On Mar 22, 2009, at 7:31 PM, Nabokv-L wrote: If we extend to ADA Carolyn K's Pale Fire links to 1950s movies, Bras
d'Or would point to Otto Preminger's 1955 classic "The Man with the Golden Arm." ... [which] offers Alexey the wider field of narcotics ....
Dear Scouse,
Surely you are jesting, but all seriousness aside, there actually is a heavy, very heavy theme of drugs, narcotics and poisonings in Ada. In fact both Marina and her daughter are serial poisoners. The family name provides one clue to this interpretation [see below].
Carolyn
Sent: Sunday, July 27, 2003 2:11 PM Subject: response to Alexey's Durmanov
Dear Alexey, I hope you will not mind if I share some information with the List regarding the Russian word "durman" since you are yourself were the most generous source of that information.
Alexey & Brian Boyd are correct to note that "durman" means an intoxicating, possibly habit-forming drug, as in the apropos quote from Chekhov's Chaika ( which I also detected lurking in the odd spelling of Tschaikovsky somewhere in Ada). But "durman" is also a particularly nasty plant, "datura stramonium,"* which has been implicated as "zombie poison" in Haiti, and I believe has implications in Ada (as the primary of "yady Ady" [Ada's poisons]) as well.
Carolyn ---------------------------------------------------------
EDNOTE. I would add that the Russian root "dur'" also supplies the common word for "Fool" (durak)--certainly an apt characterization for Marina.
*Wikipedia has an excellent article on this particular halucinogenic/poison.