Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0015631, Wed, 31 Oct 2007 01:30:42 -0300

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Re: query: serenity and trinity
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Re: [NABOKV-L] query: serenity and trinityOn 30/10/07 04:19, "b.boyd@AUCKLAND.AC.NZ" <b.boyd@AUCKLAND.AC.NZ> wrote:A query: does the pairing of serenity and trinity suggest anything to anyone? I am compiling the next instalments of ADA annotations, to I.28, and wonder why VN's Trinity's Great Court becomes Van's Serenity Court.

Dear List, and B. Boyd

When I thought about Trinity, the word "Trindade" came to my mind and I don't know Spanish to be able to link "Trinity" and "Trinidad". But there are paired islands, Trinidad and Tobago, that indirectly made their appearance in ADA, also in the guise of a pair of names ( Nicot and Tobakoff). Half a millenium ago the reference to "elm" implied "fatherhood" ( Uncle Dan and Demon).
Later we shall also learn that Demon died in an airplane accident over the Caribbean sea (bt. Lisiansky and Laysanov Islands)
I don't know if bringing up the twin islands Trinidad and Tobago, the two Nicot and Tobakoff, Uncle Dan and Demon, Lisiansky and Laysanov has any bearing in the twin words Trinity and Serenity in their relation to Van.

ADA: 'Who cares for Sustermans,' observed Lucette, with something of her uterine sister's knight move of specious response, or a Latin footballer's rovesciata.

No, it's an elm. Half a millennium ago.

'His ancestor,' Van pattered on, 'was the famous or fameux Russian admiral who had an épée duel with Jean Nicot and after whom the Tobago Islands, or the Tobakoff Islands, are named, I forget which, it was so long ago, half a millennium.'



...airplane disaster of the young century, a gigantic flying machine had inexplicably disintegrated at fifteen thousand feet above the Pacific between Lisiansky and Laysanov Islands in the Gavaille region.




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