-------- Original Message --------
On Mar 8, 2009, at 5:53 AM, jansymello wrote to Carolyn: I'll be
convinced
by your interesting theory after you show Shadian bits and pieces
shining
thru, or around K.
Okay, I'll bite:
1. The three birds (shadow, fluff, bird that flies on in reflected sky)
in
Shade's opening lines seem to remarkably align with Gradus, Shade, and
Kinbote.
2. Shade says he would rather be a fat fly or a floweret than to forget
his
life. Kinbote IS a fat fly (a king-size botfly) and a pansy to boot.
Surely
we are meant to notice this coincidence. But what does it mean within a
non-Shadean reading of the novel?
3. Shade's birthday is also Kinbote and Gradus' birthday. I don't see
why it
matters that they aren't the same age. Secondary personalities don't
have to
be the same age as their primary personality.
4. Shade's muse is a versipel (werewolf) and Kinbote's middle name is
Vseslav (which can only be a reference to the legendary werewolf of that
name, as explained in "The Vseslav Epos," by Jakobson and Szeftel).
5. Kinbote's Zembla tale is a nothing but a pastiche of various western
works of literature and English history (with a sprinkling of Norse
mythology thrown in). If it truly proceeds from Botkin, "a Russian and a
madman," why does the Zembla tale show so little Russian influence? And
isn't it more than a little amazing that Botkin is apparently, like John
Shade, an expert on Pope? So much so that his final words about Zembla
are
directly drawn from "The Rape of the Lock"? Add in Matthew Arnold,
Anthony
Hope's Prisoner of Zenda, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Twenty Years After,
and all
of the Charles I and II historical references, and we begin to see how
much
Botkin's subconscious most resembles a learned American or
Englishman's.
6. What of the fact that Kinbote and Shade seem to be remarkably
opposite
each other, almost like a photo and its negative?
Left-Handed/right-handed,
bearded/clean-shaven (though there is a beard "inveterate" in Shade
after
all), homo/hetero, long-gaited/shuffling, vegetarian/carnivore, etc.
What
does Kinbote say about differences and resemblances?
7. Finally, I would remind everyone of Gerard DeVries's discovery of a
definite reference to Jekyll & Hyde in PF. There are two stilettos
in PF.
The first is found in Shade's reference to icicles, and the other is
Kinbote's definition of a bot(d)kin as a "Danish stiletto." DeVries
reminds
us that in his J&H lecture, VN says that Jekyll is Danish for
icicle; thus,
while Danish stiletto is a reference to Hamlet's "bare bodkin," it also
takes us to Shade's icicle and Jekyll's Danish name. If we accept this
immaculate connection, we then have to ask why Shade is involved. If the
multiple personality relationship is merely Botkin-Kinbote, Shade's poem
shouldn't enter into the equation.
There are more glimmers than these, but that's enough for now.
Matt Roth