On Mon, May 25, 2009 at 3:04 PM, jansymello
<jansy@aetern.us> wrote:
...
Next I got confused by a side-issue: sometime
after 1950 Hentzner had the barn destroyed and only a tuft of grass could be
examined by Shade and Kinbote, approximately nine years later.
When did Hazel spend the night with mama and
papa in the unburnt-barn?
The first sentence of note 347 says this happened in October, 1956. I believe the time sequence is: Hentzner moved
away from his farm in 1950, he died in one of the next few summers (missing from my timeline, so thanks for bringing
it up), a young couple took advantage of the unwatched barn and saw the will-o-the-wisp in Oct. 1956, Hazel investigated
then, and "the authorities" demolished the barn on Shade's instigation not too long after that.
By the way, the usual spelling now is "St. Elmo's fire". If you're researching it, you'll probably find more under
that name.
Would Hazel's experience with "lights" (
preceded by HH's mother's death by lightning and followed by abolished
electricity in ADA and its veeny swamps) be among the meanings associated
to Pale Fire?
That seems very reasonable to me. Boyd connects them.
On another subject: As I recall, you recently asked about Charles's and Kinbote's beard. If I may answer this late--Kinbote says in note 12 that he hasn't shaved for a year. He would have written this sometime during August, September, or October, 1959, maybe in August, since it's at the beginning of his Commentary. He may have in mind that he stopped shaving on his escape from the Royal Palace, which he dates to mid August, 1958.