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[NABOKOV-L] ADA: equations, analogies, three swans
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An endless enjoyable task: read and re-read Nabokov's shadows and foreshadows. Then read and re-read notes and commentaries about N's books. Today, from Boyd into ADA istelf. In this novel we find examples about how Nabokov's sentences reveal his mathematical frame of mind, similar to the one that has been brought up here quite recently [ the equation: Darwin or Gauss were as deeply and rapturously involved in their work as Browning or Joyce.] In this case the reader is invited to forward his own interpretation, with no guarantees concerning the truth of his conclusion.
The same, again, in relation to Einstein and Engelwein (cf. BB's Nabokov's ADA, the Place of Consciousness, note 2 to chapter 11 on pages 330-331) or, as Boyd points out, in: "He assaults linear notions of time as motion in one irreversible direction" but "Paradoxically, Van attacks the idea of time as direction while giving his treatise the form of a journey." (pages 189 and 187).
As I understand, VN is expressing the actuality of an idea whose meaning is not in the content of the sentence, but on how it is stylistically rendered.
Take Forest Fork and Van's notes about "time forks" with its events foreshadowing others to be equally foreshadowed next. I lost count but the sensation of "fairy-tale three times" remained, while VN's characters established their "future recollections".
The "three" appears in the "Three Swans" ( Les Trois Cygnes- Signe/Signs/Swans), discussed in older postings.
B.Boyd had mentioned one scene: "Would she look up? All her flowers turned up to him, beaming, and she made the royal-grant gesture of lifting and offering him the mountains, the mist and the lake with three swans." These swans had been "foreshadowed" by: In the lounge, as seen through its entrance, the huge memorable oil - three ample-haunched Ledas swapping lacustrine impressions - had been replaced by a neoprimitive masterpiece showing three yellow eggs and a pair of plumber's gloves on what looked like wet bathroom tiling". These are perhaps the three yellow eggs from which three swans were hatched, or a triplicate mythical mother, Leda, after being seduced by a "Jupiter Olorinus" (mentioned very early as a Baron in the flavita series?).
But three swans foreshadow other dates in ADA: "He put up there at his usual hotel, Les Trois Cygnes [...] in the early afternoon, Dorothy, 'frantically' trying to 'locate' Ada (who after her usual visit to the Three Swans was spending a couple of profitable hours at Paphia's 'Hair and Beauty' Salon) left a message for Van, who got it only late at night when he returned from a trip to Sorcière[...]Then the friendly Fates took a day off ( the three moira? Sorcières?). Or they may bring up a constitutive past event:"...looking at their watches when Marina in a black cloak slipped into Demon's arms and swan-sleigh.", in a scene that juggles with spacetime and the reality of fiction.
Also in ADA a play with logic: "During the next few days, Dorothy used her leisure to spy upon Ada. The woman was sure of three things: that Ada had a lover in Switzerland; that Van was her brother; and that he was arranging for his irresistible sister secret trysts with the person she had loved before her marriage. The delightful phenomenon of all three terms being true, but making nonsense when hashed, provided Van with another source of amusement.The Three Swans overwinged a bastion. Anyone who called, flesh or voice, was told by the concierge or his acolytes that Van was out, that Madame André Vinelander was unknown, and that all they could do was to take a message."
We see that Dorothy was sure of three things and that, "all three terms being true", were "nonsense when hashed".
This sequence reminded me of Freud's comments [ Cf. S. Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, 1900, SE vol. IV, describing the joke in which a man, accused of having damaged the teapot a neighbor had lent, expounded his innocence by warranting that: (1) he had returned the teapot in perfect condition; (2) the teapot was already damaged when he borrowed it; (3) he had never borrowed his neighbor's teapot in the first place. Freud shows that each isolated explanation is acceptable - not the hashed three when simultaneously presented. This anedocte is also mentioned in 1905, on Freud's book on "Jokes and the Unconscious" (ch.II, sec.8 on double-meanings that give rise to false sophisms.) ]
JM
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The same, again, in relation to Einstein and Engelwein (cf. BB's Nabokov's ADA, the Place of Consciousness, note 2 to chapter 11 on pages 330-331) or, as Boyd points out, in: "He assaults linear notions of time as motion in one irreversible direction" but "Paradoxically, Van attacks the idea of time as direction while giving his treatise the form of a journey." (pages 189 and 187).
As I understand, VN is expressing the actuality of an idea whose meaning is not in the content of the sentence, but on how it is stylistically rendered.
Take Forest Fork and Van's notes about "time forks" with its events foreshadowing others to be equally foreshadowed next. I lost count but the sensation of "fairy-tale three times" remained, while VN's characters established their "future recollections".
The "three" appears in the "Three Swans" ( Les Trois Cygnes- Signe/Signs/Swans), discussed in older postings.
B.Boyd had mentioned one scene: "Would she look up? All her flowers turned up to him, beaming, and she made the royal-grant gesture of lifting and offering him the mountains, the mist and the lake with three swans." These swans had been "foreshadowed" by: In the lounge, as seen through its entrance, the huge memorable oil - three ample-haunched Ledas swapping lacustrine impressions - had been replaced by a neoprimitive masterpiece showing three yellow eggs and a pair of plumber's gloves on what looked like wet bathroom tiling". These are perhaps the three yellow eggs from which three swans were hatched, or a triplicate mythical mother, Leda, after being seduced by a "Jupiter Olorinus" (mentioned very early as a Baron in the flavita series?).
But three swans foreshadow other dates in ADA: "He put up there at his usual hotel, Les Trois Cygnes [...] in the early afternoon, Dorothy, 'frantically' trying to 'locate' Ada (who after her usual visit to the Three Swans was spending a couple of profitable hours at Paphia's 'Hair and Beauty' Salon) left a message for Van, who got it only late at night when he returned from a trip to Sorcière[...]Then the friendly Fates took a day off ( the three moira? Sorcières?). Or they may bring up a constitutive past event:"...looking at their watches when Marina in a black cloak slipped into Demon's arms and swan-sleigh.", in a scene that juggles with spacetime and the reality of fiction.
Also in ADA a play with logic: "During the next few days, Dorothy used her leisure to spy upon Ada. The woman was sure of three things: that Ada had a lover in Switzerland; that Van was her brother; and that he was arranging for his irresistible sister secret trysts with the person she had loved before her marriage. The delightful phenomenon of all three terms being true, but making nonsense when hashed, provided Van with another source of amusement.The Three Swans overwinged a bastion. Anyone who called, flesh or voice, was told by the concierge or his acolytes that Van was out, that Madame André Vinelander was unknown, and that all they could do was to take a message."
We see that Dorothy was sure of three things and that, "all three terms being true", were "nonsense when hashed".
This sequence reminded me of Freud's comments [ Cf. S. Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, 1900, SE vol. IV, describing the joke in which a man, accused of having damaged the teapot a neighbor had lent, expounded his innocence by warranting that: (1) he had returned the teapot in perfect condition; (2) the teapot was already damaged when he borrowed it; (3) he had never borrowed his neighbor's teapot in the first place. Freud shows that each isolated explanation is acceptable - not the hashed three when simultaneously presented. This anedocte is also mentioned in 1905, on Freud's book on "Jokes and the Unconscious" (ch.II, sec.8 on double-meanings that give rise to false sophisms.) ]
JM
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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
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/