Dear List,
Chance as usual invited me to stop at Eve's dream,
in John Milton's "Paradise Lost." I was,
simultaneously, occupied with one item in Nabokov's "Bend Sinister" so I
couldn't help wondering (sort of) if there was any connection bt. Bend
Sinister's title *, the character's name Adam Krug, and Satan whispering in
Eve's ear, disguiesed as a "Toad" (Adam's victim
& torturer....).
I discovered NO significant links - and yet I
think this could be interesting to report to the List,
anyway. My amateurish research is not extensive
nor it is very informed -but I'm enthralled by Robert Wiznura's "Eve's
dream, Interpretation, and Shifting Paradigms."
A slight indication of J.Milton and VN related to "Bend
Sinister" is present in an article by John Burt Foster
(" Framing Nabokov: Modernism, Multiculturalism, World Literature" at
Cycnos: revel.unice.fr/cycnos/index.html?id=1057), from which I learned
that:
"Another, weightier factor underlies Nabokov's claim, made
while writing " 'Bend Sinister',for the decisive importance of striking
originality, as demonstrated by the novel's introduction of 'a device never yet
attempted in literature.' More broadly in this spirit, he upholds that "very
small number" of writers who possess "a unique, dazzling gift," like
Joyce,Pushkin, Tolstoy, Shakespeare, and - a more surprising name in Nabokov's
lists of this kind ( SO 147/146)" A
different connection bt. Nabokov and Milton, now thru ADA, derives
from a review at the NYT
(prelapsarianism.www.nytimes.com/books/97/03/.../nab-v-obit.html ) "Ada"
(Mr. Nabokov pronounced it Ah-dah) was such a novel, and to get the most out of
it, a reader could benefit from some knowledge of the theory of matter and
antimatter, John Milton, T.S. Eliot, Lord Byron, Jane Austen and the 17th
century English poet Andrew Marvell. Acquaintanceship with Russian and French
was also helpful, not to mention an inkling of theological speculation..."
(google wonders)
..............................................................................................................................................
* Ch. 10 from "Paradise Lost" emphasizes the creation
of Eve from Adam's left rib. Is the crooked left rib being
also indicated by VN by "Bend Sinister" ( a crooked bend
left, in a literal take? ): "all but a rib/ Crooked by nature,
bent, as now appears,/ More to the part sinister, from me drawn;/ Well if thrown
out, as supernumerary/To my just number found. O! why did God,/ Creator wise,
that peopled highest Heaven/ With Spirits masculine, create at last/ This
novelty on earth, this fair defect/ Of nature, and not fill the world at once/
With Men, as Angels, without feminine;/Or find some other way to generate/
Mankind? "
My answer: NO.