NPPF - Canto 4 - Notes

[David Morris]

--- The Great Quail <quail at libyrinth.com> wrote:
> 
> 894: "and like Marat bleed." -- Jean-Paul Marat, 1743-1793. Writer and
doctor, associated with the French Revolution. He was murdered in his bathtub
by Charlotte Corday. 

>From the N-list:


EDNOTE. I suppose that "Cora Day" refers to Charlotte Corday who stabbed the 
French revolutionary Marat to death in his bath (1793). It is the subject of a
famous painting.  
VN refers to Corday elsewhere. ADA? Someone should look into the contexts and
find out why.

Carolyn Kunin:
Yes, I just came across Cora Day (again) in Ada -- next to Tolstoy's Hadji
Murat. And she was in Pale Fire, perhaps not by name, but by inference when
Shade, in his bath, "like Marat bled." I think she may be in Lolita too (along
with Agnes Day and Gloria Mundy?) -- or was that Pnin? I suspect she may turn
up in every novel, if one looks for her.

It may just be a sort of recurring joke. It reminds me of a technique in silent
films -- Jacques Tati used it in M. Hulot  (for example the taffy left hanging
on a hook in the sun). If there is a "punchline" it may be in something written
after Ada.


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