----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, May 09, 2010 1:39 PM
Subject: [NABOKV-L] QUERY: A challenge
for Nabokovians
Can anyone identify the author of the following few sentences? I will
tell you that the author wrote in Russian and that these examples
are
from a translation into English. I also will divulge that the
author
was a contemporary of Nabokov. I would also like to hear,
with or
without identifying the author, reactions to these few
excerpts:
"Outside there was no trace of the
road ... nothing but the blizzard,
the air smoking with snow. ....
Turning over and over in the sky,
length after length of whiteness
unwound over the earth and shrouded
it."
"In the kitchen garden there was
nothing except some acacia bushes
around the wall .... With each
blast of wind the acacias danced as if
possessed then lay down flat
along the path."
"How enchanting this place
was! Orioles kept making their clear three-
note calls, stopping each time
just long enough to let the countryside
suck in the moist fluting
sounds down to the last vibration. A heavy
fragrance, motionless, as
though having lost its way in the air, was
fixed by the heat above
the flower beds. This brought back memories of
Antibes and
Bordighera."
Carolyn Kunin
p.s. Jansy must be recused, as she
knows something of what I'm up to.
p.p.s No googling, please.
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