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Re: Heinrich Heine, Ilf and Petrov and VN
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Alexey Sklyarenko: The hero of Ilf and Petrov's "The 12 Chairs" and "The Golden Calf" is the charming rogue Ostap Bender. Interestingly, Herr Bender (a loser, like his namesake, but a less cheerful one) is a character in Heine's poem Frau Mette (1830)... (Nach dem Dänischen)" Herr Peter und Bender saßen beim Wein, ..."Ich war heut Nacht am Nixenfluß,/ "Ich war heut nacht im Elfenwald, Zu schaun den Elfenreigen..."Die Elfen tanzen im Monat Mai...Jetzt aber herrscht der kalte Herbst/Und heult der Wind in den Wäldern."
JM: I did some checking before I ventured to add a story about another Bender, a Viennese familiar to every psychologist, ie: Lauretta Bender. Lucky me, for her husband, Paul Schilder, was killed by a motor-car, not by a cab-horse (the latter happened with Gaudí in Barcelona).
Anyway, thanks for bringing up Heine's poem (he was very critical of the German mania of elves and fairies while he explained German Romantics to the French), in the full glory of "Elfenwald" and "Nixenfluss".
It's interesting to note that Mr. Bender corrected his wandering wife's stories, setting the events in their correct season (ie: the elves only dance in May and the season was, at that time,Fall.)
btw: Nobody answered me why was there an autumnal breeze blowing through Shade's poem at that point (query in 18 May 2010 related to "Raised by a trillion crickets in the fall".) According to Gary Lipon's theory, Shade was sane at the time when he wrote lines 115/116. He was then reminiscing about his childhood and the passage of time, so "autumn" may nicely contrast with his life's springtime. And yet?
It's interesting to notice that Shade will return to Dr. Sutton at the close of his poem ( line 119 "That’s Dr. Sutton’s light. That’s the Great Bear."**). In this Canto he already mentions death with the familiar lines that were used in the opening chapter of Speak,Memory ( "Outstare the stars. Infinite foretime and/Infinite aftertime: above your head/They close like giant wings, and you are dead"), refer to "making water" (cp.with "here Papa pisses", CK note on line 347), and return to his first line with a slight alteration (132/33):
I was the shadow of the waxwing slain
By feigned remoteness in the windowpane.
PS: When I checked the Nab-L archives, to retrieve the autumnal question, I came to this interesting posting: "In Chapter Seven of The Hound of the Baskervilles, Mr. Stapleton of Merripit House, a naturalist carrying a butterfly net and specimen box, addresses Dr. Watson with a laugh: "'That is the great Grimpen Mire,'... Even in dry seasons it is a danger to cross it, but after these autumn rains it is an awful place."
the posting from the Pynchon list, dates from Mon, 28 Jul 2003. It extracts from the OED 2nd edition: grimpen [Etym. uncertain.] A marshy area.
1902 A. Conan Doyle Hound of Baskervilles vii. 153 Life has become like that great Grimpen Mire, with little green patches everywhere into which one may sink and with no guide to point the track.
1940 T. S. Eliot East Coker ii. 10 In a dark wood, in a bramble,/On the edge of a grimpen, where is no secure foothold.
1968 W. S. Baring-Gould Annotated Sherlock Holmes II. xxxvi. 47/ As is well known, Watson's "Great Grimpen Mire" is Grimspound Bog, three miles to the north and west of Widecombe-in-the-Moor.
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* - "The sun attains/ Old Dr. Sutton’s last two windowpanes" Isn't this reference to "windowpane" on lines 985/86 suggestive that PF's line 1000 would not close with a similar "windowpane"????????? Shade could be as mad as you will...but he wouldn't allow this to happen, or would he?
.
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JM: I did some checking before I ventured to add a story about another Bender, a Viennese familiar to every psychologist, ie: Lauretta Bender. Lucky me, for her husband, Paul Schilder, was killed by a motor-car, not by a cab-horse (the latter happened with Gaudí in Barcelona).
Anyway, thanks for bringing up Heine's poem (he was very critical of the German mania of elves and fairies while he explained German Romantics to the French), in the full glory of "Elfenwald" and "Nixenfluss".
It's interesting to note that Mr. Bender corrected his wandering wife's stories, setting the events in their correct season (ie: the elves only dance in May and the season was, at that time,Fall.)
btw: Nobody answered me why was there an autumnal breeze blowing through Shade's poem at that point (query in 18 May 2010 related to "Raised by a trillion crickets in the fall".) According to Gary Lipon's theory, Shade was sane at the time when he wrote lines 115/116. He was then reminiscing about his childhood and the passage of time, so "autumn" may nicely contrast with his life's springtime. And yet?
It's interesting to notice that Shade will return to Dr. Sutton at the close of his poem ( line 119 "That’s Dr. Sutton’s light. That’s the Great Bear."**). In this Canto he already mentions death with the familiar lines that were used in the opening chapter of Speak,Memory ( "Outstare the stars. Infinite foretime and/Infinite aftertime: above your head/They close like giant wings, and you are dead"), refer to "making water" (cp.with "here Papa pisses", CK note on line 347), and return to his first line with a slight alteration (132/33):
I was the shadow of the waxwing slain
By feigned remoteness in the windowpane.
PS: When I checked the Nab-L archives, to retrieve the autumnal question, I came to this interesting posting: "In Chapter Seven of The Hound of the Baskervilles, Mr. Stapleton of Merripit House, a naturalist carrying a butterfly net and specimen box, addresses Dr. Watson with a laugh: "'That is the great Grimpen Mire,'... Even in dry seasons it is a danger to cross it, but after these autumn rains it is an awful place."
the posting from the Pynchon list, dates from Mon, 28 Jul 2003. It extracts from the OED 2nd edition: grimpen [Etym. uncertain.] A marshy area.
1902 A. Conan Doyle Hound of Baskervilles vii. 153 Life has become like that great Grimpen Mire, with little green patches everywhere into which one may sink and with no guide to point the track.
1940 T. S. Eliot East Coker ii. 10 In a dark wood, in a bramble,/On the edge of a grimpen, where is no secure foothold.
1968 W. S. Baring-Gould Annotated Sherlock Holmes II. xxxvi. 47/ As is well known, Watson's "Great Grimpen Mire" is Grimspound Bog, three miles to the north and west of Widecombe-in-the-Moor.
.............................................................................................................................................................................
* - "The sun attains/ Old Dr. Sutton’s last two windowpanes" Isn't this reference to "windowpane" on lines 985/86 suggestive that PF's line 1000 would not close with a similar "windowpane"????????? Shade could be as mad as you will...but he wouldn't allow this to happen, or would he?
.
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Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
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Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
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