Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0019896, Sat, 24 Apr 2010 18:30:02 -0300

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Re: Two Early PF Newspaper Items
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Tom (Rymour) Having applied my mind to the problem, let me provide a closely-reasoned and succinct solution: Old McNab used that particular noun, "pond" -- because he needed a rhyme for "blond".
Hugs and kisses, PS: I challenge anyone to form an anagram from either word.

JM: To respond like a true blond chic chick, I must needs ponder the egg before any anagrammatic homelet.

In the meantime, a query to all:
T.S.Eliot wrote a note for the last verse of his first Canto (Burial of the Dead) of "The Waste Land," (often suggested in PF) by appropriating and translating C.Baudelaire's famous dedication. Eliot chose to translate "mon semblable" as "my double".
In Portuguese we find the word for " mon semblable" (" meu semelhante") applied as, in English, in the proverb "love thy neighbour" ( the implied "similarity" indicating shared humanity and not a replication, like in "double").
Eliot's choice may have ellicited some kind of criticism from Nabokov (who spoke French as well as he spoke English).
(a) Is there a better word for "semblable" in English? The French "vraisemblable" in English appears related to "verisimilitude" (here it's closer to "doubles" than to "neighbours");
(b) Could Nabokov's choice to have Kinbote as Shade's neighbour also in any way implicate "his double" (in support of the split-person theories)?

Cf. Eliot's note: Baudelaire, Preface to Fleurs du Mal.

C'est l'Ennui! ....
Tu le connais, lecteur, ce monstre délicat,
Hypocrite lecteur! mon semblable, mon frère!

Eliot's translation:
It's boredom! ....
You know him, reader, this dainty monster,
Hypocritical reader! my double, my brother!







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