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Having recently joined this LISTSERV I am ignorant of its proceedings,
though I have made a cursory search of the archives to answer my
question. I
recently read about Alexander von Humboldt, the German explorer thought
to
be a homosexual pederast. His indiscretions are referenced briefly in
Garcia
Marquez's The General in his Labyrinth, beginning p. 96 in my hardcover,
"the shameless pederasty of Baron Alexander von Humboldt." I am not
terribly
well versed in Nabokov scholarship, but I wonder out of curiosity if
this
correlation had not been suggested as an influence for the name (and yet
another poke at homosexuals.)