Dear list,

This is in response to the interesting insights of Barrie, Mike, and others surrounding cricket, soccer, etc.  I am busy writing an article on the PF manuscript and just happened to arrive at the passage in question today.  I don’t want to pre-empt my own scholarship, but the fates should be respected, so I am happy to shed a little light on the subject.  In the holograph manuscript, Kinbote’s note to line 98 (“On Chapman’s Homer”) includes a line of conjecture as to what sport is being referenced. Nabokov tried out both lacrosse and hockey but canceled those and settled on baseball and basketball instead.  This passage, however, was later removed and the current first sentence of n. 130 was added.  This sentence, in its original form, does not mention cricket at all, but instead mentions “soccer or hockey, our two main games.”  So it seems that Barrie was right in finding the insertion of cricket a bit odd.  And the later change to “cricket” does seem to show that Nabokov thought about what he wanted and chose cricket over hockey in order to achieve some effect. 

 

Hope this helped a little. Furthermore, I hope this will serve as an example of why we need variorum editions of VN’s novels. We have the technology!

 

Matt Roth