Inspired by Lluba Tarvi's " Translation Quotient", I
decided to grade Alexey Sklyarenko "100% positive" for his Gentleman's
response at our List [ "I don't claim that I have kept in my translation 100% of the
original (even the author would have failed it)..." ]
After Andrew
Brown noted that there is a link between "mawkish" and Middle
English "mawke/ maggot"! - I wondered next if 'maggots and
botfly larvae apply to the same kind of "worm". The first, as in
"Hamlet", prove the continuity of the life force in general; the second, as
an analogy, seem to be more specifically inclined?' Once again
we have serendipitous amusement by the close emergence of "mawkish Shade",
"maggots", "sacorphagus" and "botflies" following Victor Fet's
clarification:
"Flesh-eating flies (blowflies) have genus Sarcophaga
and family Sarcophagidae...these are
maggots, of course, not flies that eat dead flesh, and those are of course also
the classical "worms" (that dine on Polonius etc.)...Well, at least they are NOT parasites. And while we are
on the subject, here are parasitic BOTFLIES (Oestridae)..."
with another tantalizing question qua Kinbote:"Another doctor, Evgeny
Botkin ...was family physician to Nicholas II family, murdered with
the latter. This could be a shortcut to regicide theme so central to Pale
Fire?" In my opinion, the regicide theme is not "so central to
Pale Fire", since it appears only through Kinbote -unless Shadeans finally
convince me that, besides their language and cultural differences, Shade and
Kinbote also shared the same kind of lunatic discourse ( it is impossible for
Shade to write like Kinbote - and vv - not if one, or both, were
psychotics) .
Jansy
PS: What a pity that Appel's annotations to "Lolita" are not
followed by an Index ( no irony intended). I wanted to check the psychiatrist he
quoted while mentioning fountainism and undinism since the only name that came
to my mind was Kraft-Ebbing (Psycopathia Sexualis) and I know this is
incorrect. Anyway, I think that the best way to proceed to understand
"lunacy" in Nabokov's works would be to check, like SB did, psychiatric
journals. I would also add standard texts like ...( now I
remembered it) Havelock Ellis' and VN's collection
of newspaper clippings on the subject of madness and
perversion.
Wikipedia informs: "According to Ellis in My
Life, his friends were much amused at his being considered an expert on sex
considering the fact that he suffered from impotence until the age of 60, when
he discovered that was able to become aroused by the sight of a woman urinating.
His Sexual Inversion, the first English medical text book on
homosexuality, co-authored with John Addington Symonds, described the
sexual relations of homosexual men, something that Ellis did not consider to be
a disease, immoral, or a crime; a bookseller was prosecuted in 1897 for
stocking it. Other psychologically important concepts developed by Ellis include
autoerotism and narcissism, both of which were later taken on by Sigmund
Freud."