Just some comments from somebody who comes from a "distant northern
land" (in my case, Russia - and St. Petersburg).

> Winters in Zembla would be nasty, indeed, and
> even summers would tend to be cool, yet Kinbote's memories portray it as
> a near-tropical place in terms of weather.
This is true also for St. Petersburg, and because of this we tend
to remember better the summers (I think, Ingmar Bergman says
somewhere something similar about Sweden).

 

>And he is also more sensitive
> to cold than we would expect of a Zemblan, as he tries to get the heater
> in Goldworth's house to be more efficient.
This is really an idea I confronted many times being in warmer countries
than Russia. I don't know why people expect that russians should be
less sensitive to the cold than the inhabitants of warmer places.
(Same concerning "zemblans".) I always answer that I know better
how to behave when it is cold (I still remember some of our
scientific visitors in Russia very lightly dressed indeed because they
didn't understand the danger - and the students in Durham - North
of England - who were dressed ridiculously lightly when it was snowing
- from my point of view), BUT it doesn't mean that I like cold. In addition,
even in the USSR, not to speak about skandinavian countries and
Zembla, usually winter heating in big cities was more adequate
than in such western places as the UK (where it was truly horrible)
and France (where the walls are thin, there are single windows,
and is usually a lot of drafts).

 

>erhaps this evidence shows
> little more than the fact that Kinbote is inventing Zembla during the
> summer time in New Wye, and the sunniness of his surroundings is intruding
> on his fantasy.
>
> Another note to this issue is that the first time Kinbote sees Shade, it
> is on a cold, icy day, and he compares Shade to old man winter, as if
> Shade is the one whose natural element is the cold, instead of vice versa
> as we would expect of a former resident of a "northern land."

 

Again, "accepted wisdom". People do, indeed expect this, but it
is not in general true.

 

> I don't have any real point here except that these things seem
> interesting, and I wonder if anyone else feels that perhaps they are
> connected in some way?

 

Best regards,

Sergei