Subject
Re: Response re Tesla and ADA]
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Tesla was internationally famous in many circles -- he used to entertain
Samuel Clemens and other New York notables with dazzling electrical
displays, for example -- and also had a reputation for accidental
destruction of property. It seems perfectly reasonable that Nabokov, if
not before his time in America, would certainly have heard of Tesla
during
his stay in New York, from his students at Cornell, from his
correspondents, etc.
Whether or not Nabokov had ever heard of the Tunguska incident (or its
connection to Tesla -- this is the first time I've heard the connection
made, and I would want to get a second opinion on the issue of whether
Tesla dismantled his devices in 1908 as a result of the Tungunka
incident)
isn't necessarily crucial to determining whether Tesla influenced
Nabokov's portrayal of electricity in _Ada_. One of the problems with
stories about Tesla creating a death ray, destroying a building, scaring
visitors with lab-created ball lightning, etc. is that there are just so
_many_ of them, and quite a few have truth to them, and it becomes,
consequently, difficult to sort them out. Also, a great deal about
Tesla's public persona conforms to a "court wizard" type that may have
appealed to Nabokov.
Of course, without documentation, very little can be proven in regard to
Nabokov's knowledge of or thoughts on Tesla, but it's interesting to
think
about. I will point out that Dr. Johnson's comments re: Tesla's free
distribution system are the sort of thing that Pynchon spends many pages
on in _Gravity's Rainbow_, which Nabokov found unreadable.
--Kevin Troy
Tesla was internationally famous in many circles -- he used to entertain
Samuel Clemens and other New York notables with dazzling electrical
displays, for example -- and also had a reputation for accidental
destruction of property. It seems perfectly reasonable that Nabokov, if
not before his time in America, would certainly have heard of Tesla
during
his stay in New York, from his students at Cornell, from his
correspondents, etc.
Whether or not Nabokov had ever heard of the Tunguska incident (or its
connection to Tesla -- this is the first time I've heard the connection
made, and I would want to get a second opinion on the issue of whether
Tesla dismantled his devices in 1908 as a result of the Tungunka
incident)
isn't necessarily crucial to determining whether Tesla influenced
Nabokov's portrayal of electricity in _Ada_. One of the problems with
stories about Tesla creating a death ray, destroying a building, scaring
visitors with lab-created ball lightning, etc. is that there are just so
_many_ of them, and quite a few have truth to them, and it becomes,
consequently, difficult to sort them out. Also, a great deal about
Tesla's public persona conforms to a "court wizard" type that may have
appealed to Nabokov.
Of course, without documentation, very little can be proven in regard to
Nabokov's knowledge of or thoughts on Tesla, but it's interesting to
think
about. I will point out that Dr. Johnson's comments re: Tesla's free
distribution system are the sort of thing that Pynchon spends many pages
on in _Gravity's Rainbow_, which Nabokov found unreadable.
--Kevin Troy