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Fw: Modern experiment with Chimpanzee
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EDITOR's NOTE. Dieter Zimmer, editor of the Rowoht "Collected Nabokov"
offers a thorough investigation of the original French newspaper report that
supposedly sparked LOLITA in his editorial remarks to the German LOLITA.
-----Original Message-----
From: George Shimanovich <gshiman@worldnet.att.net>
>
>----------------- Message requiring your approval (25
lines) ------------------
> In the end of 1999 I've heard the following story on the morning
>radio (I believe it was Paul Harvey on 770AM).
> There was a report of the study performed somewhere in Australia.
>Chimpanzee
>was placed in front of computer screen and taught to point to numbers,
>range 1 to 5, on the computer screen in the ascending order. Then
>numbers were reshuffled and, lo and behold, the Champ pointed the
>numbers in the right order again. Surely first time achievement by any
>ape!
> There might be some scientific value to this experiment but I find it
>informative in a different light. It was a newspaper story published in
>1939 or early in 1940 in Paris that prompted "the first little throbs of
>Lolita" as admitted Nabokov later. The story, of course, resulted in
>"The enchanter" a short story - prototype of Lolita. As many of you, I
>am sure, recall, the newspaper story told readers about the ape in the
>Paris Zoo who, "after months of coaxing by a scientist, produced the
>first drawing ever charcoaled by an animal: the sketch showed the bars
>of the poor creature's cage."
> It makes me wonder now what is hidden by the colorful image of an ape
>picking numbers on computer screen in the age of global computer
>literacy and political correctness. (I just could not bare to keep it to
>myself). Hmm...
>
>Both quotations are from Author's Note One to "The Enchanter".
>
offers a thorough investigation of the original French newspaper report that
supposedly sparked LOLITA in his editorial remarks to the German LOLITA.
-----Original Message-----
From: George Shimanovich <gshiman@worldnet.att.net>
>
>----------------- Message requiring your approval (25
lines) ------------------
> In the end of 1999 I've heard the following story on the morning
>radio (I believe it was Paul Harvey on 770AM).
> There was a report of the study performed somewhere in Australia.
>Chimpanzee
>was placed in front of computer screen and taught to point to numbers,
>range 1 to 5, on the computer screen in the ascending order. Then
>numbers were reshuffled and, lo and behold, the Champ pointed the
>numbers in the right order again. Surely first time achievement by any
>ape!
> There might be some scientific value to this experiment but I find it
>informative in a different light. It was a newspaper story published in
>1939 or early in 1940 in Paris that prompted "the first little throbs of
>Lolita" as admitted Nabokov later. The story, of course, resulted in
>"The enchanter" a short story - prototype of Lolita. As many of you, I
>am sure, recall, the newspaper story told readers about the ape in the
>Paris Zoo who, "after months of coaxing by a scientist, produced the
>first drawing ever charcoaled by an animal: the sketch showed the bars
>of the poor creature's cage."
> It makes me wonder now what is hidden by the colorful image of an ape
>picking numbers on computer screen in the age of global computer
>literacy and political correctness. (I just could not bare to keep it to
>myself). Hmm...
>
>Both quotations are from Author's Note One to "The Enchanter".
>