Jerry Friedman replies to Jansy Mello:

 

Thanks for the thoughts.

 

I hadn't considered that we could believe Shade was shot
but later than the day he wrote line 999.  That makes it
easier to accept the idea that he purposely left the poem
one line short.  (On the other hand, I like the idea that
he couldn't come up with anything that made sense; after
he dies, the repetition of the first line makes sense,
maybe changed to "I am the shadow...")

 

Then for more fun, we can imagine that Kinbote killed
Shade or stole the manuscript from him.  I think people
have suggested that here.

 

Back to the map for a second, and your comments off
list about Shade's seeing the light reflecting from Dr.
Sutton's windowpanes.  I'd forgotten that Dr. Sutton is
a composite of two doctors (whose names I think are
Sutcliff and Clifton).  Maybe one lives north of Shade
and the other southwest, where the setting sun could
easily reflect off his windows to Shade's porch.

 

Jerry Friedman