Subject
[NABOKOV-L] Nabokov letters to set the spirit of Pale Fire...
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Date
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From Nabokov's own hand (sources: "Dear Bunny, Dear Volodya" and "Selected Letters 1940-1977")
Letter 316 (February 27, 1961, Promenade des Anglais, Nice).
"Dear Bunny, [...] I should have written to you sooner but I had an intense period of inspiration that I badly needed for a long poem (part of my new novel) and kept imbibing it while it lasted for hours on end. I enjoy working here but I feel I should soon return to America for verbal vigor... I speak French with a cornbelt accent and buy daily the New York Herald..." (DBDV, 367/68)
To Rust Hills (March 23,1961, Promenade des Anglais, Nice)
"Dear Mr. Hills,...Yes, I do have that material for you, and since you are brave you might like to consider it. It is a narrative poem of 999 lines in four cantos...rather racy and tricky, and unpleasant and bizarre... The novel is going to take several more months to finish..." (SL)
To Jennings Wood - of the Library of Congress. (December 7, 1961, Palace Hotel, Montreux)
"Dear Mr. Wood, I'm sending you tomorrow the manuscript of a novel, entitled PALE FIRE, which I have just completed, and the typescript of which is being mailed to my publisher in New York The manuscript is written in pencil on index cards of which there are about 1075... The commentary is the novel..." (SL)
In Kinbote's hand (Pale Fire, Foreword):
Pale Fire, a poem in heroic couplets, of nine hundred ninety-nine lines, divided into four cantos, was composed by John Francis Shade (born July 5, 1898, died July 21, 1959) during the last twenty days of his life, at his residence in New Wye, Appalachia, U.S.A. The manuscript, mostly a Fair Copy, from which the present text has been faithfully printed, consists of eighty medium-sized index cards, on each of which Shade reserved the pink upper line for headings (canto number, date) and used the fourteen light-blue lines for writing out with a fine nib in a minute, tidy, remarkably clear hand, the text of his poem, skipping a line to indicate double space, and always using a fresh card to begin a new canto...As a rule, Shade destroyed drafts the moment he ceased to need them: well do I recall seeing him from my porch, on a brilliant morning, burning a whole stack of them in the pale fire of the incinerator before which he stood with bent head like an official mourner among the wind-borne black butterflies of that backyard auto-da-fé. But he saved those twelve cards because of the unused felicities shining among the dross of used draftings."
Nabokov was not as precise as Kinbote was, when counting his manuscripted index cards ("there are about 1075"), to Shade's even numbered (80 + 12) ninety-two, set down in twenty days.
.................................................................................................................................................................................................
PS: Thank you to James Twiggs (again), and to Charles H. Wallace, for the off list links to Socher's article.
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Letter 316 (February 27, 1961, Promenade des Anglais, Nice).
"Dear Bunny, [...] I should have written to you sooner but I had an intense period of inspiration that I badly needed for a long poem (part of my new novel) and kept imbibing it while it lasted for hours on end. I enjoy working here but I feel I should soon return to America for verbal vigor... I speak French with a cornbelt accent and buy daily the New York Herald..." (DBDV, 367/68)
To Rust Hills (March 23,1961, Promenade des Anglais, Nice)
"Dear Mr. Hills,...Yes, I do have that material for you, and since you are brave you might like to consider it. It is a narrative poem of 999 lines in four cantos...rather racy and tricky, and unpleasant and bizarre... The novel is going to take several more months to finish..." (SL)
To Jennings Wood - of the Library of Congress. (December 7, 1961, Palace Hotel, Montreux)
"Dear Mr. Wood, I'm sending you tomorrow the manuscript of a novel, entitled PALE FIRE, which I have just completed, and the typescript of which is being mailed to my publisher in New York The manuscript is written in pencil on index cards of which there are about 1075... The commentary is the novel..." (SL)
In Kinbote's hand (Pale Fire, Foreword):
Pale Fire, a poem in heroic couplets, of nine hundred ninety-nine lines, divided into four cantos, was composed by John Francis Shade (born July 5, 1898, died July 21, 1959) during the last twenty days of his life, at his residence in New Wye, Appalachia, U.S.A. The manuscript, mostly a Fair Copy, from which the present text has been faithfully printed, consists of eighty medium-sized index cards, on each of which Shade reserved the pink upper line for headings (canto number, date) and used the fourteen light-blue lines for writing out with a fine nib in a minute, tidy, remarkably clear hand, the text of his poem, skipping a line to indicate double space, and always using a fresh card to begin a new canto...As a rule, Shade destroyed drafts the moment he ceased to need them: well do I recall seeing him from my porch, on a brilliant morning, burning a whole stack of them in the pale fire of the incinerator before which he stood with bent head like an official mourner among the wind-borne black butterflies of that backyard auto-da-fé. But he saved those twelve cards because of the unused felicities shining among the dross of used draftings."
Nabokov was not as precise as Kinbote was, when counting his manuscripted index cards ("there are about 1075"), to Shade's even numbered (80 + 12) ninety-two, set down in twenty days.
.................................................................................................................................................................................................
PS: Thank you to James Twiggs (again), and to Charles H. Wallace, for the off list links to Socher's article.
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/