It cannot possibly be the Walrus from that Lewis Carroll
poem, can it? The Walrus is, after all, all about the cabbages and kings. While
the Kinbote reference is clear, the possibility of the cabbage one being Carroll
seems like far too much free-association (Walrus for wall) to hold any water—or
cabbages.
From:
Sent: Saturday, June 30, 2007
12:09 PM
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Subject: [NABOKV-L] VN SIGHTING:
Treuer PF
FROM: Don Johnson
l have been doing a lot of desultory reading lately. By
chance I ran across a novel, "The Translation of Dr Appeles," by
David Treuer who teaches in the English Department at the
Among the things that caught my eye was a passage
describing a disjointed dream based presumably upon scenes from the books that
pass through his hands. Among them, we find:
"To his left was a man
throwing cabbages over a stone wall and to his right a bearded professor
played table tennis in his basement with a pair of twins" (77)
Doctor Kinbote, I presume? I see from
Treuer's University CV that he teaches a course called "The Layering
of Modern Narrative, Looking for Treasure in Nabokov's Pale Fire."
P.S. But (rhetorically) who is that man throwing cabbages over
the wall?