While perusing ADA, and related articles, in search for special quotes, I
came across a set of surprises:
1. "More fiercely than ever he execrated all sham art,
from the crude banalities of junk sculpture to the italicized passages meant by
a pretentious novelist to convey his fellow hero’s cloudbursts of thought. He
had even less patience than before with the ‘Sig’ (Signy-M.D.-M.D.) school of
psychiatry"
2. Brian Boyd, p. 213: "Violet Knox's participation in the
preparation of Ada is explained in Pt.5,Ch.4 where at the end of the chapter we
see her limited competence. he "redicatated the entire
thing to indefatigable Violet, whose pretty fingers tapped out a final copy in
1967. E,p,i - why 'y', my dear?" (578) Van has to spell out the beginning of
"epistemic," which he has used earlier in the page, and Violet Knos
transcribes his correction."
JM: 1.Finally, another supposition
about Signy Mon Dieu Mon Dieu*. It might stand for M-D,
ie, Doctor of Medicine (Medicinae Doctor)!
2. One of the editorial intromissions by R.Oranger deals with a
repeated use of words beginning with "epi""[The
epithetic tone strongly suggests that this speech has an epistolary source.
Ed."] This same prefix shall reappear right at the
time when Van's memoirs approach their end. However, Brian
Boyd interprets the spelt letters as indicating the term "epistemic,"
because they appear in a preceding paragraph.** Although
the word "epilogue" doesn't appear at the end of the book (there are two
more chapters), judging from the overall meaning, it occurred to me that it
might have been "epilogue," instead. In this case it would have
been intended for the next chapters (ch.5-6).
While searching in "Pale Fire" for "sonorous intromissions" there
were other items to pop up:
1. "The suburban houses here have open letter boxes out
in the street, and anybody can cram them with advertisements or purloin letters
addressed to me (not out of mere curiosity, mind you, but from other, more
sinister, motives). I send this by air and urgently repeat the address Sylvia
gave you: Dr. C. Kinbote, Kinbote (not "Charles X. Kingbot, Esq.," as you, or
Sylvia, wrote; please, be more careful — and more intelligent), Wordsmith
University, New Wye, Appalachia, USA."
2. "He
began with the day’s copy of The New York Times. His lips moving like wrestling
worms, he read about all kinds of things...Last night, in Newark, an apartment
house at 555 South Street was hit by a thunderbolt that smashed a TV set and
injured two people watching an actress lost in a violent studio storm (those
tormented spirits are terrible! C.X.K. teste J.S.)". p.271 (line
949)
3. Index: "Charles II, Charles
Xavier Vseslav, last King of Zembla, surnamed The Beloved, b. 1915, reigned
1936-1958;... identity almost revealed, 991; Solus Rex, 1000. See also
Kinbote.; Kinbote, Charles, Dr., an intimate friend of S, his literary
adviser, editor and commentator; first meeting and friendship with S, Foreword;
his interest in Appalachian birds.. Shade, John Francis, poet and
scholar, 1898-1959; his work on Pale Fire and friendship with K, Foreword; his
physical appearance, mannerisms, habits, etc., ibid.; his first brush with death
as visualized by K, and his beginning the poem while K plays chess at the
Students’ Club, 1; his sunset rambles with K, 12; his dim precognition of G,
17..."; Botkin, V., American scholar of
Russian descent, 894; king-bot, maggot of extinct fly that once bred in mammoths
and is thought to have hastened their phylogenetic end, 247; bottekin-maker, 71;
bot, plop, and botelïy, big-bellied (Russ.); botkin or bodkin, a Danish
stiletto; K, see Charles II and Kinbote..
4.Line 1000:" [= Line 1...] "We know how firmly, how
stupidly I believed that Shade was composing a poem, a kind of romaunt, about
the King of Zembla...I even suggested to him a good title — the title of the
book in me whose pages he was to cut: Solus Rex; instead of which I saw Pale
Fire, which meant to me nothing.... Shade could not write otherwise than
beautifully — but void of my magic, of that special rich streak of magical
madness which I was sure would run through it and make it transcend its
time..."
JM: The quotes related to Kinbote don't disclose
his putative hidden identity as Botkin (except in his remark about Sybil's
imprecations) and remain tied to the change from an emigré Charless II
into Charles Kinbote. The Index offers an enigmatic entry for "his
identity almost disclosed", refered to line 991 - where there's a
description of CK's and JS's move towards Kinbote's home taking
along the finished draft of "Pale Fire". It also indicates the poem's
last line as "1000," and "Solus Rex."
The correction "Dr. C. Kinbote, Kinbote (not "Charles
X. Kingbot, Esq.)" deals with Disa's or
Sylvia's mistake, indirectly revealing CK's "royalty"
or rank, by substituting "Kinbote" for "Kingbot." They also
eliminated the academic position he claimed ("Dr.") and his
superiority to John Shade ("poet and scholar").
It seems that "Kingbot" (ambassador to a
king?) and "Esquire" could be somehow related to chess in
tje "Solus Rex"*** However, the note that might suggest
Kinbote's initials [ "CXK, teste
JS,"] mingles Charles Xavier Veslav and Charles Kinbote. (it seems
the two should remain separate)
According to Sybil, Kinbote meant something else.
Rather, in her mind he wasn't Kinbote, but the untitled Botkin,
V:" I was to learn later that when alluding to me in
public she used to call me 'an elephantine tick; a king-sized botfly; a macaco
worm; the monstrous parasite of a genius.' I pardon her — her and everybody."
(the same words Kinbote himself used for Botkin ("king-bot, maggot of extinct
fly that once bred in mammoths"). Sybil's intuitive image of something "king-sized" must have
been merely derived from of ordinary terms, applied to bed and
cigarette measurements...
(I still need to check again the fascinating
article "Parasitism and Pale Fire's Camouflage: the King-bot, the crown
jewels and the man in the brown macintosh" by James Ramey...).
Any
Thoughts???????
..........................................................................................
* ADA: "A Dr Froid, one of the administerial centaurs,
who may have been an émigré brother with a passport-changed name of the Dr Froit
of Signy-Mondieu-Mondieu in the Ardennes or, more likely, the same man, because
they both came from Vienne, Isère, and were only sons..."
** The full quote, and where I
underlined the word and prefix: "As Ada, Mr Oranger (a born catalyzer), and Van were discussing
those matters one afternoon in 1957 (Van’s and Ada’s book Information and
Form had just come out), it suddenly occurred to our old polemicist that all
his published works — even the extremely abstruse and specialized Suicide and
Sanity (1912), Compitalia (1921), and When an Alienist Cannot
Sleep (1932), to cite only a few — were not epistemic tasks set to
himself by a savant, but buoyant and bellicose exercises in literary style. He
was asked why, then, did he not let himself go, why did he not choose a big
playground for a match between Inspiration and Design; and with one thing
leading to another it was resolved that he would write his memoirs — to be
published posthumously.
He was a very slow writer. It took him six years to write the
first draft and dictate it to Miss Knox, after which he revised the typescript,
rewrote it entirely in long hand (1963-1965) and redictated the entire thing to
indefatigable Violet, whose pretty fingers tapped out a final copy in 1967.
E, p, i — why ‘y,’ my
dear?"
*** - Esquire is cognate with the word squire which originally meant
an apprentice or assistant to a knight...(wikipedia)