Subject
New England or Virginia?
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Note also that Kinbote refers to Washington, D.C., in terms that suggest
that it isn't too far from New Wye: at various points Kinbote visits
Washington, he buys Shade's birthday gift there, he meets Billy Reading
there, and he uses the Library of Congress. And when he describes
methods of getting to New Wye, he says you could arrive "via Washington
but then you had to wait there at least three hours for a sleepy local."
So Matt's choice seems to be the correct one. It's true that the
Appalachians extend up to New England and Canada, but it's also possible
that "New England" could be taken to refer to all of the original
British colonies (that's a stretch, though, I admit). I've always
suspected, but don't have the expertise to confirm, that a more
definitive identification could be made by closely examining all of the
references to plants (and birds?) native to the New Wye area, in
particular this passage:
"... my friend had a rather coquettish way of pointing out with the tip
of his cane various curious natural objects. He never tired of
illustrating by means of these examples the extraordinary blend of
Canadian Zone and Austral Zone that "obtained," as he put it, in that
particular spot of Appalachia where at our altitude of about 1,500 feet
northern species of birds, insects and plants commingled with southern
representatives." (Note to line 238)
Mary Bellino
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that it isn't too far from New Wye: at various points Kinbote visits
Washington, he buys Shade's birthday gift there, he meets Billy Reading
there, and he uses the Library of Congress. And when he describes
methods of getting to New Wye, he says you could arrive "via Washington
but then you had to wait there at least three hours for a sleepy local."
So Matt's choice seems to be the correct one. It's true that the
Appalachians extend up to New England and Canada, but it's also possible
that "New England" could be taken to refer to all of the original
British colonies (that's a stretch, though, I admit). I've always
suspected, but don't have the expertise to confirm, that a more
definitive identification could be made by closely examining all of the
references to plants (and birds?) native to the New Wye area, in
particular this passage:
"... my friend had a rather coquettish way of pointing out with the tip
of his cane various curious natural objects. He never tired of
illustrating by means of these examples the extraordinary blend of
Canadian Zone and Austral Zone that "obtained," as he put it, in that
particular spot of Appalachia where at our altitude of about 1,500 feet
northern species of birds, insects and plants commingled with southern
representatives." (Note to line 238)
Mary Bellino
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