Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0013025, Fri, 4 Aug 2006 07:06:59 +0200

Subject
Re: Kings never die...( Pale Fire)
Date
Body
It wasn't General Patton but General Douglas McArthur. I heard him say so in 1951 on our new high school tv, and the whole student body was duly impressed, many wept. As far as I remember, we were told McArthur had been quoting from an old American soldiers' song: "Old soldiers never die, they only fade away".

Dieter Zimmer, Berlin
----- Original Message -----
From: Andrew Brown
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Thursday, August 03, 2006 11:25 PM
Subject: Re: [NABOKV-L] Kings never die...( Pale Fire)


"Old soldiers never die; they only fade away."

General Patton to Congress, upon being recalled to the U.S. and asked to step down, after his over-ambitious campaign to continue the Korean War.

Andrew



----- Original Message -----
From: jansymello
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Thursday, August 03, 2006 12:49 PM
Subject: [NABOKV-L] Kings never die...( Pale Fire)


Dear List,

When John Shade clasped Kinbote's knee and observed that: kings never die, they only disappear, this sentence reminded me of some old English saying.
Not Oscar Wilde's on dead Americans, nor Peter Pan's tinkle-bell. So I went through an entire section of a "Bloomsbury Reference" ( "Thematic Dictionary of Quotations") searching for quotes on "death" and "disappearance", to no avail.


Vladimir Nabokov appeared eight times:

1. "Like so many ageing college people, Pnin had long ceased to notice the existence of students on the campus"
[(1899-1977) Russian-born US novelist. "Pnin", Ch.3]

2. "Spring and summer did happen in Cambridge almost every year" [RLSK, Ch.5]

3. "Discussion in class, which means letting twenty young blockheads and two cocky neurotics discuss something that neither their teacher nor they know." [ "Pnin, Ch.6]

4."Life is a great surprise. I do not see why death should not be an even greater one" [ "Pale Fire", Commentary ]

5. "Literature and butterflies are the two sweetest passions known to man" [ Radio Times,Oct.1962]

6. "Lolita, light of my life, dire of my loins. My sin, my Soul." [ "Lolita"]

7. "A novelist is, like all mortals, more fully at home on the surface of the present than in the ooze of the past." [ "Strong Opinions, Ch.20]

8. "Poor Knight! he really had two periods, the first - a dull man writing broken English, the second - a broken man writing dull English" [ RLSK, Ch.1]

Each entry came under a special title: Academics, Cambridge, Education, Life and Death, Literature, Lust, Writers and Writing. I would have selected a completely different set of entries and probably so would everyone at the List. Quite a surprising compilation. Then I decided to try a "google search ". As soon as I found: "Old magicians never die, they just disappear" I thought I had hit the gold pot.
Wrong again if I judge from the context where it was cited. I'll bring up a selection of quotes on the theme - just for the fun of it, starting with OLD MAGICIANS never die, they just disappear. Also, OLD KINGS never die, they just get throne away (oops!).Then came: "old accountants never die, they just lose their balance.", "old actors never die, they just drop a part."; "old alcoholics never die, they just lose their spirit."; "old lawyers never die, they just lose their appeal. "old musicians never die, they just decompose" and, my favourite: " old chinese cooks never die, they just wok away."

In short: does anyone remember some Mother Goose kind of sentence that could have served as a motif for Shade's ?

Jansy

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