Subject
some thoughts on TT-6 (fwd)
From
Date
Body
------------------ 'he was delighted to discover three thousand dollars
in his father's battered, but plump, wallet.'
Maybe it's the effect of having read ADA, but as soon
as I read this, I knew what one of Hugh's first uses for
the money would be.
Thinking about prostitutes in Nabokov's writings led me
to recall the word 'whorelet' in ADA (I.4; 33.17) and to
realise (or to hypothesise, at least, pending the list's
thoughts) that this is a brilliant pun on 'harlot'.
BB has noted as a motif in ADA the -let suffix; VN's fondness
for this is the reason I put a mental question mark
over this ADA discovery. 'poodlet' isn't an intentional
pun, for example, so perhaps 'whorelet' isn't either?
Getting back to TT-6 ...
'and ushered him out. It was not a ghost, however, that
prevented him from falling asleep, but the stuffiness.'
If this isn't a reference to Poe's THE FALL OF THE HOUSE
OF USHER, I think we'd be hard-pressed to explain that
'however'.
'the thin meniscus overhead was too wan to illumine
the roofs of the houses'
It's night-time and a thin crescent moon is overhead?
Impossible!
--Peter Hayes
---------- End Forwarded Message ----------
D. Barton Johnson
NABOKV-L
in his father's battered, but plump, wallet.'
Maybe it's the effect of having read ADA, but as soon
as I read this, I knew what one of Hugh's first uses for
the money would be.
Thinking about prostitutes in Nabokov's writings led me
to recall the word 'whorelet' in ADA (I.4; 33.17) and to
realise (or to hypothesise, at least, pending the list's
thoughts) that this is a brilliant pun on 'harlot'.
BB has noted as a motif in ADA the -let suffix; VN's fondness
for this is the reason I put a mental question mark
over this ADA discovery. 'poodlet' isn't an intentional
pun, for example, so perhaps 'whorelet' isn't either?
Getting back to TT-6 ...
'and ushered him out. It was not a ghost, however, that
prevented him from falling asleep, but the stuffiness.'
If this isn't a reference to Poe's THE FALL OF THE HOUSE
OF USHER, I think we'd be hard-pressed to explain that
'however'.
'the thin meniscus overhead was too wan to illumine
the roofs of the houses'
It's night-time and a thin crescent moon is overhead?
Impossible!
--Peter Hayes
---------- End Forwarded Message ----------
D. Barton Johnson
NABOKV-L