To follow up my last post, I was surprised to discover that Uddevalla in Sweden is home to a particularly flourishing chess society, the USS, founded 1911. See here:

The USS was host to several great chess names, including E. Lasker; Bogoljubov; and the great Latvian master, Aaron Nimzowitch (“Denmark’s Chess Teacher”) in the 1920s and ‘30s. I suspect VN might have been aware of this. I couldn’t find a club member called Bretwit, sad to say.

Although my post linking VN with cinematic surrealism met with a deafening response, I thought I’d pursue the thought a little further. Truffaut’s film of Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, 1966, makes a pointed and sustained reference to Lolita as one the books being burnt by the political “firemen”. The film is also remarkable for featuring Julie Christie in dual roles. Truffaut’s Jules et Jim, 1962, another film on the theme of dual personality, has a clip of the Nazi book burnings of 1933, as well as pointedly and repeatedly referencing Goethe’s Elective Affinities. I was unaware of this when it occurred to me that there might be a chain of influence back from Ada, via Pierre, to Goethe’s book. Is there not some nexus here?

Charles