Dear list,
I've been noticing the prevalence of the number nine in several of
VN's works, but I'm not sure what to make of them. In Despair, Hermann
discovers his alter ego on the ninth of May (5/9). In chapter four, he
makes a show of noting that the date on which he writes to Felix is
Sept. 9 (9/9). And he murders Felix on April 9 (4/9). (If we add April
and May, we get another nine.) My own notion is that the nine here is
to be seen as representing a person or personality--it even looks
like a person, no?
Moving on, in Pnin we must notice that Timofey's last known
address is 999 Todd Rd.
And in PF, of course, we get not only a 999 line poem but a
lamppost numbered 999 right outside Shade's house. Aside: At the the
end of chapter 4 of Despair, Hermann reveals that he too is interested
in noting the numbers of streetlamps.
So what do we make of all these nines? Are they a marker of
transition, the last moment before the numbers turn over? I think
Priscilla Meyer says something like this in her Dolorous Haze/Hazel
Shade essay.
Matt
[EDNote: 342 Lawn St. also qualifies, in way. There was a posting
within the past two years on shiftings between 666 and 999, but my
archive search has failed to find it so far. Perhaps others will have
more success. In accord with Tammi's concept of the "poetics of
dates," one might observe that 9 is likewise the sum of VN's birthday
digits (4/23). ~SB]