There does seem to be a privileged "Collected Works" Penguin contract that is more aggressive than the U.S. contract with Knopf. I believe at least one of the many updates to Collected Stories also came out significantly earlier in the UK, also Tragedy of Mr. Morn and the new Collected Poems.
But I'm also curious about a Russian language edition of Vera letters, since presumably the couple would have corresponded primarily in Russian. Does anyone know anything on this front?
Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 00:00:06 -0700
From: LISTSERV@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Subject: NABOKV-L Digest - 18 Apr 2015 to 19 Apr 2015 (#2015-94)
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
 |
 |
| Browse the NABOKV-L online archives. |
|
--Forwarded Message Attachment--
Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 14:20:12 -0300
From: jansy.mello@OUTLOOK.COM
Subject: critical time travel by eversion? Reading A.Swanson's 1975 artinle forty years later
"I loathe science fiction with its gals and goons, suspense and suspensories" (ADA,117), quoted by Arthur Swanson in “Nabokov's Ada as Science Fiction”
There are ways of asking questions that open new investigative paths into the work of an author, others lead us onto real or artificial quandaries.
Here is an example of inquiries that lead us into fresh assertions, new parallels and vocabulary but also to real and false quandaries. It begins asking “Can Ada be viewed as science fiction?” and it investigates if “science…unblended with poetry transforms humans into insects” and turns “’real things’ (facts,logoi) into ‘ghost things’,” now imposing the author’s own understanding of “real things” by adding “facts, logoi” inside parenthesis. A.Swanson sees V.Nabokov’s novel as carrying a meaning that may disappear after being discovered. By ignoring the dimension of its “art” he will consider Ada’s survival “in its own concepts”.
"The question here has been "Can Ada be viewed as science fiction?" If the foregoing argument in the affirmative is accepted, other questions must follow: Why does Nabokov make use of science fiction elements? Does he consider science to be, when unblended with poetry, a form of incest which transforms humans into insects, as his insect-scient-nicest -incest anagram indicates? (85/§1:13) Does he consider that science ruins the towers and breaks the bridges it has built precisely because it has found the means to build them, that science turns "real things" (facts, logoi) into "ghost things" (abstractions, fictions, mists, mythoi) precisely because it has achieved the means of discovering "real things?" These questions and others like them must lead to other essays, and those essays in turn to further studies, until the meaning of Ada disappears because it has been discovered, and until the novel, like its inbred agonists, is survived by its own concepts."*
Science Fiction Studies # 5 = Volume 2, Part 1 = March 1975. http://www.depauw.edu/sfs/backissues/5/swanson5art.htm
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
* excerpts: “…one has to risk Nabokov's contempt and his charge of stupidity in drawing up a critique to buttress one's opinions that Nabokov subscribes to Van Veen's concepts of time and that Ada may be viewed as science fiction. […] we could label almost all of Nabokov's narrative art as SF; but to do so would be specious and would obscure the point that Nabokov loathes, not SF, with which he clearly has an affinity, but routine SF […] [Ada] does not resemble SF, but it may be studied as being of that genre or kind, especially if the study centers on that SF element which, for the sake of convenience, we may term "eversion." The term would denote a double reversal or a turning-inside-out; and Ada's eversions of time, earth, and sexual gender can be called, respectively, "transtemporality," "transterrestriality," and "transsexuality. […] Broadly speaking, serious science fiction offers analogies to the first man and the last man from the paleontology and teleology of humankind; and it may compound this challenge to academic thinking, as Ada does, by everting the analogies or by subjecting them to other forms of ‘version’ […] In Nabokov's Ada human concepts, notably those of the first and last man and woman, are everted. The sense of this may be that man (the species) creates himself in his own concepts, that he gains an understanding of his own concepts by turning them inside out, that he uncreates himself by this turning-inside-out, and that he is ultimately survived by his own concepts, which, in themselves, are not destroyed by eversion […] The childless Ada and Van are survived by their concepts of their love on earth and in time. Nabokov's conspectus is that each human being is psychologically both male and female and is both physically human and spiritually divine: each human being is a Tiresian solipsism…”
| Google Search the archive |
Contact the Editors |
NOJ | Zembla | Nabokv-L Policies |
Subscription options | AdaOnline | NSJ Ada Annotations | L-Soft Search the archive | VN Bibliography Blog |
All private editorial communications are read by both co-editors.
--Forwarded Message Attachment--
Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 22:15:33 -0400
From: ssweeney@HOLYCROSS.EDU
Subject: Fwd: pale looking-glass of past & mushrooms in The Enchanter; Grib & volshebnik in The Waltz Invention
From: Alexey Sklyarenko <skylark1970@mail.ru>
Date: 2015-04-19 7:57 GMT-04:00
Subject: pale looking-glass of past & mushrooms in The Enchanter; Grib & volshebnik in The Waltz Invention
To: Susan Elizabeth Sweeney <ssweeney@holycross.edu>
Да всю правду доложи:
Я ль на свете всех милее,
Всех румяней и белее?»
Nothing but the truth, I ask:
Who in all the world is fairest
And has beauty of the rarest?"
Есть высокая гора,
В ней глубокая нора;
В той норе, во тьме печальной,
Гроб качается хрустальный
На цепях между столбов.
Where a quiet stream is flowing
Stands a mountain high and steep
In it lies a cavern deep;
In this cave in shadows dismal
Sways a coffin, made of crystal.
Hung by chains from pillars six.
Палку толстую возьми
И шагай большой дорогой
Вместе с добрыми людьми.
По холмам страны родимой
Вместе с добрыми людьми,
Без тревоги нелюдимой,
Без сомнений, чёрт возьми.
Километр за километром
Ми-ре-до и до-ре-ми,
Вместе с солнцем, вместе с ветром,
Вместе с добрыми людьми.
Гроб. Нужно встать?
Вальс. Вы можете и сидя и лёжа слушать.
Общий смех.
Ах, как вы смешливы. (Act Two)
Голос. Господин Президент Республики!
Генералы встают, как бы идут навстречу и возвращаются, словно сопровождая кого-то, но сопровождаемый -- невидим. Невидимого Президента подводят к пустому креслу, и по движениям Герба и министра видно, что невидимого усаживают.
Министр (к пустому креслу). Господин Президент, позволяю себе сказать, что вы пожаловали к нам весьма своевременно! За сегодняшний день, -- полковник, придвиньте к Президенту пепельницу, -- за сегодняшний день случилось нечто столь важное, что ваше присутствие необходимо. Господин Президент, по некоторым признакам приходится заключить, что мы находимся накануне государственного переворота, -- или, вернее, этот переворот происходит вот сейчас, в этой зале. Невероятно, но так. Я по крайней мере, и вот -- комиссия, и... и, словом, все тут считаем, что нужно покориться, нужно принять неизбежное... И вот мы сейчас слушаем речь, -- я затрудняюсь охарактеризовать её, но она... но она, господин Президент, она -- почти тронная!..
Министр. Вот вы послушайте, господин Президент, вы только послушайте... (Act Two)
Как хирел наш край без отца?
Так без хмеля сильнейшая жажда
Не создаст ни пивца, ни певца.
Вообразите, ни реп нет,
Ни баклажанов, ни брюкв...
Так и песня, что днесь у нас крепнет,
Задыхалась в луковках букв.
Шли мы тропиной исторенной,
Горькие ели грибы,
Пока ворота истории
Не дрогнули от колотьбы!
Пока, белизною кительной
Сияя верным сынам,
С улыбкой своей удивительной
Правитель не вышел к нам.
Вальс. А... так бы сразу и сказали. Глупое недоразумение. Мне от него захотелось есть. Отлично. Вам уже сообщили, что мне нужно?
Гриб. Вам нужен дворец.
Вальс. Да, дворец. Отлично. Я люблю громадные, белые, солнечные здания. Вы для меня должны построить нечто сказочное, со сказочными удобствами. Колонны, фонтаны, окна в полнеба, хрустальные потолки... И вот ещё, -- давняя моя мечта... чтоб было такое приспособление, -- не знаю, электрическое, что ли, -- я в технике слаб, -- словом, проснёшься, нажмёшь кнопку, и кровать тихо едет и везёт тебя прямо к ванне... И еще я хочу, чтоб во всех стенах были краны с разными ледяными напитками... Всё это я давно-давно заказал судьбе, -- знаете, когда жил в душных, шумных, грязных углах... лучше не вспоминать.
Вальс. Но главное, это должно быть выстроено скоро, я вам даю десять дней. Довольно?
Гриб. Увы, одна доставка материалов потребует больше месяца.
Вальс. Ну, это -- извините. Я снаряжу целый флот. В три дня будет доставлено...
--
| Google Search the archive |
Contact the Editors |
NOJ | Zembla | Nabokv-L Policies |
Subscription options | AdaOnline | NSJ Ada Annotations | L-Soft Search the archive | VN Bibliography Blog |
All private editorial communications are read by both co-editors.
--Forwarded Message Attachment--
Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 23:11:08 -0400
From: nabokv-l@HOLYCROSS.EDU
Subject: EDITORIAL: Invitation to a Birthday
--
Co-Editor, NABOKV-L
| Google Search the archive |
Contact the Editors |
NOJ | Zembla | Nabokv-L Policies |
Subscription options | AdaOnline | NSJ Ada Annotations | L-Soft Search the archive | VN Bibliography Blog |
All private editorial communications are read by both co-editors.
--Forwarded Message Attachment--
Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 23:32:28 -0400
From: nabokv-l@HOLYCROSS.EDU
Subject: QUERY: Letters to Vera
book on the V & V Letters, but not a word that I can find on this my
computer list. Discussion was ver,y very interesting. Am I --- or we ---
missing something? What goes?
Cheers
Co-Editor, NABOKV-L
| Google Search the archive |
Contact the Editors |
NOJ | Zembla | Nabokv-L Policies |
Subscription options | AdaOnline | NSJ Ada Annotations | L-Soft Search the archive | VN Bibliography Blog |
All private editorial communications are read by both co-editors.