J. Friedman to M Roth[ on John and Sybil "sent her, though, to a chateau in France" (line 336). The verb phrase here ("we sent her") seems a bit harsh, no? [...]she seems, at times, to be quite impervious to her child's distress. I would compare her attitude to Ada's toward Lucette.] Maybe just concise? There's no room in the meter for "we paid for her trip to a chateau in France." Or consolation for herself and John--Hazel is happy looking the way she is [...] it can be read as blaming  Hazel.[...] I find that point and comparison to /Ada/interesting, though [...] we have only Kinbote's account.[...] Shade seems to feel responsible for Hazel's death (perhaps rightly), and in myths and other sources killing one's children is linked to incest [...] but in /Pale Fire/ that's probably restricted to association rather than "real" events.
S K-B:  It’s quite tricky judging the harshness of “we sent her” viewed in cold print. I can “hear” different nuances if the phrase cropped up in everyday family banter.[...] The idioms are more friendly than the literal meanings.

 

JM: I can agree with S K-B that idioms are friendlier than the literal meanings, and I think many of you are too hard on regular fathers, mothers,blind dates and all. There are moments when normal parents feel impatient, discouraged, disappointed, use harsh words, fight against devious incestuous tenderness and aggression...Would VN have attempted to establish a "psychological" portrayal of any bourgeois or anomalous family life?

 

JF's suggestion makes sense when he emphasized association rather 'real' events", and I add: to word games, metaphors instead of regular "facts".

MR remembered my comments about translating names ( instead of Waxwing we find Ampelis already in the first translated lines of the poem and consequences can be felt in the Index even. There are hundreds of other examples).   

 

Recently A.Bouazza called our attention to D. Barton Johnson's very insightful articles on The Eye as a seminal work in VN's oeuvre, "The Books Reflected in N's The Eye,", M. Roth added Barabtarlo's annotations to Pnin. I would like to return to D.Barton Johnson  to add "Worlds in Regression"( in particular, ch.4 Nabokov as a Maze Maker for "The labyrinth of incest in ADA", and on Pale Fire, ch.2 "The index of refraction in Pale Fire"*). Johnson stresses  how "anagrams play a vital role in our understanding of the labyrinth of Pale Fire and show once again that such word games are one of the ways in which Nabokov's fictional worlds relate to each other. The failure of the characters to recognize their literal kinship with each other is but a dimension of their failure to find the name of their creator who orchestrates the letter play that makes up their worlds".

 

While I puzzled over the translation of a German Kessel into kettle ( in Brazil, "chaleira" and, in Russian, “Tchainik” the reference to Oriental tea is present in "tcha","cha",cha....), following A.Stadlen's concise correction, I found a totally different reference, on-line, concerning the word Arctic (Arctus: a bear in Greek,the Arctic lies under Ursa Minor).

I wish I could play any of those anagramatic games in which A.Sklyarenko shows such expertise. As it is, I got stuck right at stard. I can only invite other participants to follow these "polar arctic" links and  nymphethood.