Subject
Re: Khodasevich in Pale Fire
From
Date
Body
Alexey Sklyarenko (a) V. D. Nabokov (the writer's father) had five children (Vladimir was the oldest of them). The assassin who shot him dead wanted to kill another man (P. N. Milyukov). Similarly, Gradus kills Shade while assassinating Kinbote. It happens on July 21 (VDN's birthday, if I'm not mistaken);
(b) I'm not sure if it is important in the context of Pale Fire: like VDN, Nikolay Romanov (the last Russian tsar, with whose family Dr Botkin was executed) had five children.
JM: I didn't really understand your indexing "five/six fingers" and parents of five. In respect to Nabokov's father there might be a calendric variation, similar to Vladimir V's birth date (April 22?,23?). In the internet VDN is considered as having been born in July 20.* His name is mentioned in the midst of an assorted list of July 20th babies, including Marilyn Monroe, Alexander the Great and Petrarch. The name of Brazilian aviator Alberto Santos Dumont appears in this listing.
Dumont is mentioned in Pale Fire and in Ada, in connection to whom we encounter important "parental" unexpected plane-crashes, such as Demon's, and King Alfin's ( who "managed to rise in an umbrella-like Fabre "hydroplane" and almost got drowned in the sea between Nitra and Indra. He smashed two Farmans, three Zemblan machines, and a beloved Santos Dumont Demoiselle.) Kinbote informs that King Charles, as a boy "had hideous dreams after that but his mother never found out that he had seen those infernal records.Her he remembered - more or less: a horsewoman, tall, broad, stout, ruddy-faced...His mother died suddenly on July 21, 1936, from an obscure blood ailment that had also afflicted her mother and grandmother."
The wisest procedure would be to check VN's own records or Brian Boyd's biographies, which I haven't by me now.
...................................................................................
* Famous Birthdays on 20th July
Jun July Aug
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
8 9 10 11 12 13 14
15 16 17 18 19 20 21
22 23 24 25 26 27 28
29 30 31
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
All Events Birthdays Deaths
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/
(b) I'm not sure if it is important in the context of Pale Fire: like VDN, Nikolay Romanov (the last Russian tsar, with whose family Dr Botkin was executed) had five children.
JM: I didn't really understand your indexing "five/six fingers" and parents of five. In respect to Nabokov's father there might be a calendric variation, similar to Vladimir V's birth date (April 22?,23?). In the internet VDN is considered as having been born in July 20.* His name is mentioned in the midst of an assorted list of July 20th babies, including Marilyn Monroe, Alexander the Great and Petrarch. The name of Brazilian aviator Alberto Santos Dumont appears in this listing.
Dumont is mentioned in Pale Fire and in Ada, in connection to whom we encounter important "parental" unexpected plane-crashes, such as Demon's, and King Alfin's ( who "managed to rise in an umbrella-like Fabre "hydroplane" and almost got drowned in the sea between Nitra and Indra. He smashed two Farmans, three Zemblan machines, and a beloved Santos Dumont Demoiselle.) Kinbote informs that King Charles, as a boy "had hideous dreams after that but his mother never found out that he had seen those infernal records.Her he remembered - more or less: a horsewoman, tall, broad, stout, ruddy-faced...His mother died suddenly on July 21, 1936, from an obscure blood ailment that had also afflicted her mother and grandmother."
The wisest procedure would be to check VN's own records or Brian Boyd's biographies, which I haven't by me now.
...................................................................................
* Famous Birthdays on 20th July
Jun July Aug
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
8 9 10 11 12 13 14
15 16 17 18 19 20 21
22 23 24 25 26 27 28
29 30 31
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
All Events Birthdays Deaths
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/