JM: "I wonder why he said
"chemical reagent," since a fall would only entail mechanical, not chemical,
consequences. Unless...? "
MR: "My thought is that
Nabokov is being precise here in making Kinbote imprecise. According to
Webster's 2nd, a chemical reagent is "any substance which, because it takes part
in certain reactions, is used in detecting, examining, or measuring other
substances, in preparing material, in developing photographs, etc." [...]
we might reverse Kinbote's notion and say that Kinbote himself is the substance
and the Dante-esque incident of the Shades stuck in the ice is the
reagent..."
JM: Fascinating posting ( for the sake
of briefness I only repeat the items I'll here tentatively explore)
with the suggestion that VN's choice of the word "reagent" serves as
a ploy, one that will transform the first encounter bt.
Shade and Kinbote into something else: it would announce,
through Kinbote's "fall", his emergence ( intromission)
and subsequent control over the development of the picture.
I think it was Aisenberg who pointed out the
word "catalyst", and played with quantic "butt-erfly effect" (as I did
when I selected the verb "entail").
We know that a "reaction" is that which occurs in response to a
specific factor, and in a clearly established causal chain.
A catalyst, in lieu of a "chemical
reagent", though, would indicate a non-essential, additional
and with a restricted participation in the reaction. If so, an
additional twist may be added to MR's hypothesis, ie, that Shade's
original poem is totally free from Kinbote's presence
and influence - but not the commentary which surrounds it and,
supposedly, hastens its visibility.