In a message dated 10/5/2007 9:50:08 AM Central Daylight Time, NABOKV-L@HOLYCROSS.EDU writes:

So was Kinbote a professor of Russian when he knew Shade?
A thousand times no, but a few times yes.

Jerry Friedman

I've also found it odd that what is apprently Kinbote's only published work, the book on surnames, was published by Oxford UP, meaning that it would probably have been written in English. This may lend credence to the note on Botkin, i. e. that he was an American scholar of Russian descent (not a "Russian-born American scholar"). I am trying to put together a Botkin hypothesis. Among other things, I suspect that he (and thus Kinbote) is the little "Christopher" mentioned in a strange aside. C. K. is certainly the only "bearer of Christ" in this book, and I take his Christianity seriously; it is only in his Christian musings that he expresses remorse for his life ("We who borrow in filth every day . . . .").

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