Matt Roth: I know that Alfin's name has been discussed before on the list. Has
it been noted that VN seems to be playing a game of opposites here? Alfin =
alpha (the letter a, the beginning)
Alfin = al fin (the last/the end). I noticed one other opposition
today that I somehow missed. John Shade is the product of Samuel Shade and
Caroline Lukin. If Kinbote is right that Lukin comes from Luke (meaning
light-giver), then Shade is the product of dark and light, or night and day (or
Nattochdag even). Could this be more of a hint at his double nature?
JM: Exciting associations,
Matt ( "alfin" and "fin", alpha and omega; Shade/Lukin as "dark and light," even
Nattochdag...). Shade's "synthesis of sun and star" (day and night?) speaks
against any double nature as a result of a radical split
between "good and evil," "beauty and beast," although this kind of
preoccupation about split off dimensions is very
nabokovian. There's the river "Alph" in
"Bend Sinister" about which I also wondered by its to Hamlet and
those treacherous uncles and mothers (this thread begins with HH
ancestors, in Lolita and winds through Pnin!). Could there be a hint about
Aunt Maud and Samuel Shade? ( over-interpretation is dangerous but it's
rather tempting).