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Re: Query: PF's pirouetting nymph?
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I didn't write as clearly as I might've, though others apparently
hit upon my meaning. I wasn't suggesting that the name of the model
for the nymph might be discovered, but only that the model - in the
sense of the commercial in its entirety, the image in toto - might
have been a creation of the author's, albeit sparked by a real
example. Btw, in the 60s there were numerous spoofs, most notably by
the British pop artist Richard Hamilton, of toilet paper commercials
on the telly in America...the absurdity of the Arcadian nymphs amid
their flower'd dells standing in for the terribly quotidian purpose
and use of the paper. Which N. was apparently prescient of in the 50s!
Yours in coeval memory,
On Oct 31, 2006, at 4:10 PM, Andrew Brown wrote:
> I don’t think D. Barton Johnson, a major figure in Nabokov studies
> and a founder of the N-list, was asking for the name of a real life
> model for the nymph. He was asking for an identification of the
> toiletry inside “an altar in a wood.”
>
> I was born in 1954 and, using my earliest memories, I picture the
> “altar” to be a decorative sink countertop surmounted by a shell-
> shaped mirror, larger and more elaborate than a mere medicine
> cabinet mirror. In the cabinetry adjacent to the mirror one would
> find commercial beauty and health care products from Chanel and
> Revlon, as well as facial creams by Pacquins (my mother’s
> favorite, and a scent that, to me, has a Proustian mnemonic power)
> to “medicine’s” such as Miltown or Seconal, for one’s beauty
> sleep, and Benzedrine for keeping that youthful figure nice and slim.
Steven
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hit upon my meaning. I wasn't suggesting that the name of the model
for the nymph might be discovered, but only that the model - in the
sense of the commercial in its entirety, the image in toto - might
have been a creation of the author's, albeit sparked by a real
example. Btw, in the 60s there were numerous spoofs, most notably by
the British pop artist Richard Hamilton, of toilet paper commercials
on the telly in America...the absurdity of the Arcadian nymphs amid
their flower'd dells standing in for the terribly quotidian purpose
and use of the paper. Which N. was apparently prescient of in the 50s!
Yours in coeval memory,
On Oct 31, 2006, at 4:10 PM, Andrew Brown wrote:
> I don’t think D. Barton Johnson, a major figure in Nabokov studies
> and a founder of the N-list, was asking for the name of a real life
> model for the nymph. He was asking for an identification of the
> toiletry inside “an altar in a wood.”
>
> I was born in 1954 and, using my earliest memories, I picture the
> “altar” to be a decorative sink countertop surmounted by a shell-
> shaped mirror, larger and more elaborate than a mere medicine
> cabinet mirror. In the cabinetry adjacent to the mirror one would
> find commercial beauty and health care products from Chanel and
> Revlon, as well as facial creams by Pacquins (my mother’s
> favorite, and a scent that, to me, has a Proustian mnemonic power)
> to “medicine’s” such as Miltown or Seconal, for one’s beauty
> sleep, and Benzedrine for keeping that youthful figure nice and slim.
Steven
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
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