----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, December 03, 2002 4:11
PM
Subject: Fw: Flatman
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, December 03, 2002 12:02 PM
Subject: Re: Flatman
Dear Mr Brown,
Old Netochka is very tolerant. Perhaps
overly so.
The two names are only related by Nabokov's pun(oo). Natt
och dag is Swedish for night and day and Netochka is a diminuative
corresponding to Netty in English.
I think maybe you should look at
the other Flatman poem. As you might imagine, the one you site is not unique
in its subject matter. There is no secret to the subject matter of the Shade
poem, so I fail to see in what way you have discovered anything that adds
anything (pu)new to our understanding of the
novel.
Carolyn
----- Original Message -----
From: Andrew Brown <mailto:as-brown@comcast.net>
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
<mailto:NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
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 -----
From: D. Barton
Johnson <mailto:chtodel@cox.net>
To:
NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Monday, December 02, 2002
12:01 PM
Subject: Fw: Flatman
----- Original Message
-----
From: Carolyn Kunin
<mailto:chaiselongue@earthlink.net>
To: Vladimir
Nabokov Forum <mailto:NABOKV-L@listserv.ucsb.edu>
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