Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0002648, Fri, 19 Dec 1997 09:35:12 -0800

Subject
Re: PF narrator? (fwd)
Date
Body
From: Tim Henderson <thenders@mail.lanline.com>
>



I'm having a great time with this thread. Long may she run.
To digress back to the Shakespearean intertextualities and an earlier
thread on Wallace Stevens, here's Stevens' echo of Timon from 'The Man
with the Blue Guitar" (1936-37)

It is the sun that shares our works.
The moon shares nothing. It is a sea.

>
>
>
>
>
> From: Patrick Nolan <pnolan@animalwelfare.com>
> About "Shakespearean intertextualities" in addition to this from Timon
>
> of Athens:
>
> "The sun’s a thief, and with his great attraction
> Robs the vast sea: the moon’s an arrant thief,
> And her pale fire she snatches from the sun:
>
> ...most appropriate for the notion that Kinbote snatches Shade's fire.
>
> But there's also King Hamlet's
>
> "The glow-worm shows the matin to be near,
> And ’gins to pale his uneffectual fire"
>
> Does this have any relevance?
>
> Lastly, something that has always perplexed me is the overlap of
> characters between Pnin, Pale Fire, and Lolita. Of course Wordsmith's
>
> ridiculous bald professor is our dear Timofey ("about whom the less
> said
> the better,") but what's the timeline look like?
> What happens between Pnin's stint at Waindell and his hiring at
> Wordsmith? Is there any connection between the narrator of Pnin, his
> dark doings during Timofey's last days at Waindell, and the mysterious
>
> Botkin? And what about Prof. Starover Blue?
> Are these academics meant to be consistent from book to book?
> Could one map out their various careers with anything like realism?
>
> Puzzled as ever,
>
> Patrick Nolan