Subject
Elena Sikorski
From
Date
Body
From: barabtarlog@missouri.edu
"I want to add a few words to Brian Boyd's obituary of Elena Vladimirovna
Sikosrki, who was a close friend of our family. We visited her rather
often, and exchanged letters, whose number dwindled as she grew older and
more reclusive.
It is not well known that EVN was one of the best experts in her brother's
writings, having made independently numerous profound discoveries in the
texts, some of which she gave to several acquaintances who sponged her for
these things, while most remained in the margins of her copies of VN's
books (Ada's first ed., for instance, is heavily covered with her remarks,
some of which are absolutely first-rate, original and deep). Although she
liked everything her brother wrote, she preferred his Russian books,
especially Dar, and was cold to Lolita. She also knew much about his life
that no one else did, but kept it to herself, along with a great number of
private letters from him and about him.
She was a fierce scrabble player, and every time I came to visit we would
play several very interesting (rich, dramatic, often high-score) games,
often clashing in disputes over the legitimacy of this or that Russian word
(she stubbornly relied on a dreadful Soviet lexicon by Ozhegov). In the
end, the battlefield would be covered with crisscrossing words some of
which formed curious thematic patterns (say, referring to something we
talked about at tea earlier, or to VN, or to the probable future), and she
would lapse into long thought over this, as she was half-convinced that
that game was a little metaphysical in its implications.
She was an Orthodox Christian of a very private variety. Her nameday will
be this Saturday, the 3rd of June (Sts Constantine and Helen - to whom the
Church in Tegel, Berlin, is dedicated; there, in the churchyard, her father
was buried). Memory eternal.
GB
"I want to add a few words to Brian Boyd's obituary of Elena Vladimirovna
Sikosrki, who was a close friend of our family. We visited her rather
often, and exchanged letters, whose number dwindled as she grew older and
more reclusive.
It is not well known that EVN was one of the best experts in her brother's
writings, having made independently numerous profound discoveries in the
texts, some of which she gave to several acquaintances who sponged her for
these things, while most remained in the margins of her copies of VN's
books (Ada's first ed., for instance, is heavily covered with her remarks,
some of which are absolutely first-rate, original and deep). Although she
liked everything her brother wrote, she preferred his Russian books,
especially Dar, and was cold to Lolita. She also knew much about his life
that no one else did, but kept it to herself, along with a great number of
private letters from him and about him.
She was a fierce scrabble player, and every time I came to visit we would
play several very interesting (rich, dramatic, often high-score) games,
often clashing in disputes over the legitimacy of this or that Russian word
(she stubbornly relied on a dreadful Soviet lexicon by Ozhegov). In the
end, the battlefield would be covered with crisscrossing words some of
which formed curious thematic patterns (say, referring to something we
talked about at tea earlier, or to VN, or to the probable future), and she
would lapse into long thought over this, as she was half-convinced that
that game was a little metaphysical in its implications.
She was an Orthodox Christian of a very private variety. Her nameday will
be this Saturday, the 3rd of June (Sts Constantine and Helen - to whom the
Church in Tegel, Berlin, is dedicated; there, in the churchyard, her father
was buried). Memory eternal.
GB