JM: A complicated line of associations carried us from Pushkin's nut-case to the spherical Platonic half-beings. In the horizon, a serendipity with moon and earth and sun. After all, as it has just occurred to me, wouldn't Plato's role towards Socrates, in the "Symposium," be somehow similar to Boswell/Johnson and Kinbote/Shade?

 

David Powelstock writes: I would say that Kinbote’s orbit around Shade better reflects that of Alcibiades around Socrates.