Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0020816, Sat, 2 Oct 2010 13:26:39 -0300

Subject
Re: Nabokov's eyes
Date
Body
Re: [NABOKV-L] Nabokov's eyes
Stan K-B to JM: "enjoyed reading all your citations where VN’s characters have Hazel(ic) eyes. Your next MISSION, if you dare accept it, is to find ALL references where VN describes eyes that are NOT-hazel(ic)! (Google’s Boolean tools may be stretched?).Next, list ALL the specific eye-colour names used by VN. Simplify names and calculate percentages. Finally, and hardest (Google offers no help), ponder if the choice of eye-colour has any SIGNIFICANCE, e.g., providing CLUES to VN’s narratival intentions, or affecting how we perceive the characters thus described."

JM: Now, in your ice blue green tinted eyes, I've become a woman with a mission (ie: the deconstruction of selfsame mission). You forgot the importance of Lolita's eyes and the wordplay that ensues from it ( hazel is more often than not green/blue, not brown) eyes are "vair" (verre, vert,vrai, gray, furry like the animal mentioned in Pnin).

Sandy! SES! Great to find you back. Thanks, Steve for your stoic patience and... sorry for the various postings on the same theme that, by accident, cluttered today's Nab-mail .
I'll return some other time with the quotes about "vair" (Lolita and Pnin) but, with no google-aid, I won't be able to provide any "narratival intention" in VN, except for his various ways of indicating his own hazel-hued eyes shining through his female characters more often than not. A gender issue?

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