ADA contains at least one allusion
to Comtesse de Segur's childrens books. Does anyone out there know whether
there is a "Burning Barn" scene in any of
them?
Dear Don,
The Comtesse de
Segur (nee Rostopchina) may or may not have written about fictional fires,
but she does, through her father, the mayor of Moscow during the War of 1812,
have a connection to a very famous fire.
Count Rostopchin famously was
accused of starting the fire that burned the city. When he was in France
he willingly accepted credit; upon his return to Russia he refused the
responsibility. Historians remain divided too.
I thought I had spotted a
reference to the famous literary victim of that fire (the early ms of Slovo o
Polku Igoreve, translated by VN into English as The Song of Igor's
Campaign), somewhere in Ada, but don't recall it now.* So this may be part
of what Boyd calls "a motif" here..
Carolyn
*It was Alexey
Sklyarenko who found the allusion: "I spotted at least one allusion to
Slovo in Ada: ...freckled red-haired lads, children of the Sun
Horse (3.5). It's a play on Hors, presumably the Slav god of sun, who is
mentioned in Slovo."