AS: ..."the author of this
obscure article (Защита Набокова), one Konstantin Kedrov (a fine poet, who,
according to Wiki, is a grandson of the painter Pavel Chelishchev and was
nominated for Nobel Prize), is also the author of the (perfectly lucid)
Introduction to Odoevtseva's memoirs I happen to enjoy. Btw., the correct
spelling of Odoevtseva's real name is Iraida Heinicke. She was born (according
to a different source, in 1895) in Riga. Before Jansy transforms the name of the
author of Le Tramway ivre, I mean, The Stray Streetcar, to Gummilove or
Gummielastikov, let me stress that the correct spelling is
Gumilyov."
JM: Right! I'll drop Gumilyov's name out
from further digressions. I enjoyed "Gummilove and Gummielastikov" invention and
itt was amusing, too, to check in almost
unfamiliar LATH (part 7 two) to be able to understand the link between him
and Rimbaud (there was none), and find the lines that came a
little before them ("Louise regaled the
company with one of her good stories--those I called "name hangers"
because they only seemed to reach this or that
point--a quid pro quo, say, at a party--but were really meant to
introduce some high-born "old friend" of hers, or a glamorous politician,
or a cousin of that politician... Somewhere in Abyssinia drunken Rimbaud
was reciting to a surprised Russian traveler the poem "Le
Tramway Ivre").
Qua "Irida": I don't know how the
rainbow is designated in many other languages but in Portuguese and in
Spanish it is "Arco Iris," and
"iridescente" or "irisado" are
common words.
Kinbote's rainbow is a little "matt" (like
VN's KZSPYGV?) for he seems to prefer opalescences and
mother-of-pearl refractions.
Gary Lipon: "Should we read Shade's sudden insight into
the meaning of things while driving home from visiting Mrs. Z, as an
allusion
to the conversion of Paul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus? ...the
theory of plexed artistry... cognitive dissonance...
the followers of a New
England farmer, William Miller,
who predicted that the Second
Advent of Christ would occur in 1843"...a belief in another Noah's
Flood
is the underpinning device in Chaucer's The Miller Tale, writ
600 years ago..."
JM: I prefer to hang on to the theory of "plexed
artistry," even outside the realm of PF fiction, for its descriptive and
alluvial, I mean, allusive powers (a "delugional" profecy in
Chaucer?).
btw: Hares are the sacred animals of goddess Oestara or
Eostre ( such as the "Easter bunny" and the German "Osterhase"), and
related to estrogen hormones and oestral positions in animals (if one
accepts some of the witchcrafty google sources). Should VN have been
familiar with the symbol of the "three hares" (they shared
their "ears," since in the mythologic depiction there are only
three, instead of six, ears to be discerned) the themes of
the "trinity" (three in one) and of triplets in trilingual
families should have acquired interesting overtones.