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Re: De Vries and Bach
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MR [answers: do you think the inscribed name would be Nabokov's, not Kinbote's? How would this be effected?] If you read together three or four of Gerard de Vries's articles on PF--"Fanning the Poet's Fire" is the most comprehensive--you can see him making that case that Shade, Kinbote and Gradus all represent different aspects of VN. VN is the composer of the fugue, PF is the fugue itself, and the three characters are the three parts. The three parts come together in a final cadence (on Goldsworth's lawn), spelling out for us VN's presence.
JM: Since it was VN who wrote the entire book, Pale Fire, I wouldn't doubt that JS,CK and JG were related to the author, but not to the point of concluding that they "represent different aspects of VN" or that their "coming together in the end would spell out VN's presence", since this would mean that VN had deliberately represented himself in that way (a rather limiting view of himself, I think!).
JF: "Logos" here is the plural of "logo", a identifying symbol (especially for a corporation or brand).
JM: My mistake, another instance in which one added "s" changes the entire scene...
JF: I didn't really notice the fact that both were black[...]When Kinbote compares himself to a /solus rex/, he means a black king; in general in chess
problems (at least direct mates), the black king is attacked and doomed, which is how Kinbote sees himself[...] I'm not going to say anything about Sebastian Knight's black knight (not a king, Stan), since I don't remember TRLSK well enough.
JM: Chess moves ( non-metaphorical themselves) when set in a novel must contain some kind of metaphor accessible to the common reader. For example, to make one realize Pahl Pahlovich's dominion over a "black-knight", a piece he soon discards onto a table thereby severing it by the neck. And yet, his oponent screws it on and soon puts Pahl Pahlovich in check.
Pahl P. seems to have thrown his "queen" among a rubble of pawns to obtain an advantage thru her, but his triumph over Black was short-lived.
Things in Pale Fire are more difficult to unravel concerning black and white chess-pieces.
Kinbote considers a chess knight "that skip-space piece" * and mentions it in relation to "phantom extensions beyond the board...which have no effect on the real play." - to indicate Gradus's movements!
Should we add a color then we have another development: the "solus rex", mentioned specifically in relation to a black piece, a black entrapped King**. Thanks for clarifying that in general a "solus rex" means a black king.
Shade plays chess with Sybil on the night of Hazel's suicide and it his knight which is "pinned", while CK and the Erlkönig trample outside.***
In contrast to what happens in TRLSK, I'm unable to imagine or build anything out of these references.
...............................................................................................................................................................................................................
* Jacques d'Argus looked ...at his watch...From my rented cloudlet I contemplate him ...ghost consequences, comparable to the ghost toes of an amputee or to the fanning out of additional squares which a chess knight (that skip-space piece), standing on a marginal file, "feels" in phantom extensions beyond the board, but which have no effect whatever on his real moves, on the real play.
** - the King ...during the first months of the rebellion...feeling of his being the only black piece in what a composer of chess problems might term a king-in-the-corner waiter of the solus rex type.
***- Pale Fire poem, lines 659/661: "What glided down the roof and made that thud?" / "It is old winter tumbling in the mud." / "And now what shall I do? My knight is pinned."
Other mention envolving mysterious bood-relations:
a. Bretwit (the name means Chess Intelligence)//worthy Ferz ("chessqueen") Bretwit, a cousin of the granduncle of Oswin //worthy Zule ("chessrook") Bretwit, grand-uncle of Oswin Bretwit
b. Shade: "There are rules in chess problems: interdiction of dual solutions, for instance," while CK speaks of the devil...
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JM: Since it was VN who wrote the entire book, Pale Fire, I wouldn't doubt that JS,CK and JG were related to the author, but not to the point of concluding that they "represent different aspects of VN" or that their "coming together in the end would spell out VN's presence", since this would mean that VN had deliberately represented himself in that way (a rather limiting view of himself, I think!).
JF: "Logos" here is the plural of "logo", a identifying symbol (especially for a corporation or brand).
JM: My mistake, another instance in which one added "s" changes the entire scene...
JF: I didn't really notice the fact that both were black[...]When Kinbote compares himself to a /solus rex/, he means a black king; in general in chess
problems (at least direct mates), the black king is attacked and doomed, which is how Kinbote sees himself[...] I'm not going to say anything about Sebastian Knight's black knight (not a king, Stan), since I don't remember TRLSK well enough.
JM: Chess moves ( non-metaphorical themselves) when set in a novel must contain some kind of metaphor accessible to the common reader. For example, to make one realize Pahl Pahlovich's dominion over a "black-knight", a piece he soon discards onto a table thereby severing it by the neck. And yet, his oponent screws it on and soon puts Pahl Pahlovich in check.
Pahl P. seems to have thrown his "queen" among a rubble of pawns to obtain an advantage thru her, but his triumph over Black was short-lived.
Things in Pale Fire are more difficult to unravel concerning black and white chess-pieces.
Kinbote considers a chess knight "that skip-space piece" * and mentions it in relation to "phantom extensions beyond the board...which have no effect on the real play." - to indicate Gradus's movements!
Should we add a color then we have another development: the "solus rex", mentioned specifically in relation to a black piece, a black entrapped King**. Thanks for clarifying that in general a "solus rex" means a black king.
Shade plays chess with Sybil on the night of Hazel's suicide and it his knight which is "pinned", while CK and the Erlkönig trample outside.***
In contrast to what happens in TRLSK, I'm unable to imagine or build anything out of these references.
...............................................................................................................................................................................................................
* Jacques d'Argus looked ...at his watch...From my rented cloudlet I contemplate him ...ghost consequences, comparable to the ghost toes of an amputee or to the fanning out of additional squares which a chess knight (that skip-space piece), standing on a marginal file, "feels" in phantom extensions beyond the board, but which have no effect whatever on his real moves, on the real play.
** - the King ...during the first months of the rebellion...feeling of his being the only black piece in what a composer of chess problems might term a king-in-the-corner waiter of the solus rex type.
***- Pale Fire poem, lines 659/661: "What glided down the roof and made that thud?" / "It is old winter tumbling in the mud." / "And now what shall I do? My knight is pinned."
Other mention envolving mysterious bood-relations:
a. Bretwit (the name means Chess Intelligence)//worthy Ferz ("chessqueen") Bretwit, a cousin of the granduncle of Oswin //worthy Zule ("chessrook") Bretwit, grand-uncle of Oswin Bretwit
b. Shade: "There are rules in chess problems: interdiction of dual solutions, for instance," while CK speaks of the devil...
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
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
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/