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Re: Fwd: Steinmanns and crown jewels
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Mike,
That is an elegant explication of the recurring steinmann idea. But one item
that I think must be connected here is the appearance of the "man making
contact with God." In the Rose Court at the back of the Ducal Palace in
Onhava, young Charles Xavier hears rapid steps on the sectile mosaic of the
court, with its realistic rose petals cut out of rodstein and large almost
palpable thorns cut out of green marble ... there walks a black shadow ..
tall, pale, long-nosed dark-haired ... he is a young minister but this
description sounds like a young Charles II, the one whose court included
John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, and was chronicled in part by Samuel Pepys.
But it also could be a description of a future Charles Xavier of Zembla,
ten years or so out of boyhood, and going through some spasm of piety.
Now move forward through the years until we find Charles of Zembla
imprisoned in his palace, but about to escape. He opens the closet that once
led him and his friend Oleg to the green room, known not for its thorns cut
out of green marble but the back stage reception, or waiting room for Iris
Acht, Charle's grandfather's mistress. As part of his escape plan, Charles
asks his Extremist jailor Hal if he may play the piano before he goes to
bed. Permission is granted. Charles sits down at the Bechstein and vamps a
few chords while he informs his disguised friend Odon of the tunnel through
which he will escape. That very night THE MERMAN will be performed at the
theatre Charles can reach through the tunnel and the still existing green
room. Meanwhile, the rollicking Russian treasure seekers are ripping up the
palace, coming closer and closer to Charles' last hope of escape. They have
already reached the picture gallery. Baron Bland, Keeper of theTreasure has
succeeded in hiding the treasure before he jumps or falls from the North
Tower. Our commentator insists Andronnikov and Niagarin are mistaken in
suspecting the jewels were ever hidden in the palace. But this was
evidentally where Bland was questioned, with a rollicking perseverance
ending in defenestration, either by his own will, in honorable refusal to
talk, or as penalty inflicted by his questioners for not talking.
In any case, by the time Charles is ready to escape, they have dismantled
the Council Chamber and have reached that part of the gallery where the oils
of Eystein hang. Eystein, master of the tromp l'oeil, who could make his
dead models seem even deader by contrast to the fallen petal (rodstein) ...
or other imported realities in his works. Eystein was the master of a
deceptive art style which, our commentator believes, had something "ignoble"
about it. Particularly "the basic fact that "reality" is neither the subject
nor the object of true art which creates its own special "reality" having
nothing to do with the average "reality" perceived by the communal eye." In
any case, A & N approach. Charles and Odon stand in the gallery at the spot
where Eystein's portrait of a former Keeper of the Treasure hangs. Decrepit
Count Kernel, whose fingers rest on an bronze box embossed and engraved with
a "twin-lobed, brainlike halved kernel of walnut."
Charles is led off to his room from which he shortly escapes. A & N find
nothing beneath Eystein's bronze box but the nut shells of the brain kernel
depicted on the box's lid. Charles flees over the Bera range, and there,
as you know, Mike, he discovers the Steinmann cairn which he crowns, in
memory of his now remote Zemblan kingdom (and perhaps to mark the spot of
buried jewels) with his cap of red wool. Perhaps this memory makes Charles
laugh all the harder when he and his soon to be new found friend John Shade
snort derisively about Fromm's interpretation of Little Red Riding Hood.
Let's not forget Gradus's frustration at not being able to personally
execute the King's most gifted impersonator, Julius Steinmann, who could
mimic the King's voice in underground radio speeches. Steinmann is caught,
condemned, shot by an inept Extremist firing squad, escapes, and then is
found again in a provincial hospital. Gradus himself races over to shoot the
Steinmann who manages once again to escape.
Fast forward some more and find Kinbote, upset, the day after Shade's
birthday party, to which he was not invited. Kinbote goes over the next day
to inspire some guilt by bringing a "reproachfully wrapped up" birthday
present, and notices, on the ground by the garage, a near-relation of the
red-capped steinmann in the form of a buchmann, a cairn of library books.
Kinbote lectures Sybil on manners and presents her with a book into which
she can "dip, or redip," spider that she is, in his mind, Vol. III of the
1954 Pleiade edition of Proust's work. So: in sequence we have steinmann,
rodstein, Bechstein, Eystein, Steinmann the red-capped cairn, Julius
Steinmann the heroic Karlist, and buchmann, a biblio cairn.
Andrew (aka AB) Brown
----- Original Message -----
From: "Donald B. Johnson" <chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu>
To: <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
Sent: Thursday, May 12, 2005 7:53 PM
Subject: Fwd: Steinmanns and crown jewels
> ----- Forwarded message from michaeldonohue@hotmail.com -----
> Date: Wed, 11 May 2005 23:15:37 -0400
> From: Michael Donohue <michaeldonohue@hotmail.com>
> Reply-To: Michael Donohue <michaeldonohue@hotmail.com>
> Subject: Steinmanns and crown jewels
> ---------------- Message requiring your approval (196 lines)
> ------------------
> Dear AB and everyone else,
>
>
> I suggest that the steinmanns are important because one of them is a
marker
> for the burial
> site of the Zemblan crown jewels.
>
> Let me explain. Forgive the long e-mail that follows.
>
> Of all the puzzles of Pale Fire, the one that most stands out is the hunt
> for the crown jewels. Kinbote constantly calls our attention to the
mystery
> of their hiding place. When discussing the Russian pair, Niagarin and
> Andronnikov, who have been sent to find the crown jewels, Kinbote
expresses,
> with more than "pardonable satisfaction," that the jewels "were, and still
> are, cached in a totally different--and quite unexpected--corner of
Zembla"
> (244). He later tells us that Gradus's suitcase and raincoat are probably
> still in a train station locker, "as snug as my gemmed scepter, ruby
> necklace, and diamond-studded crown in--no matter, where" (276). The index
> entry for Charles II begs us to look up the entry for the jewels: "q.v. by
> all means" (306).
>
> It is the loudest, most emphasized puzzle in the novel, and yet it seems
to
> have the least inspired solution. Everyone (Boyd, Johnson, etc.) seems to
> agree that the jewels are in Kobaltana--as of course they are. But can't
we
> be more specific than that? (And perhaps someone has--please correct me
> if I've overlooked it.)
>
> Nabokov sort of called the jewel hunt to a halt by saying, in the 1967
> interview with Appel, that the jewels were "in the ruins, sir, of some old
> barracks in Kobaltana (q.v.); but do not tell it to the Russians." (Strong
> Opinions, 92).
>
> It's a disappointingly vague solution to a puzzle that calls such
> extravagant attention to itself. I used to think that it was the whole
> solution. But some of my students, over the past five years, have
convinced
> me otherwise.
>
> Here is what we've come up with:
>
> The crown jewels are in Kobaltana--yes. But there's more.
>
> 1) The king passes through Kobaltana, and sees the hiding place (or
taynik),
> during his trek over the Bera mountain range.
>
> 2)The jewels are buried under a steinmann.
>
> 3) Kinbote cannot resist the temptation to call our attention to their
> precise hiding place.
>
> Let's start from the beginning. Here is the usual solution to the puzzle.
>
> 1. Index: Andronikov and Niagarin: "Russian experts in search of buried
> treasure." Conclusion: the jewels are buried.
>
> 2. Index: Niagarin and Andronikov: "Russian 'experts' still in search of
> buried treasure." Note the scare quotes: now they're not real experts.
> Solution: jewels' location comes somewhere between the two entries,
between
> A and N.
>
> 3. The most suspicious entry in the index is the one for Kobaltana: "a
once
> fashionable mountain resort near the ruins of some old barracks now a cold
> and desolate spot of difficult access and no importance but still
remembered
> in military families and forest castles, not in the text." (310) Because
of
> the entry, we can say that the jewels are buried in Kobaltana.
>
> This is where everyone usually stops. But I humbly suggest that we can go
> further. We can say where Kobaltana is; we can point directly to the
taynik;
> we can even speculate about how the jewels got there.
>
> Here goes:
>
> When kept captive in the palace, Charles the Beloved was moved from his
> original room
> because he was accused of using a "fop's hand mirror" (121) to signal to
> someone. This being a Nabokov novel, we're inclined to suspect that the
king
> probably was, in fact, signalling to someone. What can be seen from his
> window? Who could be receiving signals from the hand mirror?
>
> We learn (119) that "one could make out with the help of field glasses
lithe
> youths diving into the swimming pool of a fairy tale sport club, and the
> English ambassador in old-fashioned flannels playing tennis with the
Basque
> coach on a clay court as remote as paradise." With the "fop's hand mirror"
> he was able to signal to the tennis courts; and we just happen to know the
> identity of a certain "tennis ace" named Julius Steinmann, "son of the
well
> known philanthropist" (153), after whom--perhaps?--the "steinmann"
(Zemblan
> for "cairn") was named. (Or is "steinmann" a real German term for
"cairn"?)
>
> Julius Steinmann is called "an especially brilliant impersonator of the
> King" (153), which will be very important in a minute. Young Steinmann
> could also have received information--and the jewels themselves--from
Odon,
> since we also know that "through [Odon] the king kept in touch with
numerous
> adherents, young nobles, artists, college athletes, gamblers, Black Rose
> paladins, members of fencing clubs, and other men of fashion and
adventure"
> (120). The Keeper of the Treasure, one Baron Bland, "had a helper" (243),
> who we might presume was Odon. Could the king have been signalling his
> preferred hiding place for the jewels?
>
> Then the King escapes. He is dropped by Odon "at the edge of the Mandevil
> Forest" (139). Mandevil Forest is near Kobaltana: it is near a "once
> fashionable mountain resort"--something we can deduce from the following
> information. Charles's English tutor once sprained his ankle during "a
> picnic in
> the Mandevil Forest" (124). After Odon drops the king off near the
Mandevil
> Forest,
> Charles remembers "the times he had picnicked hereabouts--in another part
of
> the forest but on the same mountainside, and higher up, as a boy, on the
> boulderfield where Mr. Campbell had once twisted an ankle and had to be
> carried down, smoking his pipe, by two husky attendants. Rather dull
> memories, on the whole. Wasn't there a hunting box nearby--just beyond
> Silfhar Falls? Good capercaillie and woodcock shooting--a sport much
enjoyed
> by his late mother Queen Blenda, a tweedy and horsy queen" (139). Sounds
> like a "mountainous resort" was nearby.
>
> So we've found the mountainous resort. Kobaltana could be nearby. But what
> about the "ruins of the old barracks"? Do we know of any military
> installations in Zembla? We know that they haven't had any wars during
> Charles's reign ("Mars never marred his record," 75) but there are a
couple
> of references to military activity--indeed, there are references to
> Charles's military service. There is one time in his life when he spends
> half his time "with his regiment" (104), and when he stays in the peasant
> Griff's house he sees a "a color print" of himself as "an elegant
guardsman"
> (141). This doesn't prove much, but it does associate the
location--Mandevil
> Forest, where Griff lives--with Charles in a military uniform (where he
> would have made a lot of mischief in the barracks?). This is a stretch, I
> know.
>
> When the king ascends further up the mountainside (getting near the
mountain
> resort where he once picnicked with Campbell), he sees a "red-sweatered,
> red-capped doubleganger" (143) whom he at first mistakes for his own
> reflection. It would take an "especially brilliant impersonator" (153) to
> give the appearance of one's own reflection; only the aforementioned
Julius
> Steinmann could pull it off. After the impersonator disappears, the King
> shudders with "alfear (uncontrollable fear caused by elves)"; he murmurs
"a
> family prayer," crosses himself, and moves on.
>
> Then he sees that "upon an adjacent ridge a steinmann (a heap of stones
> erected as a memento of an ascent) had donned a cap of red wool in his
> honor." The crown jewels, I think, are buried here. Why? Because
immediately
> after walking on, when he reaches the pass in the very next
paragraph--when
> he looks out and observes the beauty of the Bera mountain range--he
> describes the mountains as though they were jewels in a box. Look at the
> passage: he is describing a box of precious jewels:
>
> "Northward melted the green, gray, bluish mountains--Falkberg with its
hood
> of snow [a pearl ring?], Mutraberg with the fan of its avalanche [isn't a
> fan a common design on earrings and pendants?], Paberg (Mt. Peacock), and
> others,--separated by narrow dim valleys with intercalated cotton-wool
bits
> of cloud that seemed placed between the receding sets of ridges to prevent
> their flanks from scraping against one another [as cotton-wool separates
> jewels in a box]. Beyond them, in the final blue, loomed Mt. Glitterntin
> ["glitter"], a serrated edge of bright foil ["a thin layer of metal placed
> under a gem in a closed setting to improve its color or brilliancy"
> -Webster's]; and southward, a tender haze enveloped more distant ridges
> which led to one another in an endless array, through every grade of soft
> evanescence." (144)
>
> Later, in the index, the Bera Range is described as "glittering" (305).
Note
> also that Kinbote has put great emphasis on the difficulty of the
> climb--meaning that the hiding place would be, as the Kobaltana entry
> mandates, "a spot of difficult access." This is the King's surreptitious
> tribute to his family's jewelry.
>
> He is calling our attention to two things at once: the jewelry-like
> appearance of the mountains, and the strange phallus-like tribute of the
> steinmann. Remember Disa's reaction to news of their hiding place?
> "Perfunctorily she inquired about the crown jewels; he revealed to her
their
> unusual hiding place, and she melted in girlish mirth as she had not done
> for years and years." (212) "Girlish mirth"? Something is funny about
their
> location. Why would she laugh if they were merely hidden in some barracks?
> She laughs because the crown jewels are under an erect phallus: a
> "steinmann" with its "red cap" is above the--ahem--family jewels.
>
> If the jewels are under the steinmann, it's easier to explain
> why, at the novel's end, Kinbote puts such importance on the steinmann:
>
> "What theme?" said Shade absently, as he leaned on my arm and gradually
> recovered the use of his numb limb.
> "Our blue inenubilable Zembla, and the red-capped Steinmann, and the
> motorboat in the sea cave, and--" (288)
>
> There are problems to the solution. For example, why would
> Steinmann wait until the king escaped to go hide the jewels? Isn't this
> solution contradicted by Nabokov himself in the 1967 interview? (Why, at
> least, did Nabokov say the jewels were "in" the barracks rather than
"near"
> them?) Is it an absurd leap to say that the jewels are under a steinmann
> just because we see a man likely to be Steinmann right before we see an
> especially noteworthy steinmann, followed by a jewel-like mountain range?
>
> There are probably many other problems. This, at least, is what I and some
> high school students in Brooklyn came up with. For the few people with the
> patience to read this far, I'd love to hear your thoughts.
>
> Respectfully,
> Mike Donohue
>
> ----- End forwarded message -----
----- End forwarded message -----
That is an elegant explication of the recurring steinmann idea. But one item
that I think must be connected here is the appearance of the "man making
contact with God." In the Rose Court at the back of the Ducal Palace in
Onhava, young Charles Xavier hears rapid steps on the sectile mosaic of the
court, with its realistic rose petals cut out of rodstein and large almost
palpable thorns cut out of green marble ... there walks a black shadow ..
tall, pale, long-nosed dark-haired ... he is a young minister but this
description sounds like a young Charles II, the one whose court included
John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, and was chronicled in part by Samuel Pepys.
But it also could be a description of a future Charles Xavier of Zembla,
ten years or so out of boyhood, and going through some spasm of piety.
Now move forward through the years until we find Charles of Zembla
imprisoned in his palace, but about to escape. He opens the closet that once
led him and his friend Oleg to the green room, known not for its thorns cut
out of green marble but the back stage reception, or waiting room for Iris
Acht, Charle's grandfather's mistress. As part of his escape plan, Charles
asks his Extremist jailor Hal if he may play the piano before he goes to
bed. Permission is granted. Charles sits down at the Bechstein and vamps a
few chords while he informs his disguised friend Odon of the tunnel through
which he will escape. That very night THE MERMAN will be performed at the
theatre Charles can reach through the tunnel and the still existing green
room. Meanwhile, the rollicking Russian treasure seekers are ripping up the
palace, coming closer and closer to Charles' last hope of escape. They have
already reached the picture gallery. Baron Bland, Keeper of theTreasure has
succeeded in hiding the treasure before he jumps or falls from the North
Tower. Our commentator insists Andronnikov and Niagarin are mistaken in
suspecting the jewels were ever hidden in the palace. But this was
evidentally where Bland was questioned, with a rollicking perseverance
ending in defenestration, either by his own will, in honorable refusal to
talk, or as penalty inflicted by his questioners for not talking.
In any case, by the time Charles is ready to escape, they have dismantled
the Council Chamber and have reached that part of the gallery where the oils
of Eystein hang. Eystein, master of the tromp l'oeil, who could make his
dead models seem even deader by contrast to the fallen petal (rodstein) ...
or other imported realities in his works. Eystein was the master of a
deceptive art style which, our commentator believes, had something "ignoble"
about it. Particularly "the basic fact that "reality" is neither the subject
nor the object of true art which creates its own special "reality" having
nothing to do with the average "reality" perceived by the communal eye." In
any case, A & N approach. Charles and Odon stand in the gallery at the spot
where Eystein's portrait of a former Keeper of the Treasure hangs. Decrepit
Count Kernel, whose fingers rest on an bronze box embossed and engraved with
a "twin-lobed, brainlike halved kernel of walnut."
Charles is led off to his room from which he shortly escapes. A & N find
nothing beneath Eystein's bronze box but the nut shells of the brain kernel
depicted on the box's lid. Charles flees over the Bera range, and there,
as you know, Mike, he discovers the Steinmann cairn which he crowns, in
memory of his now remote Zemblan kingdom (and perhaps to mark the spot of
buried jewels) with his cap of red wool. Perhaps this memory makes Charles
laugh all the harder when he and his soon to be new found friend John Shade
snort derisively about Fromm's interpretation of Little Red Riding Hood.
Let's not forget Gradus's frustration at not being able to personally
execute the King's most gifted impersonator, Julius Steinmann, who could
mimic the King's voice in underground radio speeches. Steinmann is caught,
condemned, shot by an inept Extremist firing squad, escapes, and then is
found again in a provincial hospital. Gradus himself races over to shoot the
Steinmann who manages once again to escape.
Fast forward some more and find Kinbote, upset, the day after Shade's
birthday party, to which he was not invited. Kinbote goes over the next day
to inspire some guilt by bringing a "reproachfully wrapped up" birthday
present, and notices, on the ground by the garage, a near-relation of the
red-capped steinmann in the form of a buchmann, a cairn of library books.
Kinbote lectures Sybil on manners and presents her with a book into which
she can "dip, or redip," spider that she is, in his mind, Vol. III of the
1954 Pleiade edition of Proust's work. So: in sequence we have steinmann,
rodstein, Bechstein, Eystein, Steinmann the red-capped cairn, Julius
Steinmann the heroic Karlist, and buchmann, a biblio cairn.
Andrew (aka AB) Brown
----- Original Message -----
From: "Donald B. Johnson" <chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu>
To: <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
Sent: Thursday, May 12, 2005 7:53 PM
Subject: Fwd: Steinmanns and crown jewels
> ----- Forwarded message from michaeldonohue@hotmail.com -----
> Date: Wed, 11 May 2005 23:15:37 -0400
> From: Michael Donohue <michaeldonohue@hotmail.com>
> Reply-To: Michael Donohue <michaeldonohue@hotmail.com>
> Subject: Steinmanns and crown jewels
> ---------------- Message requiring your approval (196 lines)
> ------------------
> Dear AB and everyone else,
>
>
> I suggest that the steinmanns are important because one of them is a
marker
> for the burial
> site of the Zemblan crown jewels.
>
> Let me explain. Forgive the long e-mail that follows.
>
> Of all the puzzles of Pale Fire, the one that most stands out is the hunt
> for the crown jewels. Kinbote constantly calls our attention to the
mystery
> of their hiding place. When discussing the Russian pair, Niagarin and
> Andronnikov, who have been sent to find the crown jewels, Kinbote
expresses,
> with more than "pardonable satisfaction," that the jewels "were, and still
> are, cached in a totally different--and quite unexpected--corner of
Zembla"
> (244). He later tells us that Gradus's suitcase and raincoat are probably
> still in a train station locker, "as snug as my gemmed scepter, ruby
> necklace, and diamond-studded crown in--no matter, where" (276). The index
> entry for Charles II begs us to look up the entry for the jewels: "q.v. by
> all means" (306).
>
> It is the loudest, most emphasized puzzle in the novel, and yet it seems
to
> have the least inspired solution. Everyone (Boyd, Johnson, etc.) seems to
> agree that the jewels are in Kobaltana--as of course they are. But can't
we
> be more specific than that? (And perhaps someone has--please correct me
> if I've overlooked it.)
>
> Nabokov sort of called the jewel hunt to a halt by saying, in the 1967
> interview with Appel, that the jewels were "in the ruins, sir, of some old
> barracks in Kobaltana (q.v.); but do not tell it to the Russians." (Strong
> Opinions, 92).
>
> It's a disappointingly vague solution to a puzzle that calls such
> extravagant attention to itself. I used to think that it was the whole
> solution. But some of my students, over the past five years, have
convinced
> me otherwise.
>
> Here is what we've come up with:
>
> The crown jewels are in Kobaltana--yes. But there's more.
>
> 1) The king passes through Kobaltana, and sees the hiding place (or
taynik),
> during his trek over the Bera mountain range.
>
> 2)The jewels are buried under a steinmann.
>
> 3) Kinbote cannot resist the temptation to call our attention to their
> precise hiding place.
>
> Let's start from the beginning. Here is the usual solution to the puzzle.
>
> 1. Index: Andronikov and Niagarin: "Russian experts in search of buried
> treasure." Conclusion: the jewels are buried.
>
> 2. Index: Niagarin and Andronikov: "Russian 'experts' still in search of
> buried treasure." Note the scare quotes: now they're not real experts.
> Solution: jewels' location comes somewhere between the two entries,
between
> A and N.
>
> 3. The most suspicious entry in the index is the one for Kobaltana: "a
once
> fashionable mountain resort near the ruins of some old barracks now a cold
> and desolate spot of difficult access and no importance but still
remembered
> in military families and forest castles, not in the text." (310) Because
of
> the entry, we can say that the jewels are buried in Kobaltana.
>
> This is where everyone usually stops. But I humbly suggest that we can go
> further. We can say where Kobaltana is; we can point directly to the
taynik;
> we can even speculate about how the jewels got there.
>
> Here goes:
>
> When kept captive in the palace, Charles the Beloved was moved from his
> original room
> because he was accused of using a "fop's hand mirror" (121) to signal to
> someone. This being a Nabokov novel, we're inclined to suspect that the
king
> probably was, in fact, signalling to someone. What can be seen from his
> window? Who could be receiving signals from the hand mirror?
>
> We learn (119) that "one could make out with the help of field glasses
lithe
> youths diving into the swimming pool of a fairy tale sport club, and the
> English ambassador in old-fashioned flannels playing tennis with the
Basque
> coach on a clay court as remote as paradise." With the "fop's hand mirror"
> he was able to signal to the tennis courts; and we just happen to know the
> identity of a certain "tennis ace" named Julius Steinmann, "son of the
well
> known philanthropist" (153), after whom--perhaps?--the "steinmann"
(Zemblan
> for "cairn") was named. (Or is "steinmann" a real German term for
"cairn"?)
>
> Julius Steinmann is called "an especially brilliant impersonator of the
> King" (153), which will be very important in a minute. Young Steinmann
> could also have received information--and the jewels themselves--from
Odon,
> since we also know that "through [Odon] the king kept in touch with
numerous
> adherents, young nobles, artists, college athletes, gamblers, Black Rose
> paladins, members of fencing clubs, and other men of fashion and
adventure"
> (120). The Keeper of the Treasure, one Baron Bland, "had a helper" (243),
> who we might presume was Odon. Could the king have been signalling his
> preferred hiding place for the jewels?
>
> Then the King escapes. He is dropped by Odon "at the edge of the Mandevil
> Forest" (139). Mandevil Forest is near Kobaltana: it is near a "once
> fashionable mountain resort"--something we can deduce from the following
> information. Charles's English tutor once sprained his ankle during "a
> picnic in
> the Mandevil Forest" (124). After Odon drops the king off near the
Mandevil
> Forest,
> Charles remembers "the times he had picnicked hereabouts--in another part
of
> the forest but on the same mountainside, and higher up, as a boy, on the
> boulderfield where Mr. Campbell had once twisted an ankle and had to be
> carried down, smoking his pipe, by two husky attendants. Rather dull
> memories, on the whole. Wasn't there a hunting box nearby--just beyond
> Silfhar Falls? Good capercaillie and woodcock shooting--a sport much
enjoyed
> by his late mother Queen Blenda, a tweedy and horsy queen" (139). Sounds
> like a "mountainous resort" was nearby.
>
> So we've found the mountainous resort. Kobaltana could be nearby. But what
> about the "ruins of the old barracks"? Do we know of any military
> installations in Zembla? We know that they haven't had any wars during
> Charles's reign ("Mars never marred his record," 75) but there are a
couple
> of references to military activity--indeed, there are references to
> Charles's military service. There is one time in his life when he spends
> half his time "with his regiment" (104), and when he stays in the peasant
> Griff's house he sees a "a color print" of himself as "an elegant
guardsman"
> (141). This doesn't prove much, but it does associate the
location--Mandevil
> Forest, where Griff lives--with Charles in a military uniform (where he
> would have made a lot of mischief in the barracks?). This is a stretch, I
> know.
>
> When the king ascends further up the mountainside (getting near the
mountain
> resort where he once picnicked with Campbell), he sees a "red-sweatered,
> red-capped doubleganger" (143) whom he at first mistakes for his own
> reflection. It would take an "especially brilliant impersonator" (153) to
> give the appearance of one's own reflection; only the aforementioned
Julius
> Steinmann could pull it off. After the impersonator disappears, the King
> shudders with "alfear (uncontrollable fear caused by elves)"; he murmurs
"a
> family prayer," crosses himself, and moves on.
>
> Then he sees that "upon an adjacent ridge a steinmann (a heap of stones
> erected as a memento of an ascent) had donned a cap of red wool in his
> honor." The crown jewels, I think, are buried here. Why? Because
immediately
> after walking on, when he reaches the pass in the very next
paragraph--when
> he looks out and observes the beauty of the Bera mountain range--he
> describes the mountains as though they were jewels in a box. Look at the
> passage: he is describing a box of precious jewels:
>
> "Northward melted the green, gray, bluish mountains--Falkberg with its
hood
> of snow [a pearl ring?], Mutraberg with the fan of its avalanche [isn't a
> fan a common design on earrings and pendants?], Paberg (Mt. Peacock), and
> others,--separated by narrow dim valleys with intercalated cotton-wool
bits
> of cloud that seemed placed between the receding sets of ridges to prevent
> their flanks from scraping against one another [as cotton-wool separates
> jewels in a box]. Beyond them, in the final blue, loomed Mt. Glitterntin
> ["glitter"], a serrated edge of bright foil ["a thin layer of metal placed
> under a gem in a closed setting to improve its color or brilliancy"
> -Webster's]; and southward, a tender haze enveloped more distant ridges
> which led to one another in an endless array, through every grade of soft
> evanescence." (144)
>
> Later, in the index, the Bera Range is described as "glittering" (305).
Note
> also that Kinbote has put great emphasis on the difficulty of the
> climb--meaning that the hiding place would be, as the Kobaltana entry
> mandates, "a spot of difficult access." This is the King's surreptitious
> tribute to his family's jewelry.
>
> He is calling our attention to two things at once: the jewelry-like
> appearance of the mountains, and the strange phallus-like tribute of the
> steinmann. Remember Disa's reaction to news of their hiding place?
> "Perfunctorily she inquired about the crown jewels; he revealed to her
their
> unusual hiding place, and she melted in girlish mirth as she had not done
> for years and years." (212) "Girlish mirth"? Something is funny about
their
> location. Why would she laugh if they were merely hidden in some barracks?
> She laughs because the crown jewels are under an erect phallus: a
> "steinmann" with its "red cap" is above the--ahem--family jewels.
>
> If the jewels are under the steinmann, it's easier to explain
> why, at the novel's end, Kinbote puts such importance on the steinmann:
>
> "What theme?" said Shade absently, as he leaned on my arm and gradually
> recovered the use of his numb limb.
> "Our blue inenubilable Zembla, and the red-capped Steinmann, and the
> motorboat in the sea cave, and--" (288)
>
> There are problems to the solution. For example, why would
> Steinmann wait until the king escaped to go hide the jewels? Isn't this
> solution contradicted by Nabokov himself in the 1967 interview? (Why, at
> least, did Nabokov say the jewels were "in" the barracks rather than
"near"
> them?) Is it an absurd leap to say that the jewels are under a steinmann
> just because we see a man likely to be Steinmann right before we see an
> especially noteworthy steinmann, followed by a jewel-like mountain range?
>
> There are probably many other problems. This, at least, is what I and some
> high school students in Brooklyn came up with. For the few people with the
> patience to read this far, I'd love to hear your thoughts.
>
> Respectfully,
> Mike Donohue
>
> ----- End forwarded message -----
----- End forwarded message -----