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Stan: www.behindthename.com doesn't have Vseslav, but it
does have Mstislav, Stanislav, Vladislav, and Vyacheslav,
and they all have to do with glory (modern Russian /slava/,
it seems). I imagine Vseslav originally meant something
like "all-glory". Could it remind a modern Russian of
pan-Slavism? But I don't know how pan-Slavism would
connect to /Pale Fire/.
Steve: I was very interested in your connection of "verso"
to Eberthella's story of the madman in New Wye. I hadn't
connected it to such words as "verse", "reverse", and
"versipel", all important or at least conspicuous in the
novel. (All related too, of course, coming from the
Latin word for "turn". It's probably totally irrelevant
that the Russian word for "kinbote", /vira/, has another
meaning in Moscow, which comes from Italian /virare/,
to turn--though I can't find a dictionary to translate
the Russian definition, подымай! or /podymai!/)
While checking on what people had said about "versipel"
in the archives (early and mid October 2006--there was
very little agreement), I found a quotation I had posted:
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VNAY, note 4 to Chapter 18 (p. 709): "At the end of his 1962
diary, Nabokov drafted some phrases for possible interviews: 'I
wonder if any reader will notice the following details: 1) that
the nasty commentator is not an ex-king and not even Dr. Kinbote,
but Prof. Vseslav Botkin, a Russian and a madman....'" Ellipsis
Boyd's and a bit tantalizing.
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So Nabokov had intended Botkin's first name to be Vseslav.
However, in the actual interview, he said, "Professor Botkin,
or Botkine, a Russian and a madman."
http://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0611&L=NABOKV-L&P=R36332&I=-3
(or see
http://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0803&L=NABOKV-L&P=R18107&I=-3
for the whole interview.)
Then why did Nabokov change his mind about saying "Vseslav"?
Maybe to leave open other possibilities--such as "verso"?
On Eberthella's story, I've been convinced since first
reading it that Shade's person who turned over the page was
Kinbote. Mrs. H.'s version (another one of those words!)
was a quick confabulation to keep Kinbote from realizing it.
After Kinbote said, "We are all, in a sense, poets," Shade
had to clench his teeth and beat himself to keep from
laughing. As I recall, some people on the list think I
have no reason to be so sure.
Jerry Friedman