Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0024975, Sun, 5 Jan 2014 15:54:20 -0200

Subject
The VNJ's annotations to ADA
Date
Body
Jansy Mello: I reached the URL indirectly, because of my insistence in the hunch linked to the "sublivens" golubyankas which, in turn, led me to "bluish livid envy" and then, to "lavender". Next comes "Pale Fire" and the envious relationship of CK to JS (how to fit that ombriole guy, Lavender, in this context is a problem, although the word "shade" is concealed in "ombre" and "lampshade")*.

I just realized that in Nabokov's more detailed description of this arctic-colored sublivens female butterfly, we find a derivation of "moon" (luna) equally indicated very close to "pale." "...lunulate pale greyish blue outer cretules very distinct in both wings; underside similar to that of the male." but these must result from the magic working of signifiers and language and not to any deliberate project on Nabokov's part... However, when the "Red Admiral" shines forth, it apparently deviates our attention from other less fancy butterflies like the "Toothworth White" and others...**


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* -"Joseph S. Lavender (the name hails from the laundry, not from the laund)[ ] Our brilliant schemer had been told that Joe Lavender collected photographs of the artistic type called in French ombrioles. He had not been told what exactly these were and dismissed them mentally as "lampshades with landscapes." and an invitation to probe into Libitina: "...Lavender’s villa. Its name, Libitina, was displayed in cursive script above one of the barred north windows, with its letters made of black wire and the dot over each of the three i’s cleverly mimicked by the tarred head of a chalk-coated nail driven into the white façade...[I]mmunity to classical allusion deprived him of the pleasure he might have derived from the tribute that Lavender’s macabre joviality had paid the Roman goddess of corpses and tombs."

** - " White butterflies turn lavender as they/ Pass through its shade where gently seems to sway/ The phantom of my little daughter’s swing." (lines 64-66)


-----Mensagem Original-----
De: Meyer, Priscilla
Para: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Enviada em: sábado, 4 de janeiro de 2014 19:22
Assunto: [NABOKV-L] The VNJ's annotations to ADA


Priscilla Meyer: Thanks for supplying this URL, which some may not have been able to find; the link to the Kyoto reading circle's annotations to ADA is on the VNJ's home page, which is in Japanese only.
178.12: golubyanka: VN identifies this modestly in his notes as “Russ., small blue butterfly.” This is the so-called Nabokov’s Blue, or Lycaeides idas sublivens. (Kyoto Reading Circle http://vnjapan.org/main/ada/Ada29.pdf )

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