to be unknown on Antiterra) is not mentioned in Ada. But he should not be completely neglected. Kim Beauharnais is a kitchen boy and photographer at Ardis; in her first conversation with Van Marina mentions Queen [sic] Josephine (1.5). Josephine Beauharnais was Napoleon's first wife.
Kim Beauharnais was probably one of the arsonists who set fire to the barn near Ardis Hall (1.19); Moscow burnt down when Napoleon was in it.
Mascodagama dances on his hands to the tango tune "Pod znoynym nebom Argentiny." It is the tango that Ostap Bender dances solo in "The Twelve Calf." Ostap has the tattoo on his breast: Napoleon in a cocked hat holding a beer mug. Napoleon's face becomes red when Ostap wrestles with Koreyko.
Адамастор = Ада + матрос
Наполеон + химера + е = хамелеон + пионер + а
Корейко + я = Корея + йок
Адамастор - Adamastor
Ада - Ada
матрос - sailor
Наполеон - Napoleon
химера - chimera (cf. "Adochka, pretty and impure in her flimsy, and Vanichka in gray-flannel suit, with slant-striped school tie, facing the kimera (chimera, camera) side by side, at attention" 2.7)
хамелеон - chameleon (also, a story by Chekhov)
пионер - pioneer; Pioneer (Communist scout)
Корейко - A. I. Koreyko (a secret Soviet millionaire in Ilf & Petrov's "The Golden Calf")
я - I (first person pronoun)
Корея - Corea (cf. Mandelshtam: Когда в далёкую Корею катился русский золотой)
йок - Tatar, no
Alexey Sklyarenko
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Brian Boyd: "Van’s singular stage name first evokes the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama (c.1460-1524), the first European to sail to southern and eastern Africa and to India. He is the hero of the epic Os Lusiadas ("The Lusiads," 1572) by Portugal’s greatest poet, Luis Vas de Camoes (Camoens, c. 1524-1580). There Camoes invents a Greek god, Adamastor, as the Spirit of the Cape of Storms (now the Cape of Good Hope), whose domain is the Indian Ocean and who represents the natural dangers Vasco da Gama’s fleet had to face rounding the Cape."
In Memoires d'outre-tombe (Book Twenty Four, chapter 14) Chateaubriand calls Napoleon exiled to St. Helena "the new Adamastor:"
Each step made by the new Adamastor in the Southern Hemisphere can be heard by the inhabitants of the Northern one.
Unlike Chateaubriand, Napoleon (who, like Vasco da Gama, seems to be unknown on Antiterra) is not mentioned in Ada. But he should not be completely neglected. Kim Beauharnais is a kitchen boy and photographer at Ardis; in her first conversation with Van Marina mentions Queen [sic] Josephine (1.5). Josephine Beauharnais was Napoleon's first wife.
Kim Beauharnais was probably one of the arsonists who set fire to the barn near Ardis Hall (1.19); Moscow burnt down when Napoleon was in it.
Mascodagama dances on his hands to the tango tune "Pod znoynym nebom Argentiny." It is the tango that Ostap Bender dances solo in "The Twelve Calf." Ostap has the tattoo on his breast: Napoleon in a cocked hat holding a beer mug. Napoleon's face becomes red when Ostap wrestles with Koreyko.
Адамастор = Ада + матрос
Наполеон + химера + е = хамелеон + пионер + а
Корейко + я = Корея + йок
Адамастор - Adamastor
Ада - Ada
матрос - sailor
Наполеон - Napoleon
химера - chimera (cf. "Adochka, pretty and impure in her flimsy, and Vanichka in gray-flannel suit, with slant-striped school tie, facing the kimera (chimera, camera) side by side, at attention" 2.7)
хамелеон - chameleon (also, a story by Chekhov)
пионер - pioneer; Pioneer (Communist scout)
Корейко - A. I. Koreyko (a secret Soviet millionaire in Ilf & Petrov's "The Golden Calf")
я - I (first person pronoun)
Корея - Corea (cf. Mandelshtam: Когда в далёкую Корею катился русский золотой)
йок - Tatar, no
Alexey Sklyarenko
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/