-------- Original Message --------
Dear Matt,
lately I wrote seldom to the list, but was looking through certain
postings regularly. So some remarks (or just feelings?) related
to your questions. I already formulated some of those in my
early postings, but here it is a slightly different angle...
> 1. In lines 275-280, Shade says that his head has "creased"
Sybil's pillow
> 4000 times. Questions: Is Shade referring to how many times he and
Sybil
> have had intercourse? If so, that means they've had sex on average
twice a
> week for 40 years! Do we believe that? Does this imply that they
sleep in
> separate rooms (as did VN and Vera)?
To me everything Shade writes about Sybil gave clear feeling of
unsincerity, in particlar because many lines seem a bit confused
and imprecise (in difference of other lines where he is writing
on different subjects). There are "declarations" not (or not
sufficiently)
confirmed by poetry. It could be intentional (from the part of VN).
My impression is that he "wants to say" that indeed they had intercourse
4000 times. But - first imprecision - whose head then would "crease"
the pillow? Various "technical" answers are possible, but as in a chess
problem, it is an imprecision. A possibility is then that they
"just" slept together 4000 times (and slept separately on the other
days). (In itself, I find nothing extraordinary in the "frequency".)
>Why would the normally reserved Shade
> tell the world how many times he has had sex with his wife? Seems
out of
> character.
To me it seems again a proof of unsincerity. (Make provocative
statements
to hide a lie.)
> 2. In his note to line 181, Kinbote seems to guess that JS and
Sybil are
> having a pre-dawn sexual encounter. He says that he "smiled
indulgently,
> for, according to my deductions, only two nights had passed since
the
> three-thousand-nine-hundred-ninety-ninth time--but no matter." Why
does
> the
> thought of Shade and Sybil having sex cause Kinbote, who openly
detests
> Sybil, to smile indulgently? Is this passage meant to confirm
Shade's
> twice-a-week calculation? Kinbote refers to "the bedroom." Does
this mean
> that Shade and Sybil share a bedroom?
Because he does not believe Shade. He is smiling at Shade's
unsincerity. Notice also that this number -
3999 - may be related to the number of lines - 999 - and the last
is in fact absent.
=========================
I have not much to say about other questions --
Best
Sergei Soloviev