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Re: Botkin(e), Russian madman & nobody
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Re: “the nasty commentator is not an ex-King of Zembla nor is he professor
Kinbote. He
is professor Botkin, or Botkine, a Russian and a madman.”
In off-list discussion with Jerry I have come round to a present
understanding that the whole bang-shoot, poem and commentary, is indeed the creation of
Botkin the Russian madman. This suggests to me that Botkin is extremely close
to VN, the Russian sane man.
As my mother used to say: “How can you tell whether a man is sane? Answer:
if he has a sense of humour. How can you tell if he has a sense of humour?
Answer: if he is prepared to laugh at himself.” It occurs to me that VN is
having jolly fun in his masterpiece; not only laughing at the house of cards of
earnest, solemn scholarship, but also at himself.
In a message dated 16/11/2006 03:53:16 GMT Standard Time, Matthew Ross
writes:
As for VN's assertion that Botkin is "a Russian and a madman," I've always
found this assertion to be puzzling at best, at worst completely misleading.
In the index, Botkin is an
"American scholar of Russian descent." To me, this very plainly means that
Botkin is not a Russian but an American whose ancestors were Russian.
I’d tended to believe that the fully committed immigrant to the New World
would, on arrival, throw off the trammels of the past, and swear to himself: “I’
m an American”. In Europe the word “descent” might perhaps signify 4 or 5
generations, but I suppose in America it might signify one generation. So
maybe the index entry implies that Botkin was born in America. However, the
index not reliable.
In a message dated 11/11/2006 04:44:13 GMT Standard Time, Matt Roth writes:
Responding to a question about the pronunciation of his name, VN says the
following: "Every author whose name is fairly often mentioned in periodicals
develops a bird-watcher's or caterpillar-picker's knack when scanning an
article. But in my case I always get caught by the word 'nobody' when
capitalized at the beginning of a sentence."
So VN often mistook "Nobody" for "Nabokov."
In view of the possibility that VN identified himself, sometimes, with
Nobody, some of the following has suggested (possibly OT) association with this
self-identification.
In a message dated 13/11/2006 16:29:27 GMT Standard Time, Carolyn writes:
I mean nobody would be mistaken for Nabokov. It's the same joke - -
Polyphemus's and the Looking Glass king's - - hm. Hadn't thought of it before - -
Kinbote is the Looking Glass king?
The long ancestry of the Nobody joke, from Homer to PF, via Carroll, can be
filled in a little with these two instances:
Stevens, in his Lectures upon Heads, 1799, by extending his comments to
include Mr Somebody, seems to be saying that important people are congenitally
two-faced, thus anticipating Dr Jekyll and Dorian Grey --- as well as Shade and
Kinbote? Who can tell whether VN ever clapped eyes on these images? I do
think it’s worth considering if he’d definitely decided to don the jester’s
cap, if only for a while. See “goliart”, n 681.
Other thoughts:
In a message dated 16/11/2006 21:38:39 GMT Standard Time, Jerry Friedman
writes:
Nabokov's saying in that interview that Mary McCarthy couldn't find the
"pale fire" quotation.
According to one of the articles in /The Garland Companion to Nabokov/
(which I got yesterday), the correct identification of the "pale fire" quotation
didn't appear in Mary McCarthy's essay till a revision of 1970, I think.
The Penguin 1991 edition is obviously seriously misleading. There are other
misprints, eg p.126, “not having to read the required book” which puzzled me
for a long time, until I checked it against another edition, and realized
the “to” was intrusive.
In writing, 17/11/06, “by no means no worse” I also realize I’d intended “
by no means any worse” or “no worse by any means”; but the solecism still
strikes me as amusing.
In a message dated 17/11/2006 16:25:16 GMT Standard Time, Jim Twiggs
writes:
As a follow-up to Don Johnson's suggestion to consult Zembla, I recommend
the discussion of Pale Fire by William Monroe, especially page 3. Here's the
link:
_http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/monroe2.htm_
(http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/monroe2.htm)
This also impresses me as an excellent analysis of the quality of Shade’s
composition, only very faintly marred by occasional lapses into academe-speak.
Shade’s style only resembles that of Pope by virtue of its rhyming couplets,
and quite lacks the antithetical balance of Pope’s ultra-smooth lines. It is,
however, as Monroe comments, precisely the pursuit of rhyme which causes,
inter alia, the Shadeian autobiography to stumble.
Charles
Prefacing a posting with one’s name doesn’t, on second thoughts, seem a
good idea, as it tends to imply that the sender is more important than the
message.
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