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Zemblan Grammar, is, of course,\n a reference to Vla d imir Nabokov\\udcc2\\udcb9s 1962 novel ...
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Re: [NABOKV-L] Zemblan Grammar, is, of course, a reference to Vla dimir Nabokov’s 1962 novel ...Stan K-Bootle [to Sergei] "idioms being the source of much humour, one might say that, unlike Jesus, when St Peter ventured out of his boat onto Lake Galilee, he was “skating on thin ice.” [on Alfina's comment about Zemblanese] "my only objection to this review of “Zemblan Grammar” is the derogatory tone of “mostly a mash-up of Russian, Germanic/Scandinavian, and Anglo Saxon.” [...and ...]to remind you not to confuse “lexis” with “grammar.”[...]VN (ubiquitous as Jansy notes) gets mentioned in last Saturday’s Times2 review by Leo Robson [...] “There is a vibrant, if marginal, tradition of writers who work within self-imposed formal or linguistic constraints. It includes Samuel Beckett, Italo Calvino and Vladimir Nabokov, but its most accomplished figure is George Perec who wrote La Disparition, a novel without a single use of the letter ‘e.’ The days of Perec and the experimental coterie Oulipo may seem distant but Christian Bo:x has revived their spirit ... ” I see little relevance to VN’s creative word-play. Discuss."
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JM: I understand Sergei's point. He is denouncing something similar to what Borges once described as "the sleepy-wink in a metaphor".
S.Soloviev departed from VN's reference to a miracle described in the New Testament that has been joined by VN to the image of insects walking over a thin film of water. Harris' "thin ice" is not an elegant or apt image to refer to this connection. Besides, he also seems to have missed VN's point in "Transparent Things".
( In another warm-weather country, Brazil, we say "palpos de aranha" to refer to "skating on thin ice" (in the sense of being "in a pickle") and this suggests the exact image of a spider with its soft cushioned paws ("palpos") moving over the water - but this way off VN's original analogy... )
Like Stan, I cannot see the relevance of comparing VN and French "literary constraints" . The only vowels in Perec's name are "e" and he once stated that he needed such constraints to be able to write and, obviously, this is not something he and VN shared. VN enjoyed math and chess games, they create a different kind of challenge (would Stan consider these tactics as some kind of "constraint"?) Someone in the Pynchon list * considered this discipline as coming closer to R.Frost, something equally debatable including how VN would "rank himself" in relation to Frost...
PS
My answer to B.Boyd's comments on Osberg, today, failed to mention [ in relation to Darkbloom: “Osberg: another good-natured anagram, scrambling the name of a writer with whom the author of Lolita has been rather comically compared.] that Borges' scramble into "Osberg" had really been mentioned by none other than "Vivian Darkbloom"...
We all know that VD is VN's own scrambled name : ie - when he (VN) "scrambles" both authors' name ( his own and Borges') this is somehow a proof of his "good-natured" acceptance of a "comic comparison"...
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* Former N-L postings related to OULIPO ( Ouvroir de Littérature Potentielle"):
1.Mon, 28 Jul 2003 11:23:49 -0700 From: Malignd ( in From: "pynchon-l-digest" forwarded to N-L by Don B.Johnson)
"Shade ranked himself behind Frost. Probably VN would too, probably so would the rest of us. Pertinent to this issue of rhyme --Frost wrote in often complex rhyme schemes because he believed strongly in form, and because he liked the challenge of writing within formal restraint. I'm not sure that makes him anti-modern; on the basis of the above he might have joined Oulipo."
2. 04 de Mar de 2008: After reading once more "The Vane Sisters" (1959), I was reminded of Italo Calvino's 1979 novel[...] It is part of a project that some connected to "Oulipo" ( Queneau's group) with research into mathematics and new forms of writing and others to the "aesthetics of reception" [...]Has any Nabokov scholar worked with VN's metalinguistics and hypernovels in connection to Calvino?"
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JM: I understand Sergei's point. He is denouncing something similar to what Borges once described as "the sleepy-wink in a metaphor".
S.Soloviev departed from VN's reference to a miracle described in the New Testament that has been joined by VN to the image of insects walking over a thin film of water. Harris' "thin ice" is not an elegant or apt image to refer to this connection. Besides, he also seems to have missed VN's point in "Transparent Things".
( In another warm-weather country, Brazil, we say "palpos de aranha" to refer to "skating on thin ice" (in the sense of being "in a pickle") and this suggests the exact image of a spider with its soft cushioned paws ("palpos") moving over the water - but this way off VN's original analogy... )
Like Stan, I cannot see the relevance of comparing VN and French "literary constraints" . The only vowels in Perec's name are "e" and he once stated that he needed such constraints to be able to write and, obviously, this is not something he and VN shared. VN enjoyed math and chess games, they create a different kind of challenge (would Stan consider these tactics as some kind of "constraint"?) Someone in the Pynchon list * considered this discipline as coming closer to R.Frost, something equally debatable including how VN would "rank himself" in relation to Frost...
PS
My answer to B.Boyd's comments on Osberg, today, failed to mention [ in relation to Darkbloom: “Osberg: another good-natured anagram, scrambling the name of a writer with whom the author of Lolita has been rather comically compared.] that Borges' scramble into "Osberg" had really been mentioned by none other than "Vivian Darkbloom"...
We all know that VD is VN's own scrambled name : ie - when he (VN) "scrambles" both authors' name ( his own and Borges') this is somehow a proof of his "good-natured" acceptance of a "comic comparison"...
.........................................................................................................................................
* Former N-L postings related to OULIPO ( Ouvroir de Littérature Potentielle"):
1.Mon, 28 Jul 2003 11:23:49 -0700 From: Malignd ( in From: "pynchon-l-digest" forwarded to N-L by Don B.Johnson)
"Shade ranked himself behind Frost. Probably VN would too, probably so would the rest of us. Pertinent to this issue of rhyme --Frost wrote in often complex rhyme schemes because he believed strongly in form, and because he liked the challenge of writing within formal restraint. I'm not sure that makes him anti-modern; on the basis of the above he might have joined Oulipo."
2. 04 de Mar de 2008: After reading once more "The Vane Sisters" (1959), I was reminded of Italo Calvino's 1979 novel[...] It is part of a project that some connected to "Oulipo" ( Queneau's group) with research into mathematics and new forms of writing and others to the "aesthetics of reception" [...]Has any Nabokov scholar worked with VN's metalinguistics and hypernovels in connection to Calvino?"
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/