One of the frequent guests of floramors
(palatial brothels) built by David van Veen is King Victor, the Antiterran male
version (in fact, antipode) of Queen Victoria. But his name may also hint
at Victor Hugo (1802-85), the famous French poet and novelist of the "Victorian"
era who did not scorn prostitutes.
The title character in Hugo's Notre-Dame de
Paris (1831) is the old Gothic Cathedral, whose Western facade looks
rather like H, Hugo's (but also Hegel's, Heine's, Herzen's
and Herwegh's) initial.
Roman H looks like the Cyrillic
counterpart of Roman N, Nabokov's initial. In the old Russian
alphabet this H-like letter was called Nash ("our,"
notre)* and preceded by Myslete (as M was
called).
Myslete** reminds one of
Myslitel' ("The Thinker"), the title Aldanov gave
(after Le Penseur, a chimera in Notre-Dame***) his tetralogy
(1921-26) about the French Revolution.
Aldanov is the pen-name of VN's friend and fellow
writer Mark Landau (1886-1957). Like Lute (as Paris is sometimes
called on Antiterra****) and Leningrad (St. Petersburg's name in 1924-91),
Aldanov's real name begins with an L, the letter that precedes
M in the alphabet. The
Cyrillic counterpart (called lyudi, "people,"***** in the old Russian
alphabet) of Roman L resembles Roman V
turned upside down.******
V is Van Veen's (Ada's
protagonist's) and King Victor's initial. One of King Victor's aliases he
uses when visiting floramors is "Mr. Vrotic" (2.3). It reminds one of "erotic,"
nevrotik ("neurotic") and rotik ("little mouth"), the word
composed by Lucette (who is linked to Esmeralda, the red-haired
pseudo-gypsy girl in Notre-Dame de Paris) in a Flavita game (2.5),
after which she is left with L, her own cheap initial.
Rotik + L = klitor ("clitoris"), the word
eight-year-old Lucette does not yet know.
Vrotic, erotic and neurotic end in
c. Roman C looks like the Cyrillic counterpart
(called slovo, "word," in the old Russian alphabet; slovo =
volos, "hair") of Roman S. Smert' ("death")
begins with S, as do Sena (Seine, the river that flows
through Paris*******), sestra ("sister")
and Samoubiystvo ("The Suicide"), the title of Aldanov's last
novel (1956). Among its characters is Lenin (V. I. Ul'yanov, 1870-1924), who
almost shares with VN his birthday (April 22) and after whom VN's home city was
renamed. Both Lenin's birth (in
Simbirsk, a Volgan city) and death (in Gorki, a village near
Moscow) followed by the renaming of St. Petersburg can be real events that
correspond to the L disaster, a mysterious catastrophe
that happened on Antiterra in the beau milieu of the 19th century
(1.3).********
*Nashi ("Us") and Ne nashi
("Them") are the titles of two chapters in Herzen's Byloe i dumy.
**cf. pisat' myslete, "to walk like a
drunk"
***
****after Lutetia, the city's ancient
name
*****unlike collective
impersonal narod (people), lyudi is plural of
chelovek (man)
******similarly, the Russian counterpart (called
glagol', "gallows," in the old alphabet) of Roman
G looks like Roman L turned upside
down. Russian spelling of the name "Hugo" is
Gyugo, Herzen would be Gertsen, Heinrich Heine,
Genrikh Geyne, Herwegh, Gerveg, and Hegel,
Gegel'.
*******Hugo's beloved daughter was drowned in
Seine
********In my opinion, other "historical" events
that may correspond to the Antiterran L disaster include the
Fall (the lapse of human beings into a state of natural or innate sinfulness
through the sin of Adam and Eve), Dostoevsky's mock execution in the
Semyonovsky square in St. Petersburg on January 3, 1850 (New Style; January 3 is
Lucette's birthday: 1.1) and the Russian "October" Revolution (which struck
on November 7, 1917, NS; November 7 is Aldanov's birthday)
Alexey Sklyarenko
