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Centaur in Ada
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Updike's Chiron (I've read it 23 years ago) is mentioned in Ada (1.21): emphatic Miss Vertograd had noticed that she and giggling Verger... shared also a spectacular skin disease that had been portrayed recently by a famous American novelist in his Chiron. Vivian Darkbloom ('Notes to Ada'): Chiron: doctor among centaurs: an allusion to Updike's best novel.
Btw., Taurus is a zodiacal constellation (as far as horoscopes are concerned, VN was Taurus or, in Russian, Telets). The brightest star in it is Aldebaran. Aldebaran = Adel (Germ., the nobility) + baran (Russ., ram; sheep). Baran = anbar (Russ. dial., barn). Taurus also reminds one of Tavrida (Tauris, see EO Commentary, Two, pp. 126-135).
Since human brain resembles a walnut, this quote seems relevant: the human brain can become the best torture house of all those it has invented, established and used in millions of years, in millions of lands, on millions of howling creatures. (Ada, 1.3)
Alexey Sklyarenko
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Btw., Taurus is a zodiacal constellation (as far as horoscopes are concerned, VN was Taurus or, in Russian, Telets). The brightest star in it is Aldebaran. Aldebaran = Adel (Germ., the nobility) + baran (Russ., ram; sheep). Baran = anbar (Russ. dial., barn). Taurus also reminds one of Tavrida (Tauris, see EO Commentary, Two, pp. 126-135).
Since human brain resembles a walnut, this quote seems relevant: the human brain can become the best torture house of all those it has invented, established and used in millions of years, in millions of lands, on millions of howling creatures. (Ada, 1.3)
Alexey Sklyarenko
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/