Taking up again items 1 and 2 only as reminder
before proceeding with quotations and Boyd´s
notes:
1. B. Boyd " Though Ada´s "marybud" is another name
for the marigold,
"mollyblob" and "maybubble" are inventions (...) Why does
Nabokov invent
"mollyblob" and "maybubble" here? The answer is
not easy, but it is
precise: the suggestion of popping in "maybubble"
combines with "mollyblob" to point unmistakably to Molly Bloom´s famous
musing on the blob of a ruptured hymen" ...Nabokov´s Ada, The
Place of Consciousness", 2nd edition by Cybereditions, page
53.
2. Don B.Johnson: " It is a curious and significant fact that
at least two of
VV´s wives have the letter sequence "BL" in their names (...)
All of these
characters are related to Count Starov and it is their
incestuous
consanguinity that is denoted by the alphabetic emblem "BL" in
their names.
The sound sequence is, moreover, not randomnly chosen. As
we have noted previously in connection with "Ada", Nabokov denies any deep
meaning in his use of the incest theme, saying merely that he likes "the bl"
sound in siblings, bloom, blue, bliss, sable (SO 122-123). "BL" is
Nabokov´s private emblem for the incest theme (...) "Worlds in
Regression: Some novels of Vladimir Nabokov", Ardis publishers, 1985, page
139.
................................................................................................................
3. VN: ADA I.41
"Maidenhair. Idiot!
Percy boy might have been buried by now! Maidenhair. Thus named because of the
huge spreading Chinese tree at the end of the platform. Once, vaguely, confused
with the Venus’-hair fern. She walked to the end of the platform in Tolstoy’s
novel. First exponent of the inner monologue, later exploited by the French and
the Irish. N’est vert, n’est vert, n’est vert. L’arbre aux quarante écus
d’or, at least in the fall. Never, never shall I hear again her
‘botanical’ voice fall at biloba, ‘sorry, my Latin is showing.’
Ginkgo, gingko, ink, inkog. Known also as
Salisbury’s
adiantofolia, Ada’s
infolio, poor Salisburia: sunk; poor Stream of
Consciousness, marée noire by now. Who wants Ardis Hall!"
Here we find a confirmation of B.Boyd´s connection
when "maybubble" combines with "mollyblob" to point unmistakably to Molly
Bloom´s famous musing on the blob of a ruptured hymen"
when VN writes about "inkog" and Ada´s "botanical voice
fall at biloba (...) sunk; poor stream of consciousness"
and the theme now proceeds to adultery and treason ( Anna Karenin, Molly
Bloom, Ada ).
Therefore, after the
many "darkblooming" blob sounds suggesting the "BL" theme ( which Don
considered VN´s "private emblem for the incest theme" ) in note (1.)
we should expect that this next link would also keep up
with incest, even if in a still more private reference. And yet,
the sound "BL" is
not clear since the plant´s name " Gingko Biloba" has been slowly degraded
into gingko,ink, inkog . No ink-blot nor "blob" in that
"kog". Still, there may
be hidden " BL"
sounds and incest references by exchanging equivalent words to hide them ( such
as inkog/inkblot/inkblob).
...................................................................................
In (note 3), quoting directly Nabokov´s text, we
find him comparing James Joyce and Tolstoy ( ...Tolstoy’s novel.
First exponent of the inner monologue, later exploited by the French and the
Irish ) and re-introducing the exchanges on " n´est
vert/never,never" theme.
Cf.
ADA I.14
‘She also knows my
revised monologue of his mad king,’ said Ada:
Ce beau jardin
fleurit en mai,Mais en
hiver/Jamais, jamais,
jamais, jamais, jamais/ N’est vert, n’est
vert, n’est vert, n’est vert, n’est
vert.
This reiterates
the discussion about translation as a kind of metamorphosis ( Ada´s
criticism concerning the translation of Rimbaud´s poem by several
alterations and corrections for the name "buttercup". Also a mention to her
own hasty work on Shakespeare´s Lear for Mlle. Larivière ). It may also very
succintly bring again, by the "quarante
écus d´or" , "The forged
louis d’or in that collection of fouled French is the
transformation of souci d’eau (our marsh marigold)" with the
"maybubble/mollyblob" theme and
bloomers.
Cf. ADA I, ch.10 Van:
(...) ‘— is it a buttercup?’
Ada: ‘No.
That yellow flower is the common Marsh Marigold, Caltha palustris. In
this country, peasants miscall it "Cowslip," though of course the true Cowslip,
Primula veris, is a different plant altogether.(...)‘Now the
Russian word for marsh marigold is Kuroslep (which muzhiks in Tartary
misapply, poor slaves, to the buttercup) or else Kaluzhnitsa, as used
quite properly in Kaluga,
U.S.A.’
‘As in the case of
many flowers,’ Ada went on,
with a mad scholar’s quiet smile, ‘the unfortunate French name of our plant,
souci d’eau, has been traduced or shall we say transfigured
—’
‘Flowers into bloomers,’
punned Van Veen.
‘— drew my
attention (...) to some really gorgeous bloomers (...) in a Mr Fowlie’s
soi-disant literal version(...) of Mémoire, a poem by Rimbaud
(...) But, to go back to
our poor flower. The forged louis d’or in that collection of fouled
French is the transformation of souci d’eau (our marsh marigold) into
the asinine "care of the water" — although he had at his disposal dozens of
synonyms, such as mollyblob, marybud, maybubble, and many other nick-names
associated with fertility feasts, whatever those are.’
.................................................................................
If
by translation certain false "louis d´or" can be introduced into a poem, or
when they may have been substituted by " écus d´or", perhaps other
substitutions and metamorphosis are taking place, too.
Returning to Brian Boyd´s
notes:
146:08
: drawings in ink – a black aster ( evolved from a blot
):
In
Marina´s herbarium is a “blue-ink
blot shaped accidentally like a
flower” (8.07-09) (…) marking the substitution of Van for Aqua´s still born
child.
146:12: Van hastened to join
Ada in the attic:
apparently the scene in the attic described in I.1 (…) echo in the 146.08 of the
ink-modified herbarium “flower”
.
Comparing with VN´s text:
The specimens were
on one side of the folio, with Marina Dourmanoff (sic)’s
notes en regard. /Ancolie Bleue des Alpes,
Ex en
Valais, i.IX.69. From
Englishman in hotel. ‘Alpine Columbine, color of your eyes.’/
Epervière
auricule. 25.X.69,
Ex, ex Dr Lapiner’s walled alpine garden./
Golden [ginkgo] leaf: fallen out of a
book’ The Truth about Terra’ which Aqua gave me before going back to
her Home. 14.XII.69.
Here we
see the various apparitions of the words "ink/blot" and find a
reference to "infolio" and leaves that have fallen
out which take us back to "en hiver/never" and
the "arbre..in the fall". "Ginkgo" ( maidenhair ) makes its
appearance, too.
..................................................................
Also we find in Boyd´s Afternotes:
"Lucette´s third overlap with impatient Van and
Ada in I.23 involves the poem “Peter
and Margaret” (…) “his own wonderful drawings in ink – a black aster (
evolved from a blot )……other links with 15.I.70 and afternote to
I.1, plus Boyd1985/2001:262-71".
( Copied from
"The Nabokovian" 52,
spring 2004/ "The
Nabokovian", 47, Fall 2001 ).
CF. Nabokov Ada I.23 :
‘Oh, Van, how lovely of you,’ said Lucette, slowly
entering her room, with her bemused eyes scanning the fascinating flyleaf, his
name on it, his bold flourish, and his own wonderful drawings in ink — a black aster (evolved
from a blot), a doric column (disguising a more ribald design), a delicate
leafless tree (as seen from a classroom
window)..."
...........................................................................
4. In Nabokov we also encounter in
his closing chapter ( Ada5, 6 ):
"What
everybody thought would be Violet’s supreme achievement, ideally clean, produced
on special Atticus paper in a
special cursive type (the glorified version of Van’s hand), with the master copy
bound in purple calf for Van’s ninety-seventh birthday, had been immediately
blotted out by a regular inferno of alterations in red ink and blue
pencil. One can even surmise that if our time-racked,
flat-lying couple ever intended to die they would die, as it were,
into the finished book, into Eden or Hades, into the
prose of the book or the poetry of its blurb (...)
‘Quel livre, mon Dieu, mon Dieu,’ Dr [Professor. Ed.] Lagosse exclaimed,
weighing the master copy which the flat pale parents of the future
Babes, in the brown-leaf Woods, a little book in the Ardis Hall
nursery, could no longer prop up in the mysterious first picture: two
people in one bed".
We find
here "attic/ atticus" and a "flat-lying couple as
pressed flowers into a finished book and into the poetry of its
blurb" ( infolio/herbarium theme
) .
..............................................................................................
Where
do these cross-references lead us to? We find the "de-flowering" theme described
by B.Boyd again and again. And yet, there are also pointers towards
the herbarium kept in the attic where so much of Aqua´s life seems to have been
"impressed" in the same way that Ada and Van ( lying flat ) might be printed
into the "poetry of a blurb" or into the prose of a book".
A flat couple lying in a book in the attic take us to a
"mysterious first picture"... Besides, if
there should be "no green in winter", Lucette ( who, as B.Boyd
points out, is associated with the colour "green" ) would be forever excluded
from this "Eden or Hades" and from mingling with the couple in a
bed.
...................................................................................................
And
incest? ( to link back to Don Johnson´s theme ). Well, if the color of a flower
can be transformed into golden coins ( louis d´or, écus d ´or ), also the
coins named "stellas" may also refer to stars and asters.
Here we find LATH´s Count
Starov and his "BL" wives by stellas/
coins, marigolds and a black aster evolved from an
ink blot or a biloba´s
inkgo.
Now, would we be able to find in VN´s
other novels more resounding BL/incest/adultery/deflowering/inkblot/bloming
STars in their constant metamorphosis?
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