Frances Assa [ to JM:
"Van was raised by an aunt, Aqua,
under the ilusion that she was his
real mother...geneaologies are not to be trusted")
:: Graham Greene's Travels with My Aunt has a twist on
this. [Spoiler:] The aunt, who turns up at the protagonist's
mother's funeral, turns out to be the real mother.
JM: The
same kind of twist VN parodied in TRLSK as
in the final revelation of hidden blood ties as often found
in Agatha Christie, for example.
VN mentions in "Lolita", Christie's "A
Murder is Announced": One of A.C's characters
is called Pippa (that "doesn't pass or piss", as quipped in
Pale Fire) who seems to be a cousin, daughter or son, uncle or
aunt to almost everybody else - for the name
Pippa ( like Evelyn, Vivien or like mine
& yours) is not sufficiently informative
about gender.
VN's uncle Ruka, and VN himself, enjoyed "La
Bibliothèque Rose" and it teems with stories like these. I often forget that one
should also consider the French authors, the Dumas family, for
example.