Speaking of Vasiliy Botkin (1812-69), the
critic and historian of literature S. A. Vengerov (who is mentioned
in Ada) compares him to a big bright reflector that makes
brighter the poor light of the critic Vissarion Belinsky (or, more likely, it is
the other way round: the poor light is Botkin and the bright
reflector, Belinsky):
...
Thanks for this very attractive connection!
Isn't Kinbote's Commentary such a reflector
that makes Shade's Pale Fire so much brighter?
There are plenty of reflections, anyway.
Also, I didn't think you "failed to synthesize sun and star
correctly". It seems to me Nabokov could have been thinking of scissors' finger holes and hinge, as well as other things. We could even imagine that the moon is the other finger hole, especially if it's not a perfect circle.
Jerry Friedman