Architraves and Remorse (JF), 06 FEb 2007.
Vic
Perry: In reply to JF, Kinbote is a very sly Zemblan - but he also is
a
classic unreliable narrator who inadvertently allows readers any number of
glimpses of truths beyond him.
JF: No
doubt about that. I'm still hoping to hear anyone's theory of what
the truth
is behind his re-Englished lines from
/Timon/.
JM: I wondered about this
sly Zemblan's mnemonic feats which apparent in the notes he wrote when
already secluded in his Cedarn cave.
We may be curious about Conmal's Timon and
the re-Englished lines. But what about the rendering of the exchanges
involving Mme.Mortemart and Edith? CK gets very close to the original, but maintains a special, almost
deliberate clumsiness.
First ( of course!) I checked the correctness
of CK's reference to a 1954 Pléiade's edition in three volumes, and
the contentes of the last one for the quote (number 102). ( something that has
probably been ascertained before but I wanted to be on the safe
side)
PALE
FIRE
Sybil... "Please, dip or redip, spider, into
this book [offering it], you will find a pretty marker in it bought in
France, I want John to keep it."..."I am a very sly Zemblan. Just in case,
I had brought with me in my pocket the third and last volume of the
Bibliothèque de la Pléiade edition, Paris, 1954, of Proust's work,
wherein I had marked certain passages on pages 269-271. Mme. de
Mortemart, having decided that Mme. de Valcourt would not be among the "elected"
at her soirée, intended to send her a note on the next day saying "Dear
Edith, I miss you, last night I did not expect you too much (Edith would
wonder: how could she at all, since she did not invite me?) because I know
you are not overfond of this sort of parties which, if anything, bore
you."
So much for John Shade's last birthday.
PROUST: A la recherche du temps perdu. Coll La Pléiade, 1954,
trois volumes, N°s 100, 101, 102.
TOME III, Volume Numéro 102 de la
Bibliothèque de la Pléiade. Édition publiée sous la direction de Jean-Yves
Tadié avec , pour ce volume, la collaboration d'Antoine Compagnon et Pierre
Edmond Robert. Ce Volume Contient:- Sodome et Gomorrhe ; - La Prisonnière ;
- Esquisses
The Captive ( chapter II): The Verdurins
quarrel with M. de Charlus:
Before she had even
thought of what Morel was to play... Mme. de Mortemart, having decided
that Mme. de Valcourt was not to be one of the elect, had automatically assumed
that air of conspiracy, of a secret plotting which so degrades even
those women in society who can most easily afford to ignore what 'people will
say.She intended, on the morning after the party, to write her one of
those letters...For instance: "Dear Edith, I am so sorry about you, I did
not really expect you last night" ("How could she have expected me," Edith
would ask herself, "since she never invited me?") "as I know that you are
not very fond of parties of that sort, which rather bore you. We
should have been greatly honoured, all the same, by your company" (never
did Mme. de Mortemart employ the word 'honoured,' except in the letters in
which she attempted to cloak a lie in the semblance of truth).
"
(The Captive, translated from the French by
C.K.Scott Moncrieff. Rendered into HTML by Steve Thomas for the University
of Adelaide Library ElectronicTexts Collection)
I think there is a clue in Mme.de Mortemart's
use of words, such as "greatly honoured... to cloak a lie in the semblance of
truth" ( our commentator omitted that
part)