Left field? Heck no. But I do have some questions.
I may be mistaken, but isn't the Korean with whom Hazel sits on football days a former nun, and therefore a women?
The Korean who attends Shade's birthday is a male, and I believe (possibly irrelevant to this discussion) that he arrives on a bicycle.
I probably have missed the connections between the male Korean and Sybil Shade.
When you say that the Korean is “very possibly” her half brother, which “her” do you refer to, Hazel or Sybil? Do you mean that when Sybil’s father was in foreign service he fathered a Korean son?
Or that John Shade, with a life spent largely in the close community of a college campus, fathered a Korean son without any news of the event getting out?
What evidence do you have to support the claim that this infrequently referred to Korean student (who is following Shade’s course of study) is “definitely” a homosexual interest of Shade’s?
Is your claim that this student’s name is “probably Caspar” based on your theory of the names of the other two biblical wizards or “wise men” inferred in the book? I must say that if these names are inferred in the book I can see no reason for it. Can you please remind me what you thought the name probably was of the gardener Kinbote took an interest in? And the name of the first wise man — it did not really appear as the name of an actual persona, did it? Was it not in verbal form in the book’s text?
Always looking forward to your comments,
Andrew Brown
On 11/11/06 12:36 AM, "NABOKV-L" <NABOKV-L@HOLYCROSS.EDU> wrote:
> To the List,
>
> This will appear to come from left field, and unless someone expresses a
> particular interest I won't bore the rest with the reasoning behind this
> alternate interpretation ...
>
> A possible clue to Hazel's suicide is the the Korean student with whom
> her
> father tells us she sometimes sits. He also is a guest at Shade's
> birthday
> party. There are hints linking this student to both of Hazel's parents.
> He
> is very possibly her half brother and definitely a homosexual interest
> of
> her father's.
>
> He is variously referred to in the story as an oriental prince, son of a
> padishaw, and as an Asiatic potentate. And though his name is never
> mentioned (like that of the head of the Shadows) it is probably Caspar.
>
> Carolyn
>
> Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
> Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
> Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
> View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm