Enviada em: sexta-feira, 1 de julho de 2011 19:15
Assunto: [NABOKOV-L] [SIGHTING] Vila-Mata's Lolita and
Nabokovian Lecture
Enrique Vila-Mata mentions Nabokov, by name, at least three times
in his book "Dublinesca."
The first time he merely hinted at VN (and I wasn't even very sure
of it) by detailing misprints in two Spanish translations of James
Joyce's "Dubliners," in connection to O'Connell and O'Donnell*.
Next, when he mentions that Gutenberg's galaxy is now a pale fire
of which Joyce's novel [Ulysses] remains as one of its great stelar
instances (p.114, ed.Cosacnaify) or by its altered indication ( "life
resembles a faint shadow, formed by the disfigured light of an anaemic
imaginary lunar fire") on p.119.
Then, another hesitation, when Vila-Mata begins to describe Guido
Cavalcanti's presence in an episode of Bocaccio's Decameron,
when the poet jumps over the wall, with light elegance, to drop on "the
other side"(p.121/22). After all, why not mention Guido Cavalcanti,
independently of Nabokov's insertion of the Italian poet in "Ada"?
However a few pages later the author mentions Kubrick's "Lolita," Mason
as Humbert Humbert and his encounter with "a certain guy called Quilty."
It looks as if the Spanish writer didn't want to cite Nabokov, as
if he were trying to evade a direct reference to him.
Soon the mysterious Quilty has his importance taken over by
Joyce's man in a mackintosh (155-56).
Finally, he spells out "Nabokov" (not Vladimir Nabokov) when
he mentions his theory about the man in the mackintosh in LEL. He
informs that for Nabokov the key to the mystery lies in the fourth
chapter of the second part of Ulysses, in the library scene,
when Stephen Dedalus explains that Shakespeare often wrote himself into
his plays, just as Nabokov thinks Joyce did by presenting the mystery
of M'Intosh (p.159-160), when he has Bloom face his own creator when he
wonders about the man in the mackintosh.
When we are nearing the last chapters ("July") we now see the
entire name,Vladimir Nabokov, and his lectures on literature delivered
in Cornell (I don't know what kind of edition of LEL corresponds to the
Spanish translation he refers to) He describes them as "wise lessons"
(no irony intended) that might send him to sleep (p.252-53) by calming
down his spirit I surmise. Soon he'll write that he is nervous and will
consult Nabokov to obtain help from his words... On page 258, feeling a
nightmarish hangover the atheist ex-editor consults Nabokov's lectures
as if "they'd provide him with a life-saving board" by delving into one
of Nabokov's commentaries to Joyce's Ulysses (chapter One of
the Second Part), at Eccles Street, 7. At this point the main
quotations come from Samuel Becket and .his biographer, James Knowlson
and Samuel Riba's end is near.
...................................................................................................................
* - Vila-Mata lets us know that the name of Joyce's editor in Ulysses
is Sylvia Beach and we may remember that Sylvia O'Connell married Leopold
O'Donnell.
Actually, this almost looks like life imitating art when Spanish
translators mix up O'Connell and O'Donnell, while Nabokov has his
Sylvia O'Connell change into O'Donnell through marriage to Leopold.