Subject
Ontological status of Zembla (fwd)
Date
Body
From: Mary Bellino <iambe@javanet.com>
Fellow Vladimiridae:
The recent exchange about the real Nova Zembla reminded me of a
question I've long had about _Pale Fire_: in the world of the book (as
opposed to our world), is Zembla supposed to be a real place or not?
In other words, is Zembla and its geography, history, pageantry etc
entirely a fantasy of Kinbote or Botkin (or Shade if you insist), or
is it a real place one could look up in an encyclopedia, with
somewhere a real exiled king who is not Kinbote? Or is it, like one of
Eystein's paintings, a mix of le vrai et le vraisemblable? There are
only a few places where objective artifacts -- a magazine with a
picture of the royal palace, an encyclopedia article-- appear, and in
each case they involve either Kinbote or one of his semi-imaginary
persecutors ( eg Emerald). A crucial passage is the conversation (pp
264-269 of the Putnam hardcover) involving among others Kinbote,
Shade, Emerald, and a 'German visitor', which I've never been able to
analyze to my satisfaction (what's with the German prof and his
'alderwood ancestry'?), but which certainly seems to suggest that
Zembla exists and that the real Zemblan king escaped ignominiously in
a black (not scarlet) disguise.
On the other hand the geography (in particular) of Zembla seems
entirely too programmatic to be real. On p 259 of the same edition,
for example, Kinbote describes the Bera Range as 'an erection of
veined stone and shaggy firs, [which] rose before me in all its power
and pride'. What is this if not an invitation to see all of Zembla as
a geographic projection of Kinbote's imagined sexual prowess? The very
detailed topography given passim in the index, together with Kinbote's
references to diagrams he's drawn and paper dolls he wishes he had,
seems to beg the reader to draw his own map of Zembla. This could
certainly be done with the information given, although I haven't
gotten around to it myself. What would such a map look like? A crude
sketch of a tumescent Kinbote? Is 'Bera' an anagram for 'bare'? And
does it make any difference to our interpretation of the book whether
Zembla is real or not?
I won't bore the list further with my speculations, but perhaps
someone could tell me whether this question has been addressed -- I've
read quite a bit but by no means all of the secondary literature, and
I haven't managed to work my way through all the archives of this
list. I would of course also welcome any homemade maps, gazetteers,
Zemblan paper dolls, yellowed programs of the 1956 Sport Festival at
Onhava,or what have you.
Mary Bellino
Fellow Vladimiridae:
The recent exchange about the real Nova Zembla reminded me of a
question I've long had about _Pale Fire_: in the world of the book (as
opposed to our world), is Zembla supposed to be a real place or not?
In other words, is Zembla and its geography, history, pageantry etc
entirely a fantasy of Kinbote or Botkin (or Shade if you insist), or
is it a real place one could look up in an encyclopedia, with
somewhere a real exiled king who is not Kinbote? Or is it, like one of
Eystein's paintings, a mix of le vrai et le vraisemblable? There are
only a few places where objective artifacts -- a magazine with a
picture of the royal palace, an encyclopedia article-- appear, and in
each case they involve either Kinbote or one of his semi-imaginary
persecutors ( eg Emerald). A crucial passage is the conversation (pp
264-269 of the Putnam hardcover) involving among others Kinbote,
Shade, Emerald, and a 'German visitor', which I've never been able to
analyze to my satisfaction (what's with the German prof and his
'alderwood ancestry'?), but which certainly seems to suggest that
Zembla exists and that the real Zemblan king escaped ignominiously in
a black (not scarlet) disguise.
On the other hand the geography (in particular) of Zembla seems
entirely too programmatic to be real. On p 259 of the same edition,
for example, Kinbote describes the Bera Range as 'an erection of
veined stone and shaggy firs, [which] rose before me in all its power
and pride'. What is this if not an invitation to see all of Zembla as
a geographic projection of Kinbote's imagined sexual prowess? The very
detailed topography given passim in the index, together with Kinbote's
references to diagrams he's drawn and paper dolls he wishes he had,
seems to beg the reader to draw his own map of Zembla. This could
certainly be done with the information given, although I haven't
gotten around to it myself. What would such a map look like? A crude
sketch of a tumescent Kinbote? Is 'Bera' an anagram for 'bare'? And
does it make any difference to our interpretation of the book whether
Zembla is real or not?
I won't bore the list further with my speculations, but perhaps
someone could tell me whether this question has been addressed -- I've
read quite a bit but by no means all of the secondary literature, and
I haven't managed to work my way through all the archives of this
list. I would of course also welcome any homemade maps, gazetteers,
Zemblan paper dolls, yellowed programs of the 1956 Sport Festival at
Onhava,or what have you.
Mary Bellino