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Re: [Fwd: Musings on Robert Southey's roast rat in PALE FIRE]
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I do not know whether the following will stand up under further scrutiny
(exact dates, etc.) but perhaps the most famous "serving" of rat in the cinema
occurs in "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?", a film released in 1962, the same
year that PF was published. Most will know the plot of this cult film. It
strikes me that the interdependence of the nostalgically mad Jane (Bette
Davis) and her wheelchair-bound (and about to be "rediscovered") actress sister
(Joan Crawford) bears a certain relationship to the Charles Kinbote-John Shade
duet? And in the end there is the question: Who exactly has driven whom
mad. Did VN perhaps see the film and find the dynamic stimulating? I would
like to think that VN saw, and enjoyed, this bizarre, and comical, b&w classic!
This taunting dialogue exchange between the two sisters:
* Blanche: "You wouldn't be able to do these awful things to me if I
wasn't in this chair."
* Jane: "But ya AAH Blanche, ya AAH in that chair!"
(Paul Hurley "chairs" the English Department...?)
Alternatively, is it too simple to think that Southey's name comes to mind
(in the context of a person - Hurley - behaving like a "rat") because Southey
was Laureate (Shade) to the King (Kinbote), and had written a famous poem
about rats pursuing a Bishop (chesspiece) to a Castle? VN does lead one a merry
dance, doesn't he?!
David Krol
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archive/nabokv-l.html
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
(exact dates, etc.) but perhaps the most famous "serving" of rat in the cinema
occurs in "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?", a film released in 1962, the same
year that PF was published. Most will know the plot of this cult film. It
strikes me that the interdependence of the nostalgically mad Jane (Bette
Davis) and her wheelchair-bound (and about to be "rediscovered") actress sister
(Joan Crawford) bears a certain relationship to the Charles Kinbote-John Shade
duet? And in the end there is the question: Who exactly has driven whom
mad. Did VN perhaps see the film and find the dynamic stimulating? I would
like to think that VN saw, and enjoyed, this bizarre, and comical, b&w classic!
This taunting dialogue exchange between the two sisters:
* Blanche: "You wouldn't be able to do these awful things to me if I
wasn't in this chair."
* Jane: "But ya AAH Blanche, ya AAH in that chair!"
(Paul Hurley "chairs" the English Department...?)
Alternatively, is it too simple to think that Southey's name comes to mind
(in the context of a person - Hurley - behaving like a "rat") because Southey
was Laureate (Shade) to the King (Kinbote), and had written a famous poem
about rats pursuing a Bishop (chesspiece) to a Castle? VN does lead one a merry
dance, doesn't he?!
David Krol
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archive/nabokv-l.html
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu