Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0022199, Fri, 25 Nov 2011 13:03:04 -0200

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Re: Fw: [NABOKV-L] [SIGHTING] The Guardian 2001 List of Fictional
Poets, a commentary, a satire.
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JM: John Mullan's list of Ten of the best: fictional poets (www.guardian.co.uk/.../ten-best-fictional-poets-li...) mentions John Shade under no.10..
However, the journalist might have failed to consider that two of the invented poet's names could have been inspired by Nabokov's characters in Pale Fire, John FRANCIS Shade and Charles XAVIER (Kinbote). There's Susan Hill's mad poet, Francis Croft and Anthony Burgess's Francis Xavier Enderby - who "likes to compose his poems on the lavatory and has his creator's lexical relish.".

A.S.Byatt's poet Randolph H. Ash and another, created by James Blaylock and Tim Powers, ie. William Ashbless, have names related to "ashes" and they bring to my mind, although on a superficial level, Nabokov's fascination with the Cinderella theme, with all the columba or plumbeous shades of gray, and with Shade's auto de fé that reduced to ash part of his name.

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