----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, September 28, 2003 10:17 AM
Subject: Re: hello
EDNOTE. Apart from the natutural history and sexual
terms the Spanish words are lifted from poems by VN's poet-colleague Jorge
Guillen.
-----------------------------------------
Carolyn thinks that I seem to be
the first to find love in the (morning or ) afternoon! ( the
reference to am or pm...).
I´d been commenting with her the
rhyme of the Spanish words that could come up in the conversation with the
Andalusian architect : canastilla, nublarrones, mariposa, paloma, grevol,
aroma, hombre ... cojones...
We may also find, beside the
sound suggestion to confirm the ending "ones" in
the&nbsbeginningge of
the hanging "j" between the two "o" , the insistence in the word
"amor" ( aroma, mariposa ).
When in the begining VN
is telling Aqua´s story there is a wordplay with Dr.Sig Heiler and soon
after comes a Dr.Fig ("spanker of girl bottoms") . Soon before he had a
Dr.Froid and soon after we have a variation on Lincoln and the Ladybird episode,
plus a story about Les Malheurs de Swann ( a reference to Ségur´s book
"Les Malheurs de Sophie" ) to introduce the Catleya theme ( the word
Proust used for copulation, as you know ). This is why I´d thought VN might be indirectly hinting at
his having read " A Child is being beaten"..
'
Best ( I´m in a hurry, Sunday
Lunch time now here... )
Jansy
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, September 28, 2003 1:04
PM
Subject: Re: hello
Dear Jansy,
Freud prbably had Harriet
Beecher Stowe's UNCLE TOM's CABIN in mind. The Comtesse cames up because
I vaguely wondered if ADA's Burning B had links to it since VN uses allusion
to it in SpM. The Lincoln was a red herring. Best,
Don
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, September 26, 2003 8:56
PM
Subject: hello
Hi, Don
thank you for
your message sent privately.
Today´s discussion on
the theme of lemniscates, Bernouilli, bicycles and Sherlock Homes was lovely
to read, fascinating ! Congratulations for this rich gleaning process your
are coordinating.
Here is another quick
superficial observation that, due to its superficiality ( I´m
not checking books, names, references or even the List ) I´d
rather not have mentioned to the Nabokov-L:
In the same
1919 text where Freud is dealing with different sexual fantasies
in boys and girls, and in which he mentions the Comtesse de Ségur, he
also makes reference to slavery and the book "Father Thomas´ Cabin"
( I don´t know if the original title is like that ).
I seem to remember you
had approached Ségur and Abe Lincoln ( slavery ) somewhere in one of
the messages...I may be wrong, but decided to bring this up to your
attention anyway.
Jansy