-------- Original Message --------
Hello, Jansy. I'll answer several of your recent comments and
questions about /Pale Fire/.
If Shade's 61st birthday was in 1959, then his first birthday
would have been in 1899, and he would have been born in 1898.
However, in addition to Kinbote's slip, there are suggestions
that he was indeed born in 1899, which I mentioned in my PF
chronology at
<http://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0306&L=NABOKV-L&P=R39673&I=-3>.
I still welcome comments and corrections. In introducing my e-mail,
Don Johnson mentioned a published chronology.
Kinbote's "my slip" may mean that he does want to change it,
not that he doesn't. Like "(no, delete this craven 'perhaps')"
(n. 920), it looks to me like a hint that we're seeing Kinbote's
manuscript, which was never published, so no editor integrated
his corrections with the text.
We don't even have Kinbote's word that July 5 is his birthday.
He tells us he told Sybil so, but he might have been lying to
embarrass her.
As I'm sure you know, Shakespeare died on (not "in"--I apologize
on behalf of English prepositions) April 23 and may have been born
on that date. The date has also been given incorrectly for VN's
birth (New Style).
Is "fonte" in Portuguese the kind of fountain that can be tall
and white?
You asked about Kinbote's descriptions of Pnin as "a regular
martinet" and a "grotesque 'perfectionist'" (n. 172), and why
we should trust these descriptions less than the mention of the
little white dog. In addition to the answers people have given,
I read it as relating to Kinbote's ego. Presumably Pnin corrected
him (or Botkin) on some point and someone excused Pnin's doing so
by calling him a perfectionist. Or some such. Then Kinbote
distorted this in his mind to Pnin's being a martinet. It tells
us more about his character than Pnin's. I can see no reason,
though, for him to distort the dog.
You wondered whether "cancelation" vs. "cancellation" was a hint
at two authors. I wouldn't put too much trust in spelling, which
could be the work of a copyeditor (cf. "(s)he was pregnant").
Also, I haven't read much on the Shadean and Kinbotean theories,
but it seems to me that according to either one, the single
author would have had to be diabolically deceptive, and so any clue
to two fictitious authors could equally well have been placed by
a single fictitious author.
Jerry Friedman
--- Nabokv-L <nabokv-l@UTK.EDU> wrote:
---------------------------------
Subject:
Re: [NABOKV-L] Little-known effects of reading VN From:
"jansymello" <jansy@aetern.us> Date:
Mon, 7 Aug 2006 15:28:29 -0300 To:
"Vladimir Nabokov Forum" <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
Dear Eds and List
I have no idea if reading Nabokov opens or shuts my mind offthings, but
his books keep me busy. I'm still plodding away and if ourEds won't mind
and the List-members don't complain, I still haveseveral questions I'd
like to bring up, concerning Kinbote's (andVan's) obsessive references to
dates and "trivia".
1. Pale Fire, note 98: Here Kinbote mentions "other vividmisprints" and
refers the reader to note to line 802.
- NB:In the present note what he takes as a misprint ( taking it bea
reference to Keats' "Champman's Homer") is a correct newspaperclipping.
When we check his note to line 802 we realize that here Konly deals
with Coates' own words about a misprint -"not that itmatters much".
Only in K's note to line 803 that carries the heading "a misprint" wefind
the "mountain/fountain" majestic error being directly mentioned.
In note to line 803 Kinbote describes "world games" and discussesthe
difficulty future translators of Shade's poem will meet totransform
"mountain" and "fountain". He notes that this cannot berendered neither in
French, or German, or Russian, or Zemblan... I'mglad to inform that this
transformation is possible in Portuguese witha slight alteration: from
"Monte" to "Fonte" ie. from "Mount" to"Fount".
2. There is another mistake Kinbote makes in one of his notes andhe
considers it " a slip" and thus allows it to remain unaltered. Innote to
line 167 we find:
"The poet began Canto Two (on his fourteenth card) on July 5, hissixtieth
birthday ( see note to line 181, "today"). My slip - changeto
sixty-first."
I bring this matter up after a little arithmetic ( please correctme if I
miscalculated). If Shade were sixty in 1959, then he would havebeen born
in 1899 - the same year Nabokov was born. His birthday isApril 23 and
this date coincides with Ada's husband Vinelander's deathin Arizona.
3. John Shade and Charles Kinbote both celebrate their birthdaysin July 5
( Kinbote's birth took place in July 5, 1914) .
4. John Shade's death coincides with the day Queen Blenda died, in
July21,1936 (note 71). Also with Ada's birthday. Adelaida was born in
July21, 1872 ( Ardis, Antiterra) and also little "Adora" ( Van's
Mediterranean dream?)
4. Van Veen writes about his mid-July ( 1870) recollections whenhe was in
his seventh month of life. He considers this event as histrue birthday
since it was when his consciousness was born ( againstthe "silent thunder
of the infinite unconsciousness proper to my birthfifty-two years and 195
days ago"). It is when ( July 14) he definitelydecides to return to Ada.
This event coincides with the writing ofCanto Three and Shade's "half a
shade" experience of death.
Summer vacations are important in "Lolita", "Ada" and in "Pale Fire".
5. 1959, when Shade wrote his last poem, was the year when Nabokov( then
60) left America to settle in Switzerland.
Jansy
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