-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: VP on 1 italics. 2 Zemblan Timon.
Date: Fri, 02 Feb 2007 23:59:19 -0800
From: Vic Perry <vicperryzoo@YAHOO.COM>
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU


I appreciate jansymello's & Jerry Friedman's responses to my query. Looking
over the italics I found this curiosity: that the "fog" lines are not
italicized in line 430-431, but more "fog" lines are at 445-447.

In reply to JF, Kinbote is a very sly Zemblan - but he also is a classic
unreliable narrator who inadvertently allows readers any number of glimpses
of truths beyond him. Anyway, the Zemblan translation problem gets knottier
the more I look at Conmal - in the note to line 962 Kinbote makes him
resemble John Shade, but Conmal's "extraordinary sonnet" in "colorful, if
not quite correct, English," takes a viewpoint that is precisely Kinbotean,
namely that the study of botany (acanthus) is no match for the study of
nobility (architrave).

* * * *

Anyway, back to the italicized TV viewing/Hazel blind date section: I
started really wondering about "the preview of Remorse" on TV that begins on
line 450. And you know, I can't find a single movie called Remorse in the
All-Movie Guide, which has proven in general to be a remarkably thorough
listing.

Oddly enough the "Remorse" lines in "Pale Fire" have never been discussed on
Nabokov L, according to my search of the archives; nevertheless, perhaps I
missed the explanation of this ages ago, in a book. And if that turns out
to be the case, all apologies for the following:

I found a listing for a well known French film of the time called
"Remorques" (1941) ("odd gallicism", line 456). Jean Gabin was in this
film, as was a beauty named Michele Morgan - Gabin rescues Morgan from the
waters. Could "Remorse" be a pun on "Remorques"? Or is there a much, much
more straightforward explanation for what film the Shades watch that night?

What is spooky to me, considering the context of Hazel's suicide, is that
the film was released in the United States in 1946 under the name "Stormy
Waters."

links:
http://www.internationalfilmseries.com/event_detail.php?event_id=8304
http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/movie.html?v_id=47051

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