Dear
list,
This
is in response to the interesting insights of Barrie, Mike, and others
surrounding cricket, soccer, etc. I am busy writing an article on the PF
manuscript and just happened to arrive at the passage in question today.
I don’t want to pre-empt my own scholarship, but the fates should be
respected, so I am happy to shed a little light on the subject. In the
holograph manuscript, Kinbote’s note to line 98 (“On Chapman’s Homer”)
includes a line of conjecture as to what sport is being referenced. Nabokov
tried out both lacrosse and hockey but canceled those and settled on baseball
and basketball instead. This passage, however, was later removed and the
current first sentence of n. 130 was added. This sentence, in its
original form, does not mention cricket at all, but instead mentions “soccer
or hockey, our two main games.” So it seems that Barrie was right in
finding the insertion of cricket a bit odd. And the later change to
“cricket” does seem to show that Nabokov thought about what he wanted and
chose cricket over hockey in order to achieve some effect.
Hope
this helped a little. Furthermore, I hope this will serve as an example of why
we need variorum editions of VN’s novels. We have the
technology!
Matt
Roth