Subject
Shade and Goldsworth estates
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By popular demand (Jansy has requested this a couple of times,
and Matt recently mentioned that he was having trouble with
the same thing), I attach a speculative plan of the Shade
and Goldsworth (Kinbote) houses and environs. The scale is
given roughly by the statement that the houses are fifty
yards apart.
I made everything fit except two odd features. One is that
Shade's house doesn't face the road it's on (or "in", as
Kinbote puts it, British-style), and the other is that you'd
expect Kinbote's garage to be in back of his house. Also,
the "curving downhill lane between the two houses makes
Shade's "square of green" (l. 48) rather notional.
I welcome corrections and suggestions of all kinds (though
I'm aware of a few pixels and even lines that are the wrong
shade of gray, as well as the sloppiness of the arrows). If
anyone can't read this and would like me to send it to them
in another format, I'll be happy to.
Among the most speculative placements are the bench, the
shagbark tree, and the laurels. I decided not to speculate
further about the box hedge, garbage cans, and interior plans
of the houses.
Nabokov was in favor of drawing maps of fiction, but I'm
not sure what the point of this one is. If it proves that
his geographical memories aren't quite sharp a few months
later, mine wouldn't be either, and anyway he admits that.
And it might not prove any such thing.
Here's what this is based on, mostly from n. 47-48, n. 991,
n. 993-995, and n. 1000:
Kinbote's and Shade's houses are across a lane or road (it's
called both) from each other. Goldsworth is west of Shade.
The two get from Shade's front porch almost to Kinbote's house
by crossing a side lawn and approaching a gravel path that leads
up from Dulwich Rd. to Kinbote's front door. Gradus, facing the
front door, is in profile to them. Therefore Kinbote's house
faces Dulwich Rd.
Kinbote says he went downhill to spy on the south side of
Shade's house and uphill to spy on the north side. Likewise
Dulwich Rd. joins the highway on the north side of the hill.
Therefore we are on the south side of the hill--uphill is north
(convenient).
As the gravel path leads "up" to the door and Kinbote "ascended"
it to his door (n. 802), Dulwich Rd. is to the south of
(downhill from) his house.
From Kinbote's house he can see the front of Shade's, so
Shade's house faces west to Kinbote's, not south to Dulwich
Rd.
Kinbote's southern coign of vantage is the back of his
garage, so his garage has to be close to the road. I
probably should have put it farther to the west, closer
to his house.
(This would all be more normal if Dulwich Rd. made a more-or-
less right-angle turn enclosing Kinbote's house, so that it
passed both to the south and the east of his house and was the
"lane" between his house and Shade's. But I find it hard to
believe that Kinbote would refer to the road he lived on in
this way: "A lane curving around the slight eminence on which
my rented castle stood separated it from my neighbors’ driveway."
He would say, "My neighbor lived across the road from me."
Also, "Neither Shade nor I had ever been able to ascertain
[...] which of the five families dwelling across the road on
the lower slopes of our woody hill played horseshoe quoits
every other evening;" thus the lower slopes seem to be "across
the road" from both his and Shade's point of view, so the road
should go south of Shade's house. And a road named after a
town usually is or at least was the main way to get there, so
it's probably too big to be called a lane.)
So assuming Dulwich Rd. isn't the lane, Shade's driveway opens
onto the lane, not the road (Foreword).
Could there be a lane /and/ an unnamed road between the houses?
I don't think fifty yards is enough distance, especially
since the lane would be on Shade's side or the road, but it
curves around Kinbote's house, so it would intersect the
unnamed road rather close to Dulwich Road--making it pretty
pointless.
Dulwich and Hentzner's barn are uphill (n. 347) or north,
and Dulwich Road meets the highway to Wordsmith on the north
side of the hill, and Wordsmith is to the east, so the
eastern end of Dulwich road curves north. The footpath to
Hentzner's barn and Dulwich goes a bit east of north. On
the other hand, the lane curves around Kinbote's house, so
it ends up going a little west of north. There seem to be
two hilltops, one with Prof. C.'s ultramodern villa and the
other with the remains of the barn, so I've put Prof. C.'s a
little to the west and Hentzner's a little to the east.
That's probably enough or more than enough for now--bedtime
approaches and the dishes in the sink call to me. I'll be
happy to answer any questions or discuss any objections.
Next: the Royal Palace in Onhava, in colored inks.
Jerry Friedman
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and Matt recently mentioned that he was having trouble with
the same thing), I attach a speculative plan of the Shade
and Goldsworth (Kinbote) houses and environs. The scale is
given roughly by the statement that the houses are fifty
yards apart.
I made everything fit except two odd features. One is that
Shade's house doesn't face the road it's on (or "in", as
Kinbote puts it, British-style), and the other is that you'd
expect Kinbote's garage to be in back of his house. Also,
the "curving downhill lane between the two houses makes
Shade's "square of green" (l. 48) rather notional.
I welcome corrections and suggestions of all kinds (though
I'm aware of a few pixels and even lines that are the wrong
shade of gray, as well as the sloppiness of the arrows). If
anyone can't read this and would like me to send it to them
in another format, I'll be happy to.
Among the most speculative placements are the bench, the
shagbark tree, and the laurels. I decided not to speculate
further about the box hedge, garbage cans, and interior plans
of the houses.
Nabokov was in favor of drawing maps of fiction, but I'm
not sure what the point of this one is. If it proves that
his geographical memories aren't quite sharp a few months
later, mine wouldn't be either, and anyway he admits that.
And it might not prove any such thing.
Here's what this is based on, mostly from n. 47-48, n. 991,
n. 993-995, and n. 1000:
Kinbote's and Shade's houses are across a lane or road (it's
called both) from each other. Goldsworth is west of Shade.
The two get from Shade's front porch almost to Kinbote's house
by crossing a side lawn and approaching a gravel path that leads
up from Dulwich Rd. to Kinbote's front door. Gradus, facing the
front door, is in profile to them. Therefore Kinbote's house
faces Dulwich Rd.
Kinbote says he went downhill to spy on the south side of
Shade's house and uphill to spy on the north side. Likewise
Dulwich Rd. joins the highway on the north side of the hill.
Therefore we are on the south side of the hill--uphill is north
(convenient).
As the gravel path leads "up" to the door and Kinbote "ascended"
it to his door (n. 802), Dulwich Rd. is to the south of
(downhill from) his house.
From Kinbote's house he can see the front of Shade's, so
Shade's house faces west to Kinbote's, not south to Dulwich
Rd.
Kinbote's southern coign of vantage is the back of his
garage, so his garage has to be close to the road. I
probably should have put it farther to the west, closer
to his house.
(This would all be more normal if Dulwich Rd. made a more-or-
less right-angle turn enclosing Kinbote's house, so that it
passed both to the south and the east of his house and was the
"lane" between his house and Shade's. But I find it hard to
believe that Kinbote would refer to the road he lived on in
this way: "A lane curving around the slight eminence on which
my rented castle stood separated it from my neighbors’ driveway."
He would say, "My neighbor lived across the road from me."
Also, "Neither Shade nor I had ever been able to ascertain
[...] which of the five families dwelling across the road on
the lower slopes of our woody hill played horseshoe quoits
every other evening;" thus the lower slopes seem to be "across
the road" from both his and Shade's point of view, so the road
should go south of Shade's house. And a road named after a
town usually is or at least was the main way to get there, so
it's probably too big to be called a lane.)
So assuming Dulwich Rd. isn't the lane, Shade's driveway opens
onto the lane, not the road (Foreword).
Could there be a lane /and/ an unnamed road between the houses?
I don't think fifty yards is enough distance, especially
since the lane would be on Shade's side or the road, but it
curves around Kinbote's house, so it would intersect the
unnamed road rather close to Dulwich Road--making it pretty
pointless.
Dulwich and Hentzner's barn are uphill (n. 347) or north,
and Dulwich Road meets the highway to Wordsmith on the north
side of the hill, and Wordsmith is to the east, so the
eastern end of Dulwich road curves north. The footpath to
Hentzner's barn and Dulwich goes a bit east of north. On
the other hand, the lane curves around Kinbote's house, so
it ends up going a little west of north. There seem to be
two hilltops, one with Prof. C.'s ultramodern villa and the
other with the remains of the barn, so I've put Prof. C.'s a
little to the west and Hentzner's a little to the east.
That's probably enough or more than enough for now--bedtime
approaches and the dishes in the sink call to me. I'll be
happy to answer any questions or discuss any objections.
Next: the Royal Palace in Onhava, in colored inks.
Jerry Friedman
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/
