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Re: Krolik and other animals
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A.Sklyarenko: A short addendum to my "leporine" article in Zembla: Not everybody whose name is Krolik ("rabbit") belongs to the leporine family... Dr Krolik's brother in Ada, Karol, or Karapars, Krolik, a doctor of philosophy, born in Turkey, isn't a rabbit, but rather a black panther... It seems that he, not Van, was Ada's first lover...Ada must be thinking of him when she complains, after their violent love-making, that Van hurt her "like a tiger Turk" (2.8).
David Krol: Krol also means king on Polish. It is kral in Czech (I am an American currently living in Prague...). It is also my understanding that Krol comes from all those words like Caesar, Kaiser, Tsar, Karl, Charles, Carol, etc.
JM: Is there a relation bt. this Karapars Krolik (panther, tiger Turk) and the burning barn sentence when Van was "pushing against her like that soldier behind in the queue.// First time I hear about him. I thought old Mr Nymphobottomus had been my only predecessor//.Last spring. Trip to town. French theater matinée."? I missed this point altogether.
When I first read Alexey's post, I was reminded of Blake's Tyger (in particular: "Did he smile his work to see?//Did he who made the Lamb make thee?"), in which the predator stands for "evil" in contrast to the innocent sacrificial "lamb". Might the poor rabbits, suffering under the spell of a serpent (as it was explained by Appel's note in connection to Humbert Humbert's serpent-like powers of seduction) be in any way related to wooly defenceless lambs?
After David Krol's additional information on Krol, Karl, Charles, Kaiser and the Polish word for king ( with the "restoration theme" and various King Charlesses) I started to wonder if, in a clumsily devious way, the leporines would indicate the theme of fallen kings or czars... (And yet, the links which he offers for Krol, Karl and Kaiser don't seem to be etymologically orthodox, or are they? Names are problematic ( Levy-Strauss stated that their etymologies cannot be established) but otherwise they are a rich source of displacements and puns. As Nabokov once acknowledged in Ada: "tropes are the dreams of language." (and here he sides with Lacan!)
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David Krol: Krol also means king on Polish. It is kral in Czech (I am an American currently living in Prague...). It is also my understanding that Krol comes from all those words like Caesar, Kaiser, Tsar, Karl, Charles, Carol, etc.
JM: Is there a relation bt. this Karapars Krolik (panther, tiger Turk) and the burning barn sentence when Van was "pushing against her like that soldier behind in the queue.// First time I hear about him. I thought old Mr Nymphobottomus had been my only predecessor//.Last spring. Trip to town. French theater matinée."? I missed this point altogether.
When I first read Alexey's post, I was reminded of Blake's Tyger (in particular: "Did he smile his work to see?//Did he who made the Lamb make thee?"), in which the predator stands for "evil" in contrast to the innocent sacrificial "lamb". Might the poor rabbits, suffering under the spell of a serpent (as it was explained by Appel's note in connection to Humbert Humbert's serpent-like powers of seduction) be in any way related to wooly defenceless lambs?
After David Krol's additional information on Krol, Karl, Charles, Kaiser and the Polish word for king ( with the "restoration theme" and various King Charlesses) I started to wonder if, in a clumsily devious way, the leporines would indicate the theme of fallen kings or czars... (And yet, the links which he offers for Krol, Karl and Kaiser don't seem to be etymologically orthodox, or are they? Names are problematic ( Levy-Strauss stated that their etymologies cannot be established) but otherwise they are a rich source of displacements and puns. As Nabokov once acknowledged in Ada: "tropes are the dreams of language." (and here he sides with Lacan!)
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/