Dear Jansy and all,
I doubt that one can grasp my
method if one hasn't read the entire "the-truth-is-in-wine" piece
(which is in Russian and can not be read by the majority of
non-Russian list members). I suggest you stop trying. I also doubt that my
method has anything in common with Boyd's (if he has a method at all;
at least, his method, provided he has one, doesn't allow him to see the
whole picture in Ada and to experience one thousandth part of the
unprecedented mental orgasm - you will pardon me the metaphor - that I
have experienced ejaculating ever new
inexpected anagrams).
When I spoke of "other possibilities," I
meant other possible anagramatic combinations (for example:
torf = ftor = fort = Trofim - im = fortuna + l - luna*
= fortune + Huckleberry - eunuch - berry - lek = Fortinbras - brains**...;
Trofim is a male given name; cf. Trofim Fartukov, the coachman at Ardis,
who eventually marries Blanche de Tourbe, or "Cinderella de Torf," as
Ada calls her in one of her letters to Van: 2.1; im is the
Russian pronoun oni, "they," in dative, "to them;"
fortuna is Russian for "Fortune," "luck;"
luna is Russian for "moon;" Huckleberry is
Huckleberry Finn, a character in Mark Twain's novel "The Adventures
of Tom Sawyer," 1876, the hero of "The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn," 1884; lek is a traditional place where males
assemble during the mating season and engage in competitive displays that
attract females; Fortinbras is a character in Hamlet, Prince of Norway;
there are yet other possibilities), not any "dangers" or risks to go too far
from Nabokov's text.
*or, if you prefer: fortuna + s -
anus
**brains = bar/rab/bra/arb + sin = bars + ni
= bras + in (rab is Russian for "slave;" arb is the
Russian word arba, "bullock-cart," in genetive
plural; bars is Russian for "snow leopard," the animal with which
the hero of Lermontov's poem Mtsyri, 1839, wrestles; ni is a
Russian negative particle, "neither;" bras is French for "arm;" cf.
Bras d'Or, the Northeast American province on Antiterra:
1.1)
If I'm allowed to return to Stepan Razin mentioned
in my previous message, Razin = Arzni. Arzni is the name of
mineral springs in Armenia. Cf. Mandelstam's lines from "The Destroyed Verses"
(1931) written a year or so after the poet's return from
Armenia :
Uzh ya lyublyu moskovskie
zakony,
Uzh ne skuchayu po vode Arzni -
V Moskve cheryomukha da
telefony
I kaznyami tam imenity dni.
I already love the Moscow laws,
I'm not missing the Arzni water
anymore.
There are in Moscow racemosa and
telephones.
And the days here are renowned for
executions.
Cf. Chto ni kazn' u nego to malina
("Whatever the execution it's a raspberry"), Mandelstam's line from his
later epigram on Stalin My zhivyom pod soboyu ne chuya strany
("We live not feeling a land beneath us," 1934) that was mistranslated by
Lowell. Lowell's mistake is played upon in Ada (1.2).
Note that Arzni has the same consonants as
Narzan, another Caucasian mineral springs, reznya
("massacre") and Ryazan' (city to the South-East of Moscow; the poet
Esenin,*** 1895-1925, was born in a village in the province of Ryazan').
Cf. the electrician Mechnikov's words to Bender and Vorob'yaninov in
Ilf-and-Petrov's "The Twelve Chairs:" "I am the man tired out with the
Narzan" (M. is an alcoholic who needs money to buy liquor). The scene is
Pyatigorsk, Caucasian spa, near which Lermontov was killed in a
duel.
***The name "Esenin" is also spelled Yesenin.
Yesenin = yes + nein (nein is German for "no").
I hope to pour out more wines and alphabet
letters from my cornucopia soon.
Alexey Sklyarenko