Everything's gone Greene
Love this post over at Selfdivider on the intersection of mystery writer S.S. Van Dine and Kafka...Continuing in this mysterious vein, Levi points us to a note for "The Speckled Band" in the humongous annotated Sherlock Holmes, containing something I hadn't come across before: A possible pseudonymous Nabokovian contribution to Baker Street Miscellanea. (I don't think it's VN's handiwork—I don't think he'd be so obvious as to offer that "Vivian Darkbloom"—an anagram he's dropped into several of his novels—was a fan of Nabokov...i.e., of himself!)...Incidentally, it was the Harry Stephen Keeler Society's Mike Nevins who helped clarify some points regarding mystery stories that cropped up in the Nabokov-Wilson letters...(Is it just me, or is the "Dear x, Dear y" titling format a touch corny?)
posted by Ed Park @ 9:48 PM
2 Comments:
I'm sure you're right, Ed--it does seem unlikely to be Nabokov himself. Even the title of the article, "Holmes is Where the Heart Is, or Tooth-Tooth, Tootsies," is a bit too blunt an instrument for Nabokov. I suppose he might have just been having a not-particularly-creative day? (But did he ever have those?)
I think my critical sense was overwhelmed by my joy at immediately recognizing the Vivian Darkbloom anagram--that, and my fervent desire to imagine Nabokov scribbling out articles for Sherlockian publications under pseudonyms!
I dimly remember that in one book, VN uses another anagram: Vivian Bloodmark! But I can't remember which book....
Post a Comment
<< Home