From: D. Barton Johnson [mailto:chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu]
Sent: Friday, July 30, 2004 12:07 PM
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Subject: Re: TT-2 (fwd) Chur/apron/Kafka

------------------ I've been away and am coming in late to the remarkably stimulating discussion  of TT.  A few thoughts on the discussion of chapter 2.

1. Chur - I don't have a Russian dictionary with me, but this is, I believe, a  word used apotropaically -- to ward off evil spirits (or
ghosts?)  The dead  Armande has just been warded off in the text (who en face did not resemble  Armande one bit).  The irony here is that Hugh's trip is somewhat Chorb-like,  aimed at a recapture of the past.  Note the play with Chamar in Majestic in  Chur.

EDCOMMENT. Very astute. There is, BTW, a town called Chur in Switzerland   DNCOMMENT: AN IMPORTANT TOWN

2. The color trick. To add to (Don's? I couldn't tell who wrote it) extended  and brilliant comment on the inter-linguistic play, it is worth noting that  the "apron" is preserved in the Ada passage later posted to this discussion --  Trofim's last name.

EDCMMENT. I suspect that not I but Jeff Edmunds is the author of the extended comment you have in mind.

3. On the humor of the director's death:  "the law required that records be destroyed when a director, even a former director, did what Kronig had done".   This is so much like Kafka, that I suspect VN has slipped into parodic mode  here and is invoking Kafka's ghost (why?).  There aren't many other sentences  in VN's oeuvre that sound so much like Kafka's.

EDCOMMENT. I hadn't noticed before but YES, it is very Kafkaesque.

         Eric


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D. Barton Johnson
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