translation studies. retrospective and prospective views

seems to be “more troubled by Humbert Humbert’s use of language and
lore than by his abuse of Lolita and law.” (1991: xi) It is not unimportant
that The Annotated Lolita (1970) was the first annotated edition of a modern
novel to have been published during its author’s lifetime — “A Tale of a Tub
for our time,” as A. Appel Jr. calls it (xiii). This implies that its author was
not only consulted but he also had a chance to comment upon/ agree/
disagree with the notes — a real treat, if we may say so, for any living
author. But, not for Nabokov, the author of Pale Fire, the great “Master of
disguise” or “Enchanted Hunter,” who distrusts fiction as much as he
distrusts life or nature.
Or how else to read the Nabokov of prefaces, lectures, interviews,
letters, glossaries to the novels, afterwords, notes, if not the writer who
long learned self-inflicted language, deprivation and discovered the
meaning of uncertainty, of exclusion, disarray, clumsiness, and poverty?
The humanity Nabokov strives so hard to hide becomes what the quarry
annotators are after and strenuously translate out in various forms. Proof
stands the numerous annotating notes and even emendations to
annotations to be read in the specialized journal The Nabokovian, which has
been hosting Brian Boyd’s ongoing annotations to Ada as a special gift to its
readers since 1993. Brian Boyd’s annotations come accompanied by a
‘Forenote’ and an ‘Afternote’ which amply contextualize the motifs
identified and discussed in the notes. Boyd’s annotations are also made
available on the internet (http://www.ada.auckland.ac.nz/) and run
almost concurrently with those published in The Nabokovian. The critic’s
passionate work of annotating the novel has definitely informed and
shaped his latest critical study Nabokov’s Ada: The Place of Consciousness,
released online for download in December 2001 — a good example of how
annotators and critics heartedly shake hands.
Still, A. Appel Jr. warns us that we should not take his annotations
for critical statements, but, at their best, for assisting tools for promising
critics.
It is now of interest to try to make some generalizations about the
content of annotations and their form. Here then is a brief list of our
findings about the what and the how of the matter. In point of content,
annotations are concerned with:
(a) tracing literary, historical, mythological, Biblical, anatomical,
zoological, botanical, and geographical allusions;
(b) tracking literary allusions and references to other cultures;
(c) giving reflecting biographical data on writers and artists both
familiar and less familiar;
(d) mini-concordances of selective cross-references to identical or
related allusions in same/ other Nabokov works;
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