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Fw: [NABOKV-L] VN's Self-Reference in Pale Fire
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James Twiggs [ to Nick Greer ..."The baldheaded suntanned professor in a Hawaiian shirt works particularly well as far as an explicit inclusion."] You mention the place at the end of the Commentary where Kinbote gives way to "the old, happy, heterosexual Russian." I've always thought there's a corresponding point near the end of Shade's poem...lines 923-930...It's worth remembering that VN did not always describe the poem in the manner quoted in the article that Matt recently posted. In his letter to Rust Hills dated March 23, 1961, offering the poem to Esquire, he said: "If you want this poem despite its being rather racy and tricky, and unpleasant, and bizarre, I must ask you to publish all four cantos." Those are adjectives that some readers would prefer not to apply to Shade's poem, though they obviously apply to the Commentary and to many other of VN's works.
JM: Fascinating news about Nabokov's letter to Rust Hills (1961) offering the poem to Esquire. There is an interview, dated 1962, published in SO, where Nabokov mentions the Montreux landscape in connection to 'Pale Fire,' and I surmised, wrongly I now see, that the poem itself had been written in Switzerland. My dates (and much more) are tottaly muddled now!
I'm not as sure, as your are about, the baldheaded professor in a Hawaiian shirt as a representative of Nabokov, instead of Prof.Pnin (a recent posting raised up this issue). Another authorial intromission, with a professor cum wife holding a butterfly net, is presented in King,Queen, Knave.* It would be interesting the compare the original and its translation to check if this couple is also mentioned in Russian and a description of their apparel.
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* wiki short-cut: King, Queen, Knave is a novel written by Vladimir Nabokov (under his pen name V. Sirin), while living in Berlin and sojourning at resorts in the Baltic in 1928. It was published as Король, дама, валет (Korol', dama, valet) in Russian in October of that year; the novel was translated into English by the author's son Dmitri Nabokov (with significant changes made by the author) in 1968, forty years after its Russian debut.
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JM: Fascinating news about Nabokov's letter to Rust Hills (1961) offering the poem to Esquire. There is an interview, dated 1962, published in SO, where Nabokov mentions the Montreux landscape in connection to 'Pale Fire,' and I surmised, wrongly I now see, that the poem itself had been written in Switzerland. My dates (and much more) are tottaly muddled now!
I'm not as sure, as your are about, the baldheaded professor in a Hawaiian shirt as a representative of Nabokov, instead of Prof.Pnin (a recent posting raised up this issue). Another authorial intromission, with a professor cum wife holding a butterfly net, is presented in King,Queen, Knave.* It would be interesting the compare the original and its translation to check if this couple is also mentioned in Russian and a description of their apparel.
...................................................................................................................................................................................
* wiki short-cut: King, Queen, Knave is a novel written by Vladimir Nabokov (under his pen name V. Sirin), while living in Berlin and sojourning at resorts in the Baltic in 1928. It was published as Король, дама, валет (Korol', dama, valet) in Russian in October of that year; the novel was translated into English by the author's son Dmitri Nabokov (with significant changes made by the author) in 1968, forty years after its Russian debut.
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/