Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0010191, Mon, 2 Aug 2004 12:00:36 -0700

Subject
Re: Lolita, Lolitas, Osberg, Lichberg : suppositions (fwd) (fwd)
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---------- Forwarded Message ----------
Date: Monday, August 02, 2004 8:36 AM -1000
From: Alain Andreu <AAndreu@ilm.pf>
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>, "D. Barton
Johnson" <chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu>
Subject: Re: Lolita, Lolitas, Osberg, Lichberg : suppositions (fwd)

I share your strange feeling !

Kindest Regards from another French nabokophile.

Alain ANDREU-
---------------------------------


-----Original Message-----
From: "D. Barton Johnson" <chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu>
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Date: Sun, 1 Aug 2004 09:42:21 -0700
Subject: Lolita, Lolitas, Osberg, Lichberg : suppositions (fwd)

> ------------------ Hello,
>
> I am a french nabokophile (so please forgive my akward english) and I
> am
> re-reading “Ada or Ador”. The first sentence of chapter 13 struck me in
> a
> strange way that I will try to explain .
>
> 1. Nabokov writes that for the big picnic organised on her twelfth
> birthday, “the child was permitted to wear her lolita (thus dubbed
> after
> the little Andulasian gipsy of that name in OsbergÂ’s novel and
> pronounced,
> incidentally, with a Spanish ‘t’, not a thick english one)”.
> 2. I know “Osberg” is an anagram for “Borges” (cf. infra 3), and I do
> not know if there is an “Andulasian gispy” in Borges’ works... But does
> not “Osberg” sound a little like “Lichberg” ? Is “Osberg” not only an
> anagram, but also a sort of pun ? The question is at stake.
> 3. Lolita, in LichbergÂ’s tale, is a Spanish girl. She lives in
> Alicante, which is not located in the actuel Andulasia county stricto
> sensu, but is nevertheless located in south Spain, just above
> Andulasia.
> 4. Vivian Darkbloom’s note specifies : “Osberg : an another good-
> natured anagram, scrambling the name of a writer with whom the author
> of
> Lolita has been rather comically compared”. I guess this “author of
> Lolita” hints to Nabokov himself and not to Lichberg... But when I read
> these phrase and note, I had a strange feeling : it was as if Nabokov
> had
> foreseen what happened last April in the international press after the
> discover of LichbergÂ’s tale, and if, many years in advance, he had
> given
> us an ironic answer in his own specific way...
>
> Sincerely yours,
>
> Olivia Cham
>
> ---------- End Forwarded Message ----------
>
>
>
> D. Barton Johnson
> NABOKV-L



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D. Barton Johnson
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