Subject
Re: New Yorker "Conclusive Evidence": "Barbara Braun" (fwd)
Date
Body
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As a newcomer to this lively group may I suggest my interpretation of
"Barbara Brown". Rather like Robert Cook my first reaction was to connect
her with a German "Braun", not Wernher v.B. (male), but Eva Braun
(female), Hitler's
notorious lover. Thus the alleged author's name would furnish a double
(even triple?) allusion to the BarBarian Nazis, known also as "Braunhemden"
(brown shirts).
Re "Lilacs": There is a popular German hit "Wenn der weisse Flieder wieder
blüht" (When white lilacs are blooming again), which has been around for
two, maybe even three generations. I don't know though whether VN might
have been exposed to this German specimen of 'poshlost' in the thirties,
when he was in Berlin.
susanne.eisner@datacomm.ch
Susanne Eisner-Kartagener, CH-3065 Bolligen-Berne, Switzerland
----------
> Von: Donald Barton Johnson <chtodel@humanitas.ucsb.edu>
> An: NABOKV-L@UCSBVM.ucsb.edu
> Betreff: New Yorker "Conclusive Evidence": "Barbara Braun" (fwd)
> Datum: Donnerstag, 14. Januar 1999 17:03
>
> From: Robert Cook <rcook@rhi.hi.is>
> Unresearched thoughts on the conclusion of "Conclusive Evidence," where I
> sniff something apocalyptic - which makes the cyclical implications of
the
> missing final phrase, "to which I now turn" (pointed to recently by Brian
> Boyd), the more intriguing.
>
> By dropping the end of Whitman's title ("When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard
> Bloomed") the word "last" changes from an adverb to a verb, and implies
> that there a question about whether lilacs will survive or not.
>
> My first reaction to Barbara Braun was to connect her last name with
Verner
> von Braun and her first name to the barbaric research in which he shared.
>
> "Amen Corner" in my perhaps too local usage always meant a place for
those
> in trouble to huddle and say their last prayers.
>
> All this fits in with the "conclusion" implied in "Conclusive Evidence."
On
> the other hand, the early part of VN's last paragraph tells us that the
> book gives evidence "that this world is not as bad as it seems," and he
> suggests that the book will find "a PERMANENT place on the book lover's
> shelf."
>
> Robert Cook, University of Iceland
As a newcomer to this lively group may I suggest my interpretation of
"Barbara Brown". Rather like Robert Cook my first reaction was to connect
her with a German "Braun", not Wernher v.B. (male), but Eva Braun
(female), Hitler's
notorious lover. Thus the alleged author's name would furnish a double
(even triple?) allusion to the BarBarian Nazis, known also as "Braunhemden"
(brown shirts).
Re "Lilacs": There is a popular German hit "Wenn der weisse Flieder wieder
blüht" (When white lilacs are blooming again), which has been around for
two, maybe even three generations. I don't know though whether VN might
have been exposed to this German specimen of 'poshlost' in the thirties,
when he was in Berlin.
susanne.eisner@datacomm.ch
Susanne Eisner-Kartagener, CH-3065 Bolligen-Berne, Switzerland
----------
> Von: Donald Barton Johnson <chtodel@humanitas.ucsb.edu>
> An: NABOKV-L@UCSBVM.ucsb.edu
> Betreff: New Yorker "Conclusive Evidence": "Barbara Braun" (fwd)
> Datum: Donnerstag, 14. Januar 1999 17:03
>
> From: Robert Cook <rcook@rhi.hi.is>
> Unresearched thoughts on the conclusion of "Conclusive Evidence," where I
> sniff something apocalyptic - which makes the cyclical implications of
the
> missing final phrase, "to which I now turn" (pointed to recently by Brian
> Boyd), the more intriguing.
>
> By dropping the end of Whitman's title ("When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard
> Bloomed") the word "last" changes from an adverb to a verb, and implies
> that there a question about whether lilacs will survive or not.
>
> My first reaction to Barbara Braun was to connect her last name with
Verner
> von Braun and her first name to the barbaric research in which he shared.
>
> "Amen Corner" in my perhaps too local usage always meant a place for
those
> in trouble to huddle and say their last prayers.
>
> All this fits in with the "conclusion" implied in "Conclusive Evidence."
On
> the other hand, the early part of VN's last paragraph tells us that the
> book gives evidence "that this world is not as bad as it seems," and he
> suggests that the book will find "a PERMANENT place on the book lover's
> shelf."
>
> Robert Cook, University of Iceland