I do not know whether the following will stand up under further scrutiny
(exact dates, etc.) but perhaps the most famous "serving" of rat in the cinema
occurs in "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?", a film released in 1962, the same
year that PF was published. Most will know the plot of this cult
film. It strikes me that the interdependence of the nostalgically mad Jane
(Bette Davis) and her wheelchair-bound (and about to be "rediscovered") actress
sister (Joan Crawford) bears a certain relationship to the Charles Kinbote-John
Shade duet? And in the end there is the question: Who exactly has driven
whom mad. Did VN perhaps see the film and find the dynamic
stimulating? I would like to think that VN saw, and enjoyed, this bizarre,
and comical, b&w classic!
This taunting dialogue exchange between the two sisters:
- Blanche: "You wouldn't be able to do these awful things to me
if I wasn't in this chair."
- Jane: "But ya AAH Blanche, ya AAH in that chair!"
(Paul Hurley "chairs" the English Department...?)
Alternatively, is it too simple to think that Southey's name comes to mind
(in the context of a person - Hurley - behaving like a "rat")
because Southey was Laureate (Shade) to the King (Kinbote), and had
written a famous poem about rats pursuing a Bishop (chesspiece) to a
Castle? VN does lead one a merry dance, doesn't he?!
David Krol