-------- Original Message --------
Dear List Members,
While I'm sure there is much more fun to be had in finding strained
near-anagrams of Kinbote, I should point out, on behalf of V. Botkin
(Nabokov's own near-anagrammatic choice for Kinbote, but who cares what
<he> said, I gather from other posters), the potential relevance
of the existence of a large Moscow Hospital known as Botkin or
Botkinskaya Hospital,which had a wing for the insane and which was in
operation before <Pale Fire> was published.
All of this is atttested to by none other than Lee Harvey Oswald, JFK
assassin, who when he was refused defenctor status slit his wrists in
his hotel room and wound up in Botkinskaya hostial's mental ward.
Perhas it means nothing but it seems to have more direct relevance
than Allen Ginsberg and Lenin.
The details can be found here:
http://www.russianbooks.org/oswald/moscow3.htm
Interesting Botkin, hospital mental ward in Moscow--aa inspiration of
Kinbote/Botkin names? More perusasive to me than scrabble games.
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EDNote: For the record, I'm pretty sure everyone who has commented here
on this topic has accepted and agreed that Botkin is in some way
involved, whoever he is, and that this can be demonstrated
independently of VN's comment. But then, Shade was pretty sure, too,
that he'd wake next morning . . . ~SB