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Vladimir Nabokov: The Enchanter

Good Morning' All, Yes! 'Tis I, the Night Owl amongst the Early Birds! Amazing, Frightening, downright wierd even! :eek:

Oh Breaca, of the preternaturally eagle eye! :)
Yes, I may have to use those lil ole sticky thingys! But thats great, I knew that I felt that way, but could not remember why.

Evidence, my dear Peder evidence!
 
Breaca said:
Thank heavens for post-its:) The Enchanter is Arthur. It's in plain black and white - page 55 '...for there was no telling what impudent elf might fly from the lips of enchanted innocence..' Slithering onto the next page he refers to himself as the 'enchanter' and goes on to say, 'He knew he would find sufficient delights in her so as not to disenchant her prematureley...'

I wonder if there are more examples? Decisions, decisions. To reread or flick through in the hope that mine eyes will alight upon...
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Breaca,
You make it sound so simple! :eek:
I'm going back to my other strategy, of just hummin along and letting you and Pontalba tell me what is going on, with pictures.
Don't go away; we need you! :D
Peder
 
Breaca said:
Thank heavens for post-its:) The Enchanter is Arthur. It's in plain black and white - page 55 '...for there was no telling what impudent elf might fly from the lips of enchanted innocence..' Slithering onto the next page he refers to himself as the 'enchanter' and goes on to say, 'He knew he would find sufficient delights in her so as not to disenchant her prematureley...'

I wonder if there are more examples? Decisions, decisions. To reread or flick through in the hope that mine eyes will alight upon...
Click to expand...

Good eye, Breaca! :D
 
Still, reading Vera

I was browsing through the jottings over there on listserve, and read where Dmitri Nabokow says this:

There are some outstanding specialists: Johnson, Dolinin, Nicol, Parker, to name a few, and especially Brian Boyd. In fact, the latter's stunning expertise on ADA, which has continued to develop ever since he came to see my mother and me in Montreux on the wings of his doctoral thesis -- a visit that led to the writing of the only Nabokov biography worthy of the name.
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Do you suppose he intentionally left out Schiff's name? :confused: Vera was published in 1999.
 
StillILearn said:
I was browsing through the jottings over there on listserve, and read where Dmitri Nabokow says this:



Do you suppose he intentionally left out Schiff's name? :confused: Vera was published in 1999.
Click to expand...
Still,
Don't know, but my guess would be that he had Field at the front of his mind, because I have heard that earlier one crticicized as inaccurate. Vera would probably not be viewed as a biography of Nabokov, and certainly not as comprehensive as Brian Boyd's in any event. So it wouldn't necessarily come first to mind.

I'm glad to see that listserve is talking to you. I really found it opaque and difficult when I was trying to find out things about Pale Fire. If it's working for you that's super, because as you see it has the current man himself in attendance.

PS the advice to someone else on another forum who was thinking of signing on was "make sure you have a LARGE inbox." Which I took to mean everything goes to everybody, but could be wrong

Sooner or later you'll come across something relating to Enchanter. :)
peder

PS and now that I look back I think he was thinking 'real' deep-down devoted specialists; Shiff being more in the category of general biographer.
Remark sounds like an academic respecting certain academics, to my ears. You and I may read about physics but then there was Einstein.
P
 
Peder said:
Still,
Don't know, but my guess would be that he had Field at the front of his mind, because I have heard that earlier one crticicized as inaccurate. Vera would probably not be viewed as a biography of Nabokov, and certainly not as comprehensive as Brian Boyd's in any event. So it wouldn't necessarily come first to mind.

I'm glad to see that listserve is talking to you. I really found it opaque and difficult when I was trying to find out things about Pale Fire. If it's working for you that's super, because as you see it has the current man himself in attendance.

PS the advice to someone else on another forum who was thinking of signing on was "make sure you have a LARGE inbox." Which I took to mean everything goes to everybody, but could be wrong

Sooner or later you'll come across something relating to Enchanter. :)
peder

PS and now that I look back I think he was thinking 'real' deep-down devoted specialists; Shiff being more in the category of general biographer.
Remark sounds like an academic respecting certain academics, to my ears. You and I may read about physics but then there was Einstein.
P
Click to expand...

Still, laughing! Heavens - I'm not actually talking to these exhalted beings - I'm only lurking (picking shreds of flesh off arcane bones, so to speak).

Not to mention the fact that I may be eavesdropping on conversations that took place many years ago. (If one believes in spatial time, that is.) :D
 
StillILearn said:
Still, laughing! Heavens - I'm not actually talking to these exhalted beings - I'm only lurking (picking shreds of flesh off arcane bones, so to speak).

Not to mention the fact that I may be eavesdropping on conversations that took place many years ago. (If one believes in spatial time, that is.) :D
Click to expand...
Still,
Here's a coincidence that you may find amazing!
Since posting I have been looking at the Lolita Commemorative essays in the Christmas 2005 Playboy issue [yes, Playboy], and amazingly have come across one of the names mentioned in your earlier post

Dmitri Nabokov writing:
What is least comprehensible and most hurtful is how a pompous Russian scholar, Alexander Dolinin, who has built much of an international academic career on the study and admiration of Nabokov, has suddenly knifed his subject in the back in frankly Stalinist terms. I guess the man has seen his years slithering by and had to give his envy and his venom free rein. "Nabokov", he writes,"had to justify his emigration from his native language and literature. It seems that memoirist, biographers and critics alike tend to fall under the spell of Nabokov's own inventions, evasions, exaggerations and half-truths and perpetuate his mythmaking games by sticking to its rules." Read the online poem "Softest of Tongues," Mr. Dolinin. As for you, you are no longer welcome to "teach" Nabokov inside his family dwelling in Russia.
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Zow!

Peder

PS I meant 'speaking' in the sense of being understandable to you.
 
Peder said:
Still,
Here's a coincidence that you may find amazing!
Since posting I have been looking at the Lolita Commemorative essays in the Christmas 2005 Playboy issue [yes, Playboy], and amazingly have come across one of the names mentioned in your earlier post
PS I meant 'speaking' in the sense of being understandable to you.
Click to expand...

I'm finding it to be amazing that there seem to be no VN-free zones anywhere we look! :eek:
 
StillILearn said:
I'm finding it to be amazing that there seem to be no VN-free zones anywhere we look! :eek:
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He has permeated the entire world.
Maybe even the girls in Playboy have heard of him. :rolleyes:
 
Peder said:
He has permeated the entire world.
Maybe even the girls in Playboy have heard of him. :rolleyes:
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I could have sworn that librarian I talked to hadn't. Even when she saw his name spelled out! :eek: I mean, the way I pronounced it might have thrown anybody! :D

(I think I may have sounded a bit like Eva Gabor.) :eek:
 
StillILearn said:
I could have sworn that librarian I talked to hadn't. Even when she saw his name spelled out! :eek: I mean, the way I pronounced it might have thrown anybody! :D

(I think I may have sounded a bit like Eva Gabor.) :eek:
Click to expand...

And here I've been thinking Marilyn Monroe all this time! :cool:
peder
 
StillILearn said:
I could have sworn that librarian I talked to hadn't. Even when she saw his name spelled out! :eek: I mean, the way I pronounced it might have thrown anybody! :D

(I think I may have sounded a bit like Eva Gabor.) :eek:
Click to expand...

I remember you mentioning that before SIL. I have to admit that I didn't know how to pronounce Nabokov until I heard Jeremy Irons pronounce it on the Lolita tape. Possibly that was the librarians problem, once you get an incorrect pronunciation in your head, its difficult to remove it.

And as for the other... I'm thinking that we have one sexy crew hereabouts! I mean, Eva Gabor, Marilyn Monroe, Ava Gardner.....what shall we assign to Peder? We have to think about this one SIL! :D
 
Still waiting for the book to get here. I had two packages waiting for me at home, but alas, no book.:(
 
I have been collecting masterful seques in The Ehcanter.

As the story devlops, the time comes that Arthur is sitting with the talkative old governess on the park bench, while she rambles on and on, and the daughter comes and goes, when suddenly he hears some very bad news in among the flow of words from the governess:
...but that soon it would be time to head home...
Click to expand...
meaning that she and her husband were going to be taking the daughter with them, back to their own town.
On the very next beat, Arthur asks,
"Say, didn't you mention that [the mother] was selling off some sort of furniture?"
Click to expand...
[!!!!!!!!!!!!]

Just like that, so nonchalant. So conversational. So seemingly unimportant. And referring to the mother he hasn't even met.

And no sooner are we admiring Arthur's quick resoucefulness, than we learn in the very next sentence that he had prepared that conversational gambit beforehand, and rehearsed it out loud in his room, until he could say it and have it sound perfectly natural.

That snake! That snake! That villainous snake!!

And then we sit back and realize that once again Nabokov has masterfully slipped in another fast forward, to move the story along at just the critical moment.

Breathless,
peder
 
Aside from the few sentences/hints regarding his profession, diamond merchant apparently, the whole of his existance is focused on his prey. Firstly identifying the prey, then capture of same. Talk about single minded! Even to the "years" of searching and occasionally catching a glimpse of a target, he only gives a fleeting nod.

Everything is focused, his whole reason for being is directed to aquisition of one slightly built 12 year old child. /shiver/

Gives whole new meaning to the term stalker doesn't it?:(
 
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