By coincidence a Brazilian Lit. teacher has published an article online about Machado de Assis, Borges, Calvino and Nabokov where she quotes little Jack Horner’s pie in relation to Kinbote.
I haven’t yet read it in full but, if it happens to be interesting, I’ll translate parts of it for the List in the near future.
She writes: ". Por mais bondoso ou malvado que seja, Little Jack Horner não poderá cometer nenhuma peraltice se não houver uma torta à sua frente, provocando-lhe tais instintos.
Por isso, o professor Charles Kinbote, no romance de Nabokov, induz com tanta insistência o poeta Shade a escrever o texto que será objeto de sua análise.” - Ermelinda Ferreira, 2005 http://www.plataforma.paraapoesia.nom.br/ermelinda_ensaios.htm
Translation:
“Cruel or good-hearted, Little Jack Horner won’t be able to pursue his pranks if there is no pie in front of him to provoke such instincts.// This is why professor Charles Kinbote, in Nabokov’s novel, insistently prompts the poet John Shade to have him write the text that’ll become the object of his analysis…”
Coincidences are fun: “Pale Fire” as Jack Horner’s pie!
(or as the “body” of proof in a crime story).