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Re: QUERIES: PF, several
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Matt: quick spin on query 1. I don¹t think ³creasing her pillow² strongly
implies intercourse. There are more appropriate idioms for having sex,
usually involving ³sheets² rather than pillows! Separate bedrooms do seem
likely, but this is not uncommon for certain ages-groups and social levels.
This is poetry, of course, and whether Shade is visiting Sybil¹s room for
love-making or chats (cf the idiom Pillow Talk!), or perhaps reading to her
his work-in-progress [compare VN and Vera?], I don¹t think the 4000
visitations¹ means more than ³many years,² and it¹s Kinbote who misreads
the 4000 as a precise ³frequency.² The choice of ³crease² is intriguing.
One thinks, perhaps, of ³frowns² and ³creased brows² with hints of a less
than perfect love life? As you say, macho boasting seems out of character.
Could it be the opposite? Shade hiding his impotence/inadequacy?
Thanks for the stimulating list which I¹m working on¹ as a relatively PF
novice. I await the experts¹ views.
skb
On 10/02/2009 16:42, "Matthew Roth" <MRoth@MESSIAH.EDU> wrote:
> Dear list,
> Perhaps some of you can help me with following loose ends in PF.
>
> 1. In lines 275-280, Shade says that his head has "creased" Sybil's pillow
> 4000 times. Questions: Is Shade referring to how many times he and Sybil have
> had intercourse? If so, that means they've had sex on average twice a week for
> 40 years! Do we believe that? Does this imply that they sleep in separate
> rooms (as did VN and Vera)? Why would the normally reserved Shade tell the
> world how many times he has had sex with his wife? Seems out of character.
>
> 2. In his note to line 181, Kinbote seems to guess that JS and Sybil are
> having a pre-dawn sexual encounter. He says that he "smiled indulgently, for,
> according to my deductions, only two nights had passed since the
> three-thousand-nine-hundred-ninety-ninth time--but no matter." Why does the
> thought of Shade and Sybil having sex cause Kinbote, who openly detests Sybil,
> to smile indulgently? Is this passage meant to confirm Shade's twice-a-week
> calculation? Kinbote refers to "the bedroom." Does this mean that Shade and
> Sybil share a bedroom?
>
> 3. The math of Hazel's barn transcription doesn't seem to work. In Hazel's
> Remarks, she says she began the alphabet eighty times but seventeen times got
> no response. That should leave us with 63 positive responses, but Hazel's
> transcription only contains 61 letters. We seem to be two letters short. Did
> VN (or Hazel, or Kinbote?) do the math wrong?
>
> 4. Why, in lines 357 & 978, does Shade refer to Hazel as "my darling," when
> throughout the rest of the poem he has addressed the poem to Sybil and, thus,
> used "our" ("She'd criticize ferociously our projects"; "when we lost our
> child")?
>
> 5. Is the image (from the Index) of Thurgus the Third "in a dressing gown of
> green silk, and carrying a flambeau in his raised hand" supposed to make us
> think of the Statue of Liberty? If so, does this reinforce the notion that the
> passage from the palace to the "green room" is equivalent to Botkin's passage
> from the Old World to green Arcady (New Wye)?
>
> 6. Is the Bera Range named after the King of Sodom (Genesis 14:2)?
>
> 7. Why does Shade blubber into Sybil's shoulder blade in the gloam of Lilac
> Lane? Where is Lilac Lane?
>
> 8. Has anyone managed to produce a landscape map of the Shade and Goldsworth
> houses? As many times as I read the note to 47-48, I cannot get it straight.
>
> Thanks,
> Matt Roth
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implies intercourse. There are more appropriate idioms for having sex,
usually involving ³sheets² rather than pillows! Separate bedrooms do seem
likely, but this is not uncommon for certain ages-groups and social levels.
This is poetry, of course, and whether Shade is visiting Sybil¹s room for
love-making or chats (cf the idiom Pillow Talk!), or perhaps reading to her
his work-in-progress [compare VN and Vera?], I don¹t think the 4000
visitations¹ means more than ³many years,² and it¹s Kinbote who misreads
the 4000 as a precise ³frequency.² The choice of ³crease² is intriguing.
One thinks, perhaps, of ³frowns² and ³creased brows² with hints of a less
than perfect love life? As you say, macho boasting seems out of character.
Could it be the opposite? Shade hiding his impotence/inadequacy?
Thanks for the stimulating list which I¹m working on¹ as a relatively PF
novice. I await the experts¹ views.
skb
On 10/02/2009 16:42, "Matthew Roth" <MRoth@MESSIAH.EDU> wrote:
> Dear list,
> Perhaps some of you can help me with following loose ends in PF.
>
> 1. In lines 275-280, Shade says that his head has "creased" Sybil's pillow
> 4000 times. Questions: Is Shade referring to how many times he and Sybil have
> had intercourse? If so, that means they've had sex on average twice a week for
> 40 years! Do we believe that? Does this imply that they sleep in separate
> rooms (as did VN and Vera)? Why would the normally reserved Shade tell the
> world how many times he has had sex with his wife? Seems out of character.
>
> 2. In his note to line 181, Kinbote seems to guess that JS and Sybil are
> having a pre-dawn sexual encounter. He says that he "smiled indulgently, for,
> according to my deductions, only two nights had passed since the
> three-thousand-nine-hundred-ninety-ninth time--but no matter." Why does the
> thought of Shade and Sybil having sex cause Kinbote, who openly detests Sybil,
> to smile indulgently? Is this passage meant to confirm Shade's twice-a-week
> calculation? Kinbote refers to "the bedroom." Does this mean that Shade and
> Sybil share a bedroom?
>
> 3. The math of Hazel's barn transcription doesn't seem to work. In Hazel's
> Remarks, she says she began the alphabet eighty times but seventeen times got
> no response. That should leave us with 63 positive responses, but Hazel's
> transcription only contains 61 letters. We seem to be two letters short. Did
> VN (or Hazel, or Kinbote?) do the math wrong?
>
> 4. Why, in lines 357 & 978, does Shade refer to Hazel as "my darling," when
> throughout the rest of the poem he has addressed the poem to Sybil and, thus,
> used "our" ("She'd criticize ferociously our projects"; "when we lost our
> child")?
>
> 5. Is the image (from the Index) of Thurgus the Third "in a dressing gown of
> green silk, and carrying a flambeau in his raised hand" supposed to make us
> think of the Statue of Liberty? If so, does this reinforce the notion that the
> passage from the palace to the "green room" is equivalent to Botkin's passage
> from the Old World to green Arcady (New Wye)?
>
> 6. Is the Bera Range named after the King of Sodom (Genesis 14:2)?
>
> 7. Why does Shade blubber into Sybil's shoulder blade in the gloam of Lilac
> Lane? Where is Lilac Lane?
>
> 8. Has anyone managed to produce a landscape map of the Shade and Goldsworth
> houses? As many times as I read the note to 47-48, I cannot get it straight.
>
> Thanks,
> Matt Roth
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/