Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0005511, Fri, 6 Oct 2000 13:25:45 -0700

Subject
PNIN's Tristram W. Thomas and "Tristam": Coincidence?
Date
Body
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From: "john.rea" <john.rea@gateway.net>

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Being, like VV. fascinated by the coincidences that
Log and his assistants place before us, and being in
part a medievalist (as well as a linguist), I am
intrigued by one of Pnin's academic colleagues at
Waindell, namely Tristram W. Thomas.

Now the two basic (but fragmentary) Old French texts
of the Tristram material are, respectively, by Beroul
and Thomas (sic), the last being marvellously edited
by Bedier. These, in turn, appear to be the bases of
Middle High German versions by, respectively, Gottfried
von Straszburg and Eilhard von Oberg: the latter
having been translated into English by the late J.
W. Thomas. These coincidences are the nicer when we
recall VV's interest in (and occasional use of) the
Tristram material.

Nabokov is so full of a number of things that....

John
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EDITOR's NOTE. Yea and verily. VN studied these texts at Cambridge. On the
other hand...it remains obscure how the anthropologist and the ornithologist
might relate to Tristram. Any ideas? As an aside, I note for the first time
that VN anagrammatically reenacts Pnin's confusion of the two men via their
area of specialization: aNTHROpOLOGIST/ornithologist.