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THOUGHTS: Wenches, hands, and apples
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Who was that wench? Was it Maude herself. Probably not. Too old for
one thing as a wench is a young one.
The answer is in another sly sexual metaphor that Nabokov has Shade
indulge in as he trims his cuticles (I don't know how, but scarfskin
probably is a reference to foreskin) and imagines the five fingers of
his hand are characters from his past. They are in fact his past
sexual partners (apparently manually mostly) there are two females in
the ring and pinky fingers - - the pinky is the wench. I believe
there is some reference to a Canadian girl, a servant, in Canto One.
What relationship she has to Sybil, if any, I haven't figured out.
Carolyn Kunin
p.s. Why "dead wench" Jansy?
***
Dear Andrew Brown,
Consider, please, the possibility that Shade and Kinbote are the same
person!
Carolyn Kunin
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
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one thing as a wench is a young one.
The answer is in another sly sexual metaphor that Nabokov has Shade
indulge in as he trims his cuticles (I don't know how, but scarfskin
probably is a reference to foreskin) and imagines the five fingers of
his hand are characters from his past. They are in fact his past
sexual partners (apparently manually mostly) there are two females in
the ring and pinky fingers - - the pinky is the wench. I believe
there is some reference to a Canadian girl, a servant, in Canto One.
What relationship she has to Sybil, if any, I haven't figured out.
Carolyn Kunin
p.s. Why "dead wench" Jansy?
***
Dear Andrew Brown,
Consider, please, the possibility that Shade and Kinbote are the same
person!
Carolyn Kunin
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
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