Subject
The Nature of Electricity: "Number nine-hundred-ninety-nine"
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Date
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"The Nature of Electricity" was send by John Shade to a New York magazine
some time in 1958 which is before Pale Fire was written and before Kinbote
rented Goldsworth's house. It was published after Shade's death. Its third
stanza refers to number 999 as an old friend:
Streetlamps are numbered, and maybe
Number nine-hundred-ninety-nine
(So brightly beaming through a tree
So green) is an old friend of mine.
Does it mean that nine-hundred-ninety-nine is the number of a streetlamp
opposite Shade's house? Based on last stanza of PF poem the tree is shagbark
tree in the front lawn garden, viewed from the veranda. Kinbote called that
place the Nest for a reason. That is where Shade spent much of his time and
wrote most of his poems. Could it be then that the poem has 999 lines by
design since that number is an author's old friend? Then search of 1000th
line becomes obsolete. Also is there a link between lights of "gentle dead"
in "The Nature of Electricity" and the title of "Pale Fire" which comes from
Hamlet's fire bugs (I don't have exact quote)? I think that is in line with
final Boyd's theory of Pale Fire.
I did not find reference to "The Nature of Electricity" in Nabokov-L archive
but may be somebody else wrote about its use of the magic number.
- George Shimanovich
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
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
some time in 1958 which is before Pale Fire was written and before Kinbote
rented Goldsworth's house. It was published after Shade's death. Its third
stanza refers to number 999 as an old friend:
Streetlamps are numbered, and maybe
Number nine-hundred-ninety-nine
(So brightly beaming through a tree
So green) is an old friend of mine.
Does it mean that nine-hundred-ninety-nine is the number of a streetlamp
opposite Shade's house? Based on last stanza of PF poem the tree is shagbark
tree in the front lawn garden, viewed from the veranda. Kinbote called that
place the Nest for a reason. That is where Shade spent much of his time and
wrote most of his poems. Could it be then that the poem has 999 lines by
design since that number is an author's old friend? Then search of 1000th
line becomes obsolete. Also is there a link between lights of "gentle dead"
in "The Nature of Electricity" and the title of "Pale Fire" which comes from
Hamlet's fire bugs (I don't have exact quote)? I think that is in line with
final Boyd's theory of Pale Fire.
I did not find reference to "The Nature of Electricity" in Nabokov-L archive
but may be somebody else wrote about its use of the magic number.
- George Shimanovich
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
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