MR [answers: do you think the
inscribed name would be Nabokov's, not Kinbote's? How would this be
effected?] If you read together three or four of
Gerard de Vries's articles on PF--"Fanning the Poet's Fire" is the most
comprehensive--you can see him making that case that Shade, Kinbote and Gradus
all represent different aspects of VN. VN is the composer of the fugue, PF is
the fugue itself, and the three characters are the three parts. The three parts
come together in a final cadence (on Goldsworth's lawn), spelling out for us
VN's presence.
JM: Since
it was VN who wrote the entire book, Pale Fire, I wouldn't
doubt that JS,CK and JG were related to the author, but not to the point of
concluding that they "represent different aspects of VN" or that their "coming
together in the end would spell out VN's presence", since this would mean that
VN had deliberately represented himself in that way (a rather limiting view of
himself, I think!).
JF: "Logos" here is the plural of "logo", a identifying
symbol (especially for a corporation or
brand).
JM: My mistake, another instance in
which one added "s" changes the entire scene...
JF: I didn't really notice the fact that both were black[...]When
Kinbote compares himself to a /solus rex/, he means a black king; in general in
chess
problems (at least direct mates), the black king is attacked and
doomed, which is how Kinbote sees himself[...] I'm not going to say anything
about Sebastian Knight's black knight (not a king, Stan), since I don't remember
TRLSK well enough.
JM: Chess moves (
non-metaphorical themselves) when set in a novel must contain
some kind of metaphor accessible to the common
reader. For example, to make one realize Pahl
Pahlovich's dominion over a "black-knight", a piece he
soon discards onto a table thereby severing it by the neck. And yet,
his oponent screws it on and soon puts Pahl Pahlovich in check.
Pahl P. seems to have thrown
his "queen" among a rubble of pawns to obtain an advantage thru
her, but his triumph over Black was short-lived.
Things in Pale Fire are more difficult to unravel
concerning black and white chess-pieces.
Kinbote considers a chess
knight "that skip-space piece" * and
mentions it in relation to "phantom extensions beyond the
board...which have no effect on the real play." - to indicate
Gradus's movements!
Should we add a color then we have another
development: the "solus rex", mentioned specifically in relation to a
black piece, a black entrapped King**. Thanks for clarifying
that in general a "solus rex" means a black king.
Shade plays chess with Sybil on the night of Hazel's
suicide and it his knight which is "pinned", while CK and
the Erlkönig trample outside.***
In contrast to what happens in TRLSK, I'm unable
to imagine or build anything out of these references.
...............................................................................................................................................................................................................
* Jacques d’Argus looked ...at his watch...From my rented cloudlet I
contemplate him ...ghost consequences, comparable to the ghost toes of an
amputee or to the fanning out of additional squares which a chess knight
(that skip-space piece), standing on a marginal file, "feels" in
phantom extensions beyond the board, but which have no effect whatever on his
real moves, on the real play.
**
- the King ...during the first months of the
rebellion...feeling of his being the only black piece in what a composer of
chess problems might term a king-in-the-corner waiter of the solus rex type.
***- Pale Fire poem, lines
659/661: "What
glided down the roof and made that thud?" / "It is old
winter tumbling in the mud." / "And now what shall I
do? My knight is pinned."
Other mention envolving mysterious
bood-relations:
a. Bretwit (the name means Chess
Intelligence)//worthy Ferz ("chessqueen") Bretwit, a cousin of
the granduncle of Oswin //worthy Zule ("chessrook") Bretwit,
grand-uncle of Oswin Bretwit
b. Shade: "There are rules in chess problems: interdiction of dual solutions,
for instance,"
while CK
speaks of the devil...