Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0014393, Fri, 15 Dec 2006 10:37:45 -0200

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Re: Royal Weeds; CK's first encounter with goldenrod
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M. Roth wrote: CK's "walk with S to the weedy spot where the haunted barn once stood." Clearly, we are to notice those weeds!

Dear MR and JF: It is very nice to be able to follow a corteous exchange of ideas that also enriches other participants. Thank you.
While in my still lonely path of a Bend Sinister retake [ only CHW seems to have felt the need to return to it and check if VN's head is domed, like Shak's ( not Bacon's) beehive forehead. By the way, CHW, the translator here is not actually VN, but his creature Ember, remember? Ember, of Persian ascendants and, as a translator, one of Ali-Baba's forty thieves...]
I realized that several plants and weeds, in Ada and BS, serve to indicate short-cuts for referencing. Thus, "A lass, salix" ( I have not my copy of BS by me now to get all the letters right) indicates, among other things, Ophelia and the Weeping Willow.
Mysteriously, a loose young girl named Mariette in BS is sometimes linked to Ophelia, to russet Lucette (russ, russet, set and cette, lux + Boticelli), Blanche and Cinderella!
Alas, salicious? Salix, aspirin and migrainous megrims? Ophelia as she appears in Conmal-Ember translations?

Other free-associations:

1.I have no idea why Flaubertian bourgeouis Houmais is connected to Hamlet in BS. I thought it was just a passing joke, but now I'm convinced that it was not.

2. You seem to link flowering weeds, perfumes and butterflies...
Yesterday I visited a "Borboletarium" (Butterfly-greenhouse?) for the first time and was surrounded by flowers and thousands of insect-petals.
I was reminded by expert companions that many butterflies have a procreation cycle in - and enjoy visits to - compost-heaps,garbage and dejecta.
VN would not miss an allusion to that but I, who am not familiar either with Northern plants and insects, was only able to recognize the sunny, honeyed references, like most Nabokovian mentions I find here...
Jansy

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