Log24

(Continued)

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Sean French, in a March 1998 New Statesman
review of a book on Wittgenstein and Hitler,
discusses the author's theory that …

"… the Jew who played the decisive role
in inspiring the Holocaust also played
the decisive role in bringing it to an end.

There is something heroic about this argument
and it would be a good subject for a novel about
the dangers of creating theories out of nothing.
Nabokov should have written it. It is not just
that there are weak links in the theory. There are
no links in the theory."

"Nabokov should have written it."… See Bend Sinister.

Dante, Purgatorio XVI

Esce di mano a Lui, che la vagheggia
     Prima che sia, a guisa di fanciulla,
     Che piangendo e ridendo pargoleggia,    87

L’anima semplicetta, che sa nulla,
     Salvo che, mossa da lieto fattore,
     Volontier torna a ciò che la trastulla.          90

Related material:

• T. S. Eliot's "Animula,"
• Fitz-James O'Brien's "The Diamond Lens," 

and, in this journal,

• Now Lens,
• The Purloined Diamond, and
• Shakespeare's Rhyme.