Subject
Nabokov on Botkin,
From
Date
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On Aug 10, 2010, at 5:08 PM, R. Rosenbaum wrote:
> And so I'd repeat VN's fairly non-ambiguous words...:
>
> "At the end of his 1962 diary, Nabokov drafted some phrases for
> possible interviews:
> 'I wonder if any reader will notice the following details: 1) that
> the nasty commentator is not an ex-King and not even Dr. Kinbote but
> Prof. Vseslav Botkin, a Russian and a madman …'"
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Just for the record,
apparently Nabokov actually spoke these words, verbatum in fact;
or handed as an index card with the words written out on it to an
interviewer.
I have a reference to an interview in the New York Herald Tribune
Books section, June 17, 1962
BOOKS AND AUTHORS By Maurice Dolbier. McCarthy's review, btw, ran in
The New Republic, June 4, 1962.
"It is jollier than the others," he said, "and it is full of plums
that I
keep hoping somebody will find. For instance, the nasty commentator is
not
an ex-King of Zembla nor is he Professor Kinbote. He is Professor
Botkin, or
Botkine, a Russian and a madman. His commentary has a number of notes
dealing with entomology, ornithology, and botany. The reviewers have
said
that I worked my favorite subjects into this novel. What they have not
discovered is that Botkin knows nothing about them, and all his notes
are
frightfully erroneous. . . . No one has noted that my commentator
committed
suicide before completing the index to the book. The last entry has no
numbered reference. . . . And even Mary McCarthy, who has discovered
more in
the book than most of its critics, had some difficulty in locating the
source of its title, and made the mistake of searching for it in 'The
Tempest.' It is from 'Timon of Athens.' The moon's an arrant thief she
snatches her pale fire from the sun.' I hope that pointing out these
things
will perhaps help the reader to enjoy my novel better."
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What I'm currently searching about for though is where VN describes
Shade as a "complex character", or of possessing a "rich inner life",
or something of that ilk. Any help would be appreciated.
–GSL
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