One of the references to Botkin, by Kinbote, is when he
includes it in a list of surnames that indicate
a profession*.
Botkin emerges, as a surname, in a commentary
related to Shade's parents, his mother in particular, while we wade through the
typical self-referential passage that leads from Shade's family onto King
Charles's own. Is this suggestive of Shade/Kinbote's blenda into one?
btw: (1) Hamlet's bare Danish stiletto here not only
refers to Kinbote, but is part of assorted links with Denmark, things
danish and, even, Gradus' first landing spot after he left Onhava
to cross over to the States); (2) What kind of blood-relation is there
between faithful Odon, treacherous Nodo and Oleg, through G.Rahl and
Sylvia O'Donnell?
Cf. Note to lines 71/72
"The poet's
mother, nee Caroline Lukin, assisted him in his work and drew the admirable
figures of his Birds of Mexico, which I remember having seen in my friend's
house. What the obituarist does not know is that Lukin comes from Luke, as also
do Locock and Luxon and Lukashevich. It represents one of the many instances
when the amorphous-looking but live and personal hereditary patronymic grows,
sometimes in fantastic shapes, around the common pebble of a Christian name. The
Lukins are an old Essex family. Other names derive from professions such as
Rymer, Scrivener, Limner (one who illuminates parchments), Botkin (one who makes
bottekins, fancy footwear) and thousands of others. My tutor, a Scotsman, used
to call any old tumble-down building "a hurley-house." But enough of
this."
The Botkin Index entry ackowledges this reference:
Botkin, V., American scholar of Russian descent, 894;
king-bot, maggot of extinct fly that once bred in mammoths and is thought to
have hastened their phylogenetic end, 247; bottekin-maker, 71; bot, plop, and
botelïy, big-bellied (Russ.); botkin or bodkin, a Danish
stiletto.
* Any link to the Spanish
Inquisition and the New Christians who altered their names?