JM: There seems to
be no justified reason to jumble "Torf/Fort/Tfor/Trof." Madame Trofim Fartukoff belongs, rather, to the lineage of "pets"
(another sort of gases). Her her native town is associated not only to decay but to "torf's" energetic potencial.
Butterfly-collector and
would be scientist, Marat, appears not only in Pale Fire
but indirectly in Ada*. He was one of the believers in the "phlogiston." (The
phlogiston, from the Ancient Greek φλογιστόν phlŏgistón "burning up", from
φλόξ phlóx "fire," is a defunct scientific theory that posited the
existence of a fire-like element called "phlogoism" that was contained within
combustible bodies, and released during combustion.), another
combustible item ...
Why would Joyce have named his novel "Ulysses" instead of
Odysseus? Nabokov, all set against a "mythological reading" of
Joyce's novel, might have chuckled at Stan's query ...
........................................................................
* Charlotte Corday/Marat in Ada, and Marat's bath in
PF were already themes under discussion in Nab-L