This is an old post that I never got around to sending. I hope there's still some interest, and I hope to reply--maybe only a month from now--to the many fascinating comments people are making on related subjects.

JM:In my opinion, we run the risk of deviating into another set of tracks when we plan to investigate psychological facts and "realities" following Nabokov's inventiveness and satirical turn of mind.

What could be the answer for what's "psychologically strange" in Kinbote's reference to Botkin, outside of the boundaries of Nabokov's novel? The Index entry that introduces Botkin and the text from CK's note n.247 ( am I mistaken to assume that Botkin has only made another appearance - extra-textually?)

There's another time, in the note to line 894 (again), where Professor Pardon says (according to Kinbote) that he'd thought "Kinbote" was an anagram of "Botkin or Botkine".

is necessary to the novelist himself. It serves him to add a fundamental information, but it leaves a mark that is similar to a navel, no longer functional but revelatory and non-deletable.

The novel must make sense, but it needn't make that particular kind of sense. I agree, too, that it is important not to lose sight of the satirical dimension of the novel. (Was it a flaw in Gulliver's Travels that Lilliputians don't really exist?)

But I'm not sure Nabokov would have been happy with your use of "satirical", considering that he said, "Satire is a lesson, parody is a game." If anything in the novel is didactic, I don't think it's the mocking elements.

Of course Kinbote/Botkin's character must maintain a certain kind of consistency, even if only to make the conceit successful. That said, isn't it clear that Botkin imagines he is Kinbote, and at the same believes that Botkin is the fake (his "beard," his disguise), created so that he won't be tracked down and assassinated? (Recall how only the president (or is it the dean?) knows his secret identity.)

I'm afraid I don't follow. As far as I can tell, we don't know whether Botkin had a beard (assuming his transformation into Kinbote was irreversible). I can see that whatever-we-call-him believes that Kinbote is a fake created to hide from the assassins. He thinks he's really the King and we think he's really Botkin.

I don't see any contradiction in this at all. In fact, this sort of reversal of "reality" and "fantasy" seems quite typical for Nabokov, even as early as Mashen'ka, although Ganin is able to return from his soujourn into the remembered past. Luzhin, of course, is a classic example. Even HH's solipsism can be seen as another variation on this theme. Or perhaps I missed something in this thread that undermines such an interpretation?

We could also mention some of the more "Kafkaesque" and "Borgesian" short stories (that's my way of saying I don't remember enough details), and probably Solus Rex, and others.

On Mon, Sep 6, 2010 at 1:47 PM, Steve Norquist <stevenorquist@gmail.com> wrote:

...Despite Botvinnik's bona fides as a grandmaster, allegations have been raised (and not conclusively answered) that great pressure was brought to bear on the Estonian Paul Keres to lose his 4 games with Botvinnik in the 1948 World Championship Tournament; the same sort of allegations exist about Botvinnik's defeat of the Jewish Grandmaster David Bronstein in the 1951 World Championship match

...

However, Mikhail Moiseyevich Botvinnik was a Jew too. I've seen allegations that the Soviets preferred him because Bronstein was often critical of them, and that the Soviets forced other top players to lose or draw games for other reasons, such as preventing Americans from winning tournaments. But I don't know anything for sure.

Jerry Friedman

All private editorial communications, without exception, are read by both co-editors.

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