From Don Johnson: " The quote at bottom unearthed by the indefatigable Jansy is an
informative gem in relation to PF. Here, as in PF, the Red Admiral appears to
a harbinger of death (first--the dog Tom; second, Marta [rather than her
husband, the intended victim]). This "mortality marker" is made even clearer
in DN's translation...revisions clearly establish the immanency of death
as signaled by the Red Admiral--just as it does in PF... VN apparently inserted
the 1962 PF echoes into the 1968 KQKn English version. BTW, Jane Grayson in her
NABOKOV TRANSLATED provides a close comparison of the Russian and English texts
of KQK noting the extensive alterations, but, does not (so far as I recall)
comment on the significance above items. It is not often that an author has the
opportunity to "back-quote" a later work."
JM: I think VN must have had
lots of fun working with Dmitri at this 1968 English version, inserting various
other back and forth references ( he plunged in this device later on in
LATH...). So I see Gogol's Dead
Souls was, indeed, a later addition to emphasize the point about the
blackclad undertakers. I hesitated to underline it among "death's
harbingers" because only the title seemed to fit, not the novel
itself.
Another interesting mention is to "Lolita" since
althoug VN often used "haze" and "quilt", this time he brought the two together
in a short sentence:" Golden haze, puffy bedquilt",
mentioned a few lines later in " Then comes a new moment of
specious awareness: this golden haze and your room in the hotel, whose name is
"The Montevideo" (KQK, chapter 2, page 752 in
Collins C.Choice).
Jerry Katsell wrote
about an interview of Paul Magid, member
of The Flying Karamzov Brothers vaudeville troupe (Door Interview: By Tamara
Jaffe-Notier, #190, Nov/Dec 2003):" There’s a lot of juggling going on
in Judaism. There’s a tradition called the “bodkin.” The bodkin is a fool who
breaks up a solemn ceremony, like a wedding. The bodkin is
supposed to make the bride laugh. I’ve been a bodkin a few times. It’s a great
job, and juggling is part of that job. There’s a strong tradition in Judaism of
letting go of seriousness and enjoying being the fool sometimes. It’s important
to be able to enjoy life. People have somehow mixed up morality with the lack of
joy. We should enjoy people and have a fun time, but instead we make all these
lines you can’t step across.”.
He asked: Is this a tradition Charles
Bodkinovich Kinbote, aka VN, might have known about? What about all them Danish
stiletto fun times in PF, from ashen fluff and waxwing slain and a final
trundle of that empty barrow up the lane?"
JM: This
information makes a lot of sense to me. I had been planning to explore the role
of clowns and fools but have been totally unable to get anything on the
"Commedia Dell'arte" and harlequinesque stunts ( the terrible Brazilian
translation I found for KQK was an accidental find while
hopefully perusing used books in a library named "Arlequim"...).
I would not despise all the other meanings for "bodkin", though. I think
VN's irradiating words were "all-inclusive".
JK added a second
posting: "Judging by the marvelous photos
supplied by Leland de la Durantaye on 1/5/07, Bombycilla garrulous, the Bohemian waxwing,
may surely be the waxwing intended in PF. Its breast and belly are the right
shade (deep ash-gray), the only shade that could produce that “smudge of ashen
fluff” on Shade’s windowpane. The garrulous bird is the hermeneutic jumping-off
point of the entire poem and attendant Kinbotean commentary. The Cedar waxwing’s
feathering appears too tawny and yellow for the job. The dark yet ashy shading
of the Bohemian waxwing also fits well with Priscilla Meyer’'s comments in Find What the Sailor Has Hidden (185) about
the bird’s associations with the death theme (Sterbevogel) in the novel."
JM: Again I return
to VN's "all-inclusiveness". Our hesitations about Cedar and Bohemian
waxwings are part of VN's plans, as I see it. VN must playfully, but
intentionally, divide his readers soul's, or
factions, using deliberately unsolvable propositions.
Cedar
waxwings link us with Kinbote's Cedarn cave and Colleridge. Bohemian waxwings
open other inroads to further associations...
An "ashen fluff"
doesn't necessarily demand that the waxwing's colours to be "deep
ash-gray".
I didn't remember Meyer's reference to the "Sterbevogel" ( now
clearly emphasized both by you and Don B. Johnson), but it certainly relates to
the Red Admiral's "1001" wing-design signalizing defeat or
death.
By the way, while writing about KQK's Red admiral
( "Out of nowhere came a Red
Admiral butterfly, settled on the edge of the table, opened its wings and began
to fan them slowly as if in breathing. The dark-brown ground was bruised here
and there, the scarlet band had faded, the fringes were frayed - but the
creature was still so lovely, so festive...") the sentence about its
wings ( "the dark brown ground...the scarlet band") is almost
vague and, from my totally inexpert attempts to understand the Red
Admiral, I remember my perplexity about the browns, located in the so-called
underside of the wing - in opposition to the scarlet band. Also
VN's other descriptions ( in Pale Fire, linking it to Gradus's necktie,
or to Shade's last lines) made me wonder about the red ridges ( so many
sunsets...) and the red band, sometimes very subtly outlined above and
below the real butterfly. After all, VN had already called our attention to
Bosch's central pannel in his triptych of paradise and hell, where a
butterfly is incorrectly rendered, with a reversion of the butterfly"s
sides ... Could Pale Fire's waxwing have been described with inverted
up-and-down sides of the
wings?