Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0000079, Tue, 17 Aug 1993 19:39:27 -0700

Subject
Unmatched Marys? (fwd)
Date
Body
---------- Text of forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1993 08:58:29 -0400 (EDT)
From: JEFF EDMUNDS E506 PATTEE <JHE@PSULIAS.BITNET>
To: NABOKV-L@UCSBVM.BITNET
Subject: Unmatched Marys?

I'm resending this message because I suspect the first version was
swallowed by the computer. I originally sent it in response to Galya
Diment's brief message of 11 August in which she raises the suggestion by
Leona Toker that Ganin's Mary and Alferov's Mary are not the same person.
While I find this a fascinating possibility, I think it is not the case.
There is a quintessentially Nabokovian tidbit linking Ganin's Mary to
Alferov's. In the first chapter, after the elevator lights flash back on,
we learn that Alferov is a rather queer looking chap with a "zolotaia
borodka". Twelve chapters later Ganin rereads Mary's letters to him. In
describing a night out she writes "Ochen' smeshnoi gospodin s zheltoi
borodkoi za mnoi ukhazhival i nazyval 'korolevoi bala'". I propose that
this "smeshnoi gospodin" is none other than Mary's future husband.

Jeff Edmunds
(jhe@psulias.bitnet or jhe@psulias.psu.edu)