Dear List,
After D.Zimmer's clarification I went on to Speak, Memory and Strong Opinions after a
quote ( in which Nabokov describes his feel of foreign
words as "colored marbles rolled in his tongue"), to set side by side to Borges
( "La ceguera" in Siete noches, OC,III, p.280):
"Verses in a
foreign language have a prestige that cannot be easily obtained in our
own because in them we can hear and see more clearly each and every
word."
I didn't find what I was looking for, but one of the sentences I
had underlined revealed a reference that is
probably connected to VN's use of MacDiarmid's "Lallans"
or Swift's baby-talk.
It has to do with the soft-sounding "L" in "Lolita", so I assume.
Nabokov named his book "my Lalage"*, in 1972, to an anonymous
interviewer:
"Some fifteen years ago, when the Soviets were
hypocritically denouncing Pasternak's novel...the badgered and bewildered author
was promoted by the American press to the rank of an iconic figure...when his
Zhivago vied with my Lalage for the top rungs of the
best-sellers ladder..."(SO,Vintage,Ch.22,p.205)
In Ada there are the delusions experienced by
Marina, a clepsidrophone, Dorothy's lappings which echo various toilets in
Lolita ,dripping Vane sisters, aso aso. Perhaps VN's
description of one of his aunt Praskovia's dying
words (SM,Vintage,p.68) prompted the insistent brook sound and
images:
"Aunt Pasha's last words were:
"That's interesting. Now I understand. Everything is water,
vsyo-voda'." Rather neat. Babies practice
their language by "echolalia" and "lalage" whereas VN's aunt
departed murmuring
vsyo-voda' **
.......................................................................................................................................................................
* - from the Greek:
rumor of murmuring waters. In English is is there a
derivation in the word "lullaby"?.
** -Departing from the theory of an existing,
unconscious, "Lalangue" ("thelanguage"), Lacan allowed us to deduce
that the "element" that can be translated from one language into another is
not present in any of them, whereas that which remains
untranslatable belongs to them all.
Wiki adds: "Lacan argued that there is a side to
language which is itself a form of jouissance" and, of course, this is clearly
what VN is after: the thrill and shiver of signification with no
definite meaning.Cf. Lacan,
Jacques. The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book
XX: Encore, On Feminine Sexuality, The Limits of Love and Knowledge
1972-1973. Trans. Bruce Fink. New
York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1998. pp. 44, 84, 101, 106, 132, 138-39,
141-42, 143