----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, December 01, 2002 3:06 PM
Subject: Re: nun jetzt in Pale Fire
I take it
this means you don't think they are the same person, that Nabokov is
type-casting, so to speak. It's just a coincidence that he uses "a nun" in one
place and "the nun" later?
No, no. Not
coincidence. It's crucial to keep in mind that this is SHADE, talking, casually
and characteristically for his time, his place, his age, his background. If any
typecasting being done it is by Shade, not Nabokov. To Shade the nun disguise
is an absurdity, but the story has been told to him by Kinbote. He makes
this clear, even pointing to K as he says it.
Shade
uses the nun "roommate" because to him (and to me, in my
time, place, background, Shade is being unfair and prejudiced)
because a nun-to-be is, he believes, a similar type to Hazel -- an
unpopular undesirable. Someone who isn't going to be getting any dates. Someone
who will never share a lovers cigarette.
Do you also think the
blonde, barefoot and in a black leotard, is a type, or is she a
person?
I think she's a
person. She appears twice. First as someone referred to between the guys in the
common room: "that stunning blonde in the leotard who haunts Lit 202." Second, I
think she's the female student Kinbote/Botkin invites to dinner to make a
foursome between Shade, Sybil, and Botkin. The Shades leave early because they
don't want to be there in the first place, and because Shade hates the
vegetarian fare, and because both Shade and Sybil think Kinbote is nuts, and
they've got nothing in common with the woman student. Kinbote/Botkin doesn't
like her either and he's bored with her until she
leaves.
But you do think that Netochka (Nezvanova?) is a person. How
do you see old Natochdag - does he bear any resemblance to an old lady of that
family in a 1934 bestseller? Or you have something else in mind?
I think Natochdag (sp?) is the alarmed dept. head in charge of
Kinbote/Botkin and Netochka is the nickname Botkin gives him. I'm not
familar with a Nezvanova nor a 1934 bestseller, but I don't think Nabokov based
major characterizations on recent contemporary literature. He references
primarily classics or old, obscure references ... one of which is Thomas
Flatman, an English poet 1637-1688, who wrote a poem called A Thought
of Death which you may want to read. The Flatman reference is made by
Kinbote speaking with Shade and the guys in the commentary note where one of
the guys is trying to pronounce Professor Pnin's name. Make sure to give me
credit for what you find there.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, November 30, 2002 7:12
PM
Subject: Fw: nun jetzt in Pale Fire
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, November 30, 2002 3:55 PM
Subject: nun jetzt in Pale Fire
A challenge to those who believe that the roommate
is Hazel's:
Do you see any significance in the nun who turns up
in Kinbote's commentary to line 894 ("the widely circulated stuff about the
nun") or any relationship between this nun and the roommate who has become
one?
To which Mr Brown
replied:
I think that Nabokov's intention in both the
reference to a future nun "roommate" (whose I don't know, but you know my
thoughts on this word choice) sitting with Hazel, and the second
reference, in the commentary, to a fake nun, are both separate statements
of about a certain tupe of marginal person -- non-sexual persons.
Dear Mr
Brown,
I take it this means you don't think they are the same person,
that Nabokov is type-casting, so to speak. It's just a coincidence that he
uses "a nun" in one place and "the nun" later? That would be rather
uncharacteristic of Nabokov.
Do you also think the blonde, barefoot
and in a black leotard, is a type, or is she a person?
But you do think
that Netochka (Nezvanova?) is a person. How do you see old Natochdag -
does he bear any resemblance to an old lady of that family in a 1934
bestseller? Or you have something else in mind?
Carolyn
Kunin