Subject
Fra Karamazov in Pale Fire
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John Shade writes about I.P.H. (the Institute of Preparation for the Hereafter):
In later years it started to decline:
Buddhism took root. A medium smuggled in
Pale jellies and a floating mandolin.
Fra Karamazov, mumbling his inept
All is allowed, into some classes crept... ("Pale Fire", the poem, ll. 638-42)
Fra* Karamazov is Ivan Karamazov, one of the three or four (because the lackey Smerdyakov turns out to be the illegitimate son of Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov) Karamazov brothers in Dostoevsky's eponymous novel. In a conversation with his younger brother Alyosha (Book Five: "Pro et Contra", ch. V: "The Great Inquisitor"), Ivan confirms the correctness of the "all is allowed" (vsyo pozvoleno) formula that was first suggested by Dmitriy, their older half-brother.
After he finds out that it was not Dmitriy but Smerdyakov (who labored under delusion that he was being manipulated by Ivan) who murdered his father, Ivan goes insane and begins to have hallucinations. When hallucinating, he speaks to a devil who speaks back to him. The devil once confesses to Ivan (Book Eleven: "Brother Ivan Fyodorovich", ch. IX: "The Devil. The Nightmare of Ivan Fyodorovich") that he dreams of being incarnated in some fat merchant wife seven poods in weight (semipudovaya kupchikha; one pood = 16 kg).
Now, Semipudovaya kupchikha is a chapter in Khodasevich's essay "Muni" (a few years ago Oleg Dorman tried to draw the List's attention to it) included in his book of memoirs Necropolis (1939). Muni (the pen-name of the poet Samuil Kissin, 1885-1916) was Khodasevich's best friend who lived a difficult life, attempted to abandon his personality altogether and become a totally different person, with a different name, habits and everything else, and who eventually committed a suicide. Muni apparently was a medium who had a gift of correctly predicting events before they happen (but this concerned only minor events; cf. two anecdotes told by Khodasevich). Muni took his pen-name after Sakyamuni, one of the names of Buddha (cf. "Buddhism took root" and the mention of a medium in Shade's poem, as well as the possible connection between I.P.H. and Necropolis, the title of Khodasevich's last book that appeared a few weeks before the author's death).
If I'm not mistaken, Sakyamuni is mentioned in R. L. Stevenson's story "The Rajah's Diamond" (I confess, I haven't read the story and rely on my recollection of the wonderful Russian film adaptation of the Florizel stories). Its hero, Prince Florizel of Bohemia** (who is also the hero of Stevenson's earlier "The Suicide Club"), calls Sakyamuni's hand the only disinterested one among those hands that ever held this sixth known diamond. The story ends in Florizel throwing the beautiful stone, as loathsome to him as though it were crawling with the worms of death (for too many people perished because of it), into the Seine. A few years later a revolution hurls the Prince from the throne of Bohemia and he ends up as a keeper of a cigar store in London.
Prince Florizel's companion in his adventures in London and Paris is Colonel Geraldine. Cf. Mr. Gerald Emerald and Colonel Gusev in Kinbote's Commentary. The name Gusev comes from gus', Russian for "goose". In A. Conan Doyl's story "The Blue Diamond" (whose hero, Sherlock Holmes, is mentioned, in connection with a bird's footprints, in Canto One of Shade's Poem; by the way, the same Conan Doyl story was a source of inspiration for Ilf and Petrov when they wrote "The Twelve Chairs", with its three immemorial diamond hunters; note that Ilf and Petrov are mentioned by Shade in Kinbote's Commentary), it is a goose that swallows the diamond. Can all this help us in our search of Zemblan Crown Jewels perhaps?
Florizel's adversary in "The Suicide Club" and "The Rajah's Diamond" is a certain Jack Vandeleur, the ex-Dictator of Paraguay. Note three Johns: Karamazov, Vandeleur and Shade.
*anagrams do not seem to be as important in Pale Fire as they are in ADA; all the same, note that fra (Italian for "brother") = far and that there are both "karma" and kazarma (Russian for "barracks") in "Karamazov". Also, note that Kinbote = Botkine = botinok + e - o; botinok is Russian for "shoe"; cf. in Shade's poem: "Was he in Sherlock Holmes, the fellow whose / Tracks pointed back when he reversed his shoes?"
**Prince Florizel of Bohemia is also a character in Shakespeare's "The Winter's Tale"
Alexey Sklyarenko
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In later years it started to decline:
Buddhism took root. A medium smuggled in
Pale jellies and a floating mandolin.
Fra Karamazov, mumbling his inept
All is allowed, into some classes crept... ("Pale Fire", the poem, ll. 638-42)
Fra* Karamazov is Ivan Karamazov, one of the three or four (because the lackey Smerdyakov turns out to be the illegitimate son of Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov) Karamazov brothers in Dostoevsky's eponymous novel. In a conversation with his younger brother Alyosha (Book Five: "Pro et Contra", ch. V: "The Great Inquisitor"), Ivan confirms the correctness of the "all is allowed" (vsyo pozvoleno) formula that was first suggested by Dmitriy, their older half-brother.
After he finds out that it was not Dmitriy but Smerdyakov (who labored under delusion that he was being manipulated by Ivan) who murdered his father, Ivan goes insane and begins to have hallucinations. When hallucinating, he speaks to a devil who speaks back to him. The devil once confesses to Ivan (Book Eleven: "Brother Ivan Fyodorovich", ch. IX: "The Devil. The Nightmare of Ivan Fyodorovich") that he dreams of being incarnated in some fat merchant wife seven poods in weight (semipudovaya kupchikha; one pood = 16 kg).
Now, Semipudovaya kupchikha is a chapter in Khodasevich's essay "Muni" (a few years ago Oleg Dorman tried to draw the List's attention to it) included in his book of memoirs Necropolis (1939). Muni (the pen-name of the poet Samuil Kissin, 1885-1916) was Khodasevich's best friend who lived a difficult life, attempted to abandon his personality altogether and become a totally different person, with a different name, habits and everything else, and who eventually committed a suicide. Muni apparently was a medium who had a gift of correctly predicting events before they happen (but this concerned only minor events; cf. two anecdotes told by Khodasevich). Muni took his pen-name after Sakyamuni, one of the names of Buddha (cf. "Buddhism took root" and the mention of a medium in Shade's poem, as well as the possible connection between I.P.H. and Necropolis, the title of Khodasevich's last book that appeared a few weeks before the author's death).
If I'm not mistaken, Sakyamuni is mentioned in R. L. Stevenson's story "The Rajah's Diamond" (I confess, I haven't read the story and rely on my recollection of the wonderful Russian film adaptation of the Florizel stories). Its hero, Prince Florizel of Bohemia** (who is also the hero of Stevenson's earlier "The Suicide Club"), calls Sakyamuni's hand the only disinterested one among those hands that ever held this sixth known diamond. The story ends in Florizel throwing the beautiful stone, as loathsome to him as though it were crawling with the worms of death (for too many people perished because of it), into the Seine. A few years later a revolution hurls the Prince from the throne of Bohemia and he ends up as a keeper of a cigar store in London.
Prince Florizel's companion in his adventures in London and Paris is Colonel Geraldine. Cf. Mr. Gerald Emerald and Colonel Gusev in Kinbote's Commentary. The name Gusev comes from gus', Russian for "goose". In A. Conan Doyl's story "The Blue Diamond" (whose hero, Sherlock Holmes, is mentioned, in connection with a bird's footprints, in Canto One of Shade's Poem; by the way, the same Conan Doyl story was a source of inspiration for Ilf and Petrov when they wrote "The Twelve Chairs", with its three immemorial diamond hunters; note that Ilf and Petrov are mentioned by Shade in Kinbote's Commentary), it is a goose that swallows the diamond. Can all this help us in our search of Zemblan Crown Jewels perhaps?
Florizel's adversary in "The Suicide Club" and "The Rajah's Diamond" is a certain Jack Vandeleur, the ex-Dictator of Paraguay. Note three Johns: Karamazov, Vandeleur and Shade.
*anagrams do not seem to be as important in Pale Fire as they are in ADA; all the same, note that fra (Italian for "brother") = far and that there are both "karma" and kazarma (Russian for "barracks") in "Karamazov". Also, note that Kinbote = Botkine = botinok + e - o; botinok is Russian for "shoe"; cf. in Shade's poem: "Was he in Sherlock Holmes, the fellow whose / Tracks pointed back when he reversed his shoes?"
**Prince Florizel of Bohemia is also a character in Shakespeare's "The Winter's Tale"
Alexey Sklyarenko
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/