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Re: THOUGHTS: A glimpse of Botkin?
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RSG: Since CK refers to one Dr. Sutton as "Old Dr. Sutton," wouldn't that imply that there's also a young Dr. Sutton who is living in the same house as his presumably retired father? I am reminded of William Carlos Williams's son, also a doctor, who later occupied his father's house and used his attached office as well.
Jansy Mello: Trying to make distinctions better to understand where to Kinbote is leading us (...where?):
Shade writes about Dr.Sutton in line 119. He is not the one mentioned on line 986, but the one who "lives higher up on the same wooded hill...an old clapboard house" (south from Shade's and Goldsworth's homes, it seems) and who was the doctor who follows Hazel Shade's poltergeist and haunted barn episodes. Kinbote mentions him in his note to line 119* and in the notes to lines 230 and 347. There's no indication that they live in the same house but CK affirms that one is "old-fashioned" (learned, sagacious) and that the other is "ancient" (he must be 84).
1. line 230 (a domestic ghost): "My poor friend could not help recalling the dramatic fits of his early boyhood and wondering if this was not a new genetic variant of the same theme, preserved through procreation. Trying to hide from neighbors these horrible and humiliating phenomena was not the least of Shade's worries. He was terrified, and he was lacerated with pity. Although never able to corner her, that flabby, feeble, clumsy and solemn girl, who seemed more interested than frightened, he and Sybil never doubted that in some extraordinary way she was the agent of the disturbance which they saw as representing (I now quote Jane P.) "an outward extension or expulsion of insanity." They could not do much about it, partly because they disliked modern voodoo-psychiatry, but mainly because they were afraid of Hazel, and afraid to hurt her. They had however a secret interview with old-fashioned and learned Dr. Sutton, and this put them in better spirits.[ ] The phenomena ceased completely and were, if not forgotten, at least never referred to; but how curious it is that we do not perceive a mysterious sign of equation between the Hercules springing forth from a neurotic child's weak frame and the boisterous ghost of Aunt Maud; how curious that our rationality feels satisfied when we plump for the first explanation, though, actually, the scientific and the supernatural, the miracle of the muscle and the miracle of the mind, are both inexplicable as are all the ways of Our Lord." For Kinbote, Hazel's insanity arises under the influence of Aunt Maud's ghost.
2. line 347 (old barn) "But to return to Hazel Shade. She decided she wanted to investigate the "phenomena" herself for a paper [ ] Her parents permitted her to make a nocturnal visit to the barn only under the condition that Jane P. - deemed a pillar of reliability - accompany her. [ ] a few days later asked Jane to come with her again, but Jane could not. [ ]and after a row with her parents took her bull's-eye and notebook and set off alone. One can well imagine how the Shades dreaded a recrudescence of the poltergeist nuisance but the ever-sagacious Dr. Sutton affirmed - on what authority I cannot tell - that cases in which the same person was again involved in the same type of outbreaks after a lapse of six years were practically unknown."
The other Sutton had a daughter and is mentioned by Kinbote noting on lines 181 and 1000
1. CK note to line 181: "I heard the first guest's car. Oh, I saw them all. I saw ancient Dr. Sutton, a snowy-headed, perfectly oval little gentleman arrive in a tottering Ford with his tall daughter, Mrs. Starr, a war widow..."
2. CK note 1000: "...and then there was the awful moment when Dr. Sutton's daughter drove up with Sybil Shade. In the course of that chaotic night I found a moment to transfer the poem ..."
..............................................................................
* CK note to line 119: "This is a recombination of letters taken from two names, one beginning in "Sut," the other ending in "ton." Two distinguished medical men, long retired from practice, dwelt on our hill. Both were very old friends of the Shades; one had a daughter, president of Sybil's club - and this is the Dr. Sutton I visualize in my notes to lines 181 and 1000. He is also mentioned in Line 986. " I doubt that Shade had two different doctors in mind when he mentioned them in his poem. Kinbote must have split them in two for a mysterious reason.
John Shade's lines with the two distinct Suttons (according to CK):
1." That's Dr. Sutton's light. That's the Great Bear." (he is consulted as some sort of Hazel's psychiatric observer, or a GP)
2. "But it's not bedtime yet. The sun attains/Old Dr. Sutton's last two windowpanes./The man must be - what? Eighty? Eighty-two?/Was twice my age the year I married you." (he is the father of Mrs.Starr)
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Jansy Mello: Trying to make distinctions better to understand where to Kinbote is leading us (...where?):
Shade writes about Dr.Sutton in line 119. He is not the one mentioned on line 986, but the one who "lives higher up on the same wooded hill...an old clapboard house" (south from Shade's and Goldsworth's homes, it seems) and who was the doctor who follows Hazel Shade's poltergeist and haunted barn episodes. Kinbote mentions him in his note to line 119* and in the notes to lines 230 and 347. There's no indication that they live in the same house but CK affirms that one is "old-fashioned" (learned, sagacious) and that the other is "ancient" (he must be 84).
1. line 230 (a domestic ghost): "My poor friend could not help recalling the dramatic fits of his early boyhood and wondering if this was not a new genetic variant of the same theme, preserved through procreation. Trying to hide from neighbors these horrible and humiliating phenomena was not the least of Shade's worries. He was terrified, and he was lacerated with pity. Although never able to corner her, that flabby, feeble, clumsy and solemn girl, who seemed more interested than frightened, he and Sybil never doubted that in some extraordinary way she was the agent of the disturbance which they saw as representing (I now quote Jane P.) "an outward extension or expulsion of insanity." They could not do much about it, partly because they disliked modern voodoo-psychiatry, but mainly because they were afraid of Hazel, and afraid to hurt her. They had however a secret interview with old-fashioned and learned Dr. Sutton, and this put them in better spirits.[ ] The phenomena ceased completely and were, if not forgotten, at least never referred to; but how curious it is that we do not perceive a mysterious sign of equation between the Hercules springing forth from a neurotic child's weak frame and the boisterous ghost of Aunt Maud; how curious that our rationality feels satisfied when we plump for the first explanation, though, actually, the scientific and the supernatural, the miracle of the muscle and the miracle of the mind, are both inexplicable as are all the ways of Our Lord." For Kinbote, Hazel's insanity arises under the influence of Aunt Maud's ghost.
2. line 347 (old barn) "But to return to Hazel Shade. She decided she wanted to investigate the "phenomena" herself for a paper [ ] Her parents permitted her to make a nocturnal visit to the barn only under the condition that Jane P. - deemed a pillar of reliability - accompany her. [ ] a few days later asked Jane to come with her again, but Jane could not. [ ]and after a row with her parents took her bull's-eye and notebook and set off alone. One can well imagine how the Shades dreaded a recrudescence of the poltergeist nuisance but the ever-sagacious Dr. Sutton affirmed - on what authority I cannot tell - that cases in which the same person was again involved in the same type of outbreaks after a lapse of six years were practically unknown."
The other Sutton had a daughter and is mentioned by Kinbote noting on lines 181 and 1000
1. CK note to line 181: "I heard the first guest's car. Oh, I saw them all. I saw ancient Dr. Sutton, a snowy-headed, perfectly oval little gentleman arrive in a tottering Ford with his tall daughter, Mrs. Starr, a war widow..."
2. CK note 1000: "...and then there was the awful moment when Dr. Sutton's daughter drove up with Sybil Shade. In the course of that chaotic night I found a moment to transfer the poem ..."
..............................................................................
* CK note to line 119: "This is a recombination of letters taken from two names, one beginning in "Sut," the other ending in "ton." Two distinguished medical men, long retired from practice, dwelt on our hill. Both were very old friends of the Shades; one had a daughter, president of Sybil's club - and this is the Dr. Sutton I visualize in my notes to lines 181 and 1000. He is also mentioned in Line 986. " I doubt that Shade had two different doctors in mind when he mentioned them in his poem. Kinbote must have split them in two for a mysterious reason.
John Shade's lines with the two distinct Suttons (according to CK):
1." That's Dr. Sutton's light. That's the Great Bear." (he is consulted as some sort of Hazel's psychiatric observer, or a GP)
2. "But it's not bedtime yet. The sun attains/Old Dr. Sutton's last two windowpanes./The man must be - what? Eighty? Eighty-two?/Was twice my age the year I married you." (he is the father of Mrs.Starr)
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/