----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, December 02, 2002 8:22 PM
Subject: Re: Flatman
Natochdag/Netochka (sp? book not with
me) is a character of major importance, not major obviously in his
own appearances. But look at when he is referred to and by whom. He is Kinbote's
supervisor. He is one of a very few who know Kinbote's secret (so Kinbote
thinks). Actually, what Natochdag, Shade and a few others know is that the one
who calls himself Kinbote in his own writings is Botkin, a minor scholar going
mad in a big way.
I don't think the name choice comes from
either of the sources you sight. The fact that it appears in two such disparate
contexts shows that it was a not unusual name, to a Russian or one who knew
Russians.
Flatman is in my Oxford 17th Century poets
with two poems. Nabokov has Kinbote say "Flatman" in response
to the lame punoo/tire pun of Shade. It is a predictably lame riposte with
a clear and crucial clue.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, December 02, 2002 12:01
PM
Subject: Fw: Flatman
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, December 01, 2002 7:47 PM
Subject: Flatman
from Andrew Brown:
He references primarily
classics or old, obscure references ... one of which is Thomas Flatman, an
English poet 1637-1688, who wrote a poem called A Thought of
Death which you may want to read. The Flatman reference is made by
Kinbote speaking with Shade and the guys in the commentary note where one of
the guys is trying to pronounce Professor Pnin's name. Make sure to give me
credit for what you find there.
Dear Andrew
Brown,
Mr Flatman seems to have evaded my library and both the local
public and college libraries. I do know that Professor Boyd has
uncovered his panagyrics to Charles II and Professor Meyer has uncovered an
interest in death and possibly nates. If you have found something else, I'd
very much like to read it.
I don't think T S Eliot, Robert Frost,
William Shakespeare, Conan Doyle, Goldsmith, Wordsworth, Swift, Pope, Shelley,
Browning or R L Stevenson (I'm sure I'm forgetting somebody) can be classified
as old and obscure, but certainly Flatman is both.
If you claim that
Natochdag or Natogdag or Netochka is a major character in Pale Fire,
please provide some evidence, since he appears to be a minor actor. Miss
Natochdag is a major character in one of Isak Dinesen's Seven Gothic
Tales (The Deluge at Norderney) and Netochka Nezvanova, also female, is a
major character in a minor work by Dostoevsky.
Carolyn Kunin