Subject
Nabokov's footprints in _Pale Fire_ (fwd)
Date
Body
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sat, 09 Apr 94 14:41:13 EDT
From: kurt scaletta <KSCALE31@MAINE.bitnet>
To: nabokv-l@ucsbvm.bitnet, marianne cotugno <COTUGNO@ZODIAC>
Subject: Nabokov's footprints in _Pale Fire_
Shade writes in Canto One of the poem _Pale Fire_
19 And in the morning, diamonds of frost
20 Express amazement: Whose spurned feet have crossed
21 From left to right the blank page of the road?
. . . . . . . . . .
27 Was he in _Sherlock Holmes_, the fellow whose
28 Tracks pointed back when he reversed his shoes?
I think that this line may be a joke referring back to
Nabokov himself. The "fellow whose tracks pointed back" is
in _The Hound of the Baskervilles_, if I remember correctly,
and is, of all things, a lepidopterologist, a butterfly
collector. Is it, then, Nabokov whose "feet have crossed...
the page?" I wonder.
Kurt Scaletta
Date: Sat, 09 Apr 94 14:41:13 EDT
From: kurt scaletta <KSCALE31@MAINE.bitnet>
To: nabokv-l@ucsbvm.bitnet, marianne cotugno <COTUGNO@ZODIAC>
Subject: Nabokov's footprints in _Pale Fire_
Shade writes in Canto One of the poem _Pale Fire_
19 And in the morning, diamonds of frost
20 Express amazement: Whose spurned feet have crossed
21 From left to right the blank page of the road?
. . . . . . . . . .
27 Was he in _Sherlock Holmes_, the fellow whose
28 Tracks pointed back when he reversed his shoes?
I think that this line may be a joke referring back to
Nabokov himself. The "fellow whose tracks pointed back" is
in _The Hound of the Baskervilles_, if I remember correctly,
and is, of all things, a lepidopterologist, a butterfly
collector. Is it, then, Nabokov whose "feet have crossed...
the page?" I wonder.
Kurt Scaletta