A minute ( but alas, too long) contribution to Don's request about Kinbote,
note to line 403-4
( My
question is "Why the "rabbit foot" of a poplar. What is it. Also
I notice that Boyd's LOA annotations don't comment on the name "Lavender," a
term often associated with gays.)
Gays
or Grays? Regicidal Gradus' name leads us to Sudarg and
Gray ( the actual killer J. Gray) and, in another
context and work we find Nabokov
describing "Lavender Gray" ( "does not grade into red again but passes
into another spiral, which starts with a kind of lavender gray and goes
on to Cinderella shades transcending human
perception, Cf. Pnin) , where we find "grade" and "shades",
cinderellous
cinnereous "ashes(+d)"...
In Pale Fire, as I see it, the
predominant association with "lavender" (as a color) is "death": " White
butterflies turn lavender as they/ Pass through its shade
where gently seems to sway/ The phantom of my little daughter´s
swing".
I
thought that I might find many references to "lavender" in "Ada", but from the
digital copy I only discovered two mentions ( "a lavender glove" and
"orange sunset and...ripples of a lavender sea into goldfish
scales" ).
Violet
( not its "opposite", Orange) always seemed to me as one of
Nabokov's favorite colors and with unfathomable links for him. Incorrectly
as I now realize, for me "violet", "lavender", " lilac orchids" were natural
associations, so much so that when I watched Nabokov-inspired movie by
Fassbinder ( "Despair") where the color scheme of its rooms and chocolate
factories incessantly turned violet into lavender , I thought it was a
clever interpretation of a Nabokovian mood.
In
"Transparent Things" ( in a discussion with Akiko Nakata) we have in 103.04-05:
"a long lavender-tipped flame danced up to stop him
with a graceful gesture of its gloved hand" ( now I notice a faint
echo of "Ada" and "lavender glove"...) Anyway,
most references to "lavender" ( associated with Gradus, killers, duels,
murderous flames and ashes) suggest that its some kind of livid death
sign.
Perhaps
a poem by William Cowper, on Poplars, could fit in with this associative mood (
Ada's Cowper, not Queen Disa's...) where there are also Hazel trees and lots of
shade and deaths (et Shade=deaths ), but no cunning Lapiner rabbit
feet...
William Cowper ( 1731-1800)
The Poplar Field
The poplars
are felled; farewell to the shade
And the whispering sound of the cool
colonnade:
The winds play no longer and sing in the leaves,
Nor Ouse on
his bosom their image receives.
Twelve years have elapsed since I first
took a view
Of my favourite field and the bank where they grew;
And now in
the grass behold they are laid
And the tree is my seat that once lent me
shade!
The blackbird has fled to another retreat
Where the Hazels
afford him a screen from the heat,
And the scene where his melody charmed me
before
Resounds with his sweet-flowing ditty no more.
My fugitive
years are all hasting away,
And I must ere long lie as lowly as they
With
a turf on my breast and a stone at my head,
Ere another such grove shall
arise in its stead.
Tis a sight to engage me if anything can,
To muse
on the perishing pleasures of man;
Though his life be a dream his enjoyments
,I see,
Have a being less durable even than he.