Subject
Fw: other Nabokov sightings for Nabopops J-4/ sent again
From
Date
Body
----- Forwarded message from jansy@aetern.us -----
Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2005 16:43:53 -0300
From: Jansy Berndt de Souza Mello <jansy@aetern.us>
Reply-To: Jansy Berndt de Souza Mello <jansy@aetern.us>
Subject: Fw: other Nabokov sightings for Nabopops J-4/ sent again
To: chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu
----- Original Message -----
From: Jansy Berndt de Souza Mello
To: chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu
Sent: Friday, July 22, 2005 12:01 PM
Subject: other Nabokov sightings
Dear List,
After having chosen light reading for my vacation at the beach of Ipanema, in
Rio´s mild winter, I came across a book with six references to Nabokov.
The title of the American edition was: " Madame Bovary, c´est moi", selected by
André Bernard, in a 2004 edition which I read in Portuguese.
The first one was a direct quotation ( but there was no mention of VN´s work nor
does his name appear in the bibliographic listing of "sources". Perhaps Mr.
Bernard has not yet read VN ) :
[Characters are] the private museum of stuffed people that every thankful
author keeps somewhere in his lodgings" ( I could not find the original to
quote or refer to it directly) .
The second appeared in a reference to Truman Capote: " Capote was sued by a
woman named Golightly; Capote ignored it and added that she seemed too old and
ridiculous, it was like Joan Crawford deciding she was the model for "Lolita" .
The third one is a rather long and authoritative (?) description of Nabokov´s
novel "Lolita". An excerpt: " Nabokov destroyed the manuscript byt several
years later he returned to the same theme and worked on a novel where the young
girl was called Juanita Dark. In 1954 he had finished the novel - at that time
it was named The Kingdom by the Sea - and tried to find an editor"...
The fourth is a caption inside a square with the title:
A Character that has the same name and surname: Humbert Humbert ( Lolita )
In the fifth he is discussing Randal Patrick McMurphy, in the 1962 book ( One
Flew over the Cuckoo´s Nest):
"He tried to create a character that would be as memorable as Holden Caulfield
in Catcher in the Rye or like Humbert Humbert in Lolita, someone who jumped out
of the pages to glare at the reader" .
The sixth comes inside a square with the list of "eponymous titles" such as
Rebecca, Justine, Martin Chuzzlewit... Lolita...
Wherever I go I come across some kind of haunting reference to VN!
Jansy
----- End forwarded message -----