JF ( to JM'S: "Why is Kinbote lying about how he took possession of Shade's
notecards (the entire set)?") How do you know he's
lying? [...]Simon
Rowberry asked back in April about "the place of Nabokov in this fictional
narrative". That made me wonder about the boxer dog--Nabokov
boxed. The horseshoe players in the same cluster of houses are probably
Vladimir and Véra, as Brian Boyd's biography tells us they played horseshoes in
Ithaca and connects it with these scenes. I suspect seeing the boxer dog
as an emissary from the author fits with Matt Roth's reading--but I still don't
believe that reading.Another possibility is whoever put the ribbon on Kinbote's
cat. I still think that ribbon is a lemniscate, which comes from the Latin
word for "ribbon" and means a bow shape [...] I think we can
imagine that in the white space before the last verse paragraph, Shade decides
to work on his last few lines down in his Nest. The comments about seeing Sybil
and the windowpanes seem consistent with his being outside.(Of course, poets
aren't on oath, either.)."
JM: Wasn't the Nabokov's
dachshund named "Box"? There's another dog in PF, too. Aunt
Maud's skye-terrier, which reminded Kinbote of "weeping willows" and its
psychocinetic basket flying all over (as you'll certainly
remember); there's another dog, too, on the prowl and he serves
as Kinbote's alibi in his clumsy spying ( perhaps it's the same
boxer.)
Kinbote unties Gerald Emerald's bow...a
lemniscate, you say? Fascinating, as were most of your comments and
informed replies. Your idea about the couple (VN and Vera) playing horseshoes
makes a lot of sense, as your "cinematic" description of CK's and JS's steps
over to Goldsworth's house. Great answers!!!
Sure, poets aren't on oath and Shade could have
seen thousands of red admirals before he minutely described the one he saw in
the garden, as if his spotting it had just taken place.
My assumption about this particular lie by
Kinbote came from my conjecturing that it's unlikely that Shade
would be carrying the entire set of notecards up and down, with or without
the envelope, while he worked on "his last few lines" down in his
perch. Particularly not while he sat there, head resting on his elbows,
looking like "a tipsy witch."
One more
question: In your map Shade's garage stands a long way off Kinbote's and
his access to the street. Does it fit with: "A lane
curving around the slight eminence on which my rented castle stood separated it
from my neighbors’ driveway, and I was about to cross that lane when I lost my
footing and sat down on the surprisingly hard snow. My fall acted as a chemical
reagent on the Shades’ sedan, which forthwith budged and almost ran over me as
it swung into the lane with John at the wheel strenuously grimacing and Sybil
fiercely talking to him." (foreword) I'm sorry if I seem to be
spurring you on into details, as if I wanted an animated representation of their
moves, like in a 3D Play-Station game, instead of trying to figure things
out alone.
Your replies have already rendered verbally ( also
cinematically, as you said it of Kinbote's), the different angles and
motions of the pair wandering from one house to the other but my spacial
abilities are rather limited and I get lost all the time. I cannot fit the scene
in your map...