Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0017081, Sun, 21 Sep 2008 06:28:42 -0300

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Re: [Fwd: Midges-Midgets addendum]
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Matt Evans: One quick thing I thought of later: perhaps the substitution of "midget" for "midges" was Nabokov's own subtle homage to N. Gogol's metaphor-generated homunculi, which tiny Gogolian population Nabokov chronicles in great detail...
Dave Haan:I've blogposted on the relevance of Plato's Cratylus to Pale Fire, esp C894. Due to the embedded links I only excerpt below, with quote textblocks italicised; it can be seen in full at
http://nnyhav.blogspot.com/2008/09/waxwing-philosophical-hermeneutic.html[...] The poet's mother, nee Caroline Lukin, assisted him in his work and drew the admirable figures of his Birds of Mexico, which I remember having seen in my friend's house. What the obituarist does not know is that Lukin comes from Luke, as also do Locock and Luxon and Lukashevich [...] I propose that Profs. H. & C. correspond to Hermogenes and Cratylus in Plato's dialogue of the latter name. Need I mention that the point of this dialogue is the making of names, and that Pale Fire is set at Wordsmith University?

JM: Whereas I passed from dustbeams and folklorelei into an indirect reference to F.Heine - his haunting old-tale Jungfrau now related to VN's various shimmers and motes (in his early Russian short-story The Woodsprite there is a male-enchanter water-sprite), M.Evans suggested a "subtle homage to N.Gogol". On a more classical line, D.Haan moves from Prof.C ( a Freudian!) and Prof. H. (Headmaster Prof.Hurley) towards Plato's Cratylus, and Hermogenes.

Speaking of names, their reversion and partial alterations as in:
Botkin,V., King-bot, Kinbote, C?*;

Gradus, Jakob: Degree,Grey, D'Argus and Sudarg (Yakob);

Mirador/Radomir;

Odon/Nodo
I now ask: why is John Francis Shade's name not as often speculated upon, nor germanized, zemblanized nor latinized (like Jakob/Jack/Bokay,Gradus/Degrée). Perhaps as in Johann, Franz, Umber? The leads are not promising. Would that have been particularly intended by VN?
(There are other name-wordgames through Swift's Esther/Stella/Vanessa, the plays with Erlkönig, and Yew/If/IPH, aso)


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Cf. Pale Fire:INDEX:


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.




Charles II, Charles Xavier Vseslav, last King of Zembla, surnamed The Beloved, b. 1915,

Gradus, Jakob, 1915-1959; alias Jack Degree, de Grey, d'Argus, Vinogradus, Leningradus, etc.; a Jack of small trades and a killer [ Jakob Gradus called himself variously Jack Degree or Jacques de Grey, or James de Gray, and also appears in police records as Ravus, Ravenstone, and d'Argus. Having a morbid affection for the ruddy Russia of the Soviet era, he contended that the real origin of his name should be sought in the Russian word for grape, vinograd, to which a Latin suffix had adhered, making it Vinogradus.] and [ Sudarg of Bokay, a mirror maker of genius, the patron saint of Bokay in the mountains of Zembla]

K, see Charles II and Kinbote

Kinbote, Charles, Dr., an intimate friend of S, his literary adviser, editor and commentator[...]his having no library in his Timonian cave...

Mandevil, Baron Mirador, cousin of Radomir Mandevil (q.v.), experimentalist, madman and traitor, 171.

Mandevil, Baron Radomir, b. 1925, man of fashion and Zemblan patriot; in 1936, K's throne page, 130; in 1958, disguised, 149.



Nodo, Odon's half-brother, b. 1916, son of Leopold O'Donnell and of a Zemblan boy impersonator; a cardsharp and despicable traitor, 171.

Odon, pseudonym of Donald O'Donnell, b. 1915, world-famous actor and Zemblan patriot;... ; see also O'Donnell, Sylvia.

O'Donnell, Sylvia, nee O'Connell...much-married mother of Odon (q.v.), 149, 691; after marrying and divorcing college president Leopold O'Donnell in 1915, father of Odon, she married Peter Gusev...after a number of other more or less glamorous marriages, she was in the act of divorcing Lionel Lavender, cousin of Joseph.



Shade, John Francis, poet and scholar, 1898-1959; his work on Pale Fire and friendship with K

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* 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.


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