"nikto b" - Who said it first?

Thank you, Alexey. I was actually trying to find out who first connected the anagram to Botkin.  It's a great find and deserves credit. 

Another post mentioned that there had been some discussion about it, but that some of the Russian speakers thought there was some grammatical issue with the "b" or something, but then there were others that said that "nikto b" meant "no one would." And it would seem that Mozart's use of it along with the subjunctive "b" illustrates how it is used. with a verb. At any rate, it seems that Nabokov made a lot of "near" anagrams, so it would seem likely that this is one.  If you take the view (as I do) that there is a mystical/psychological allegoric level to PF, then Botkin, as the main character containing the subpersonalities, would be "no one," just as mystically realized persons resolve their personal selves into the impersonal "self," or "atman," etc. who is "nothing," "no one." It's not a far move from V. Botkin to V. Nabokov. 

Anyway, thanks to the mystery discoverer.

Thank you, Alexey. I was actually trying to find out who first connected the anagram to Botkin.  It's a great find and deserves credit. 

Another post mentioned that there had been some discussion about it, but that some of the Russian speakers thought there was some grammatical issue with the "b" or something, but then there were others that said that "nikto b" meant "no one would." And it would seem that Mozart's use of it along with the subjunctive "b" illustrates how it is used with a verb. At any rate, it seems that Nabokov made a lot of "near" anagrams, so it would seem likely that this is one.  If you take the view (as I do) that there is a mystical/psychological allegoric level to PF, then Botkin, as the main character containing the subpersonalities, would be "no one," just as mystically realized persons resolve their personal selves into the impersonal "self," or "atman," etc. who is "nothing," "no one." It's not a far move from V. Botkin to V. Nabokov. 

Anyway, thanks to the mystery discoverer.

Alexey, I'm afraid you have gone a bit off the rails again. I would appreciate it if you could stick more to the subject at hand, which is "Who first noticed that Botkin was an anagram of nikto b."  The mention of Vasiliye Botkin is interesting since he was a critic and a travelog writer (both areas are motifs in PF), but you have posted this and the rest a number of times already, and it still doesn't address the question in my post. 

I had hoped that someone would answer my query, but sadly, nikto b.

I finally remembered reading Andrew Field's Life and Art wherein he mentions himself as discovering the Botkin anagram:

 “The realization that the anagram of Botkin (nicto, Russian for ‘nobody’) is my own invention and discovery is a source of greater amazement to me than solving the most difficult of the author’s own puzzles.”

Andrew Field: Life in Art p.315 

Right you are, Carolyn! Thanks

p.s. Fits with the mirror motifs

p.p.s. Actually, Carolyn, Field did not mention the b', and that seems to me to be the important part, because it is the most devious - one has to know Russian. It is nice to have pulled you into the discussion. I have enjoyed many of your posts of yore.

For some reason, I was not able to find any of that interesting discussion from 2002.  I know there was a lot of discussion about who's who in PF at that time. It seems to me that it must have been Boyd's admirable tome that put the kibosh on that inquiry. I don't happen to agree with his conclusions; too convoluted.

In a way, the palindrome makes the b' unnecessary, though, if you put "nikto" first: NIKTOBOTKIN (nobody Botkin).

From my point of view (which is Jungian) it is not Kinbote (Botkin/e) who is "nobody." I assert that all of the characters are Jungian archetypes within that elusive cipher, Prof. V. Botkin's brain. Botkin, as the reality behind the other characters would be the whole person the Jungian "Self."  The goal of self-realization, in Jungian "individuation", as in other forms of spiritual practices is to become empty, to be "no one."  Kinbote, as the ego, is on a "hero's journey" through the novel and he has to deal with all his subpersonalities (archetypes) in order to "transcend" in the end – that is, the ego has to "die." The Jungian point of view resolves all of the characters' relationships. 

Yes, thank you, Stephen. I do not speak or write Russian.  

Carolyn:

Sounds like you were, indeed, first with "Nikto b." Thanks .  If Field had called it a palindrome instead of an anagram I think that he would have nailed it.  The Cyrillic b is not really a 'B' though, is it? Was that the issue? Given the level of VN's deviousness, multi-lingual and layered meanings, I don't see why he would not have intended that. 

The discrepancy of the arithmetic of the Barn Message... my feeling is that it was intentional along with a number of other intentional misprints that somehow might lead to a better translation of the message besides the "Papa do not go..." which strikes me as an intentional and all too easy red herring. 

Why do you think VN neither knew or cared for Jung? There are many reasons why VN would employ his depth analysis, too many to enumerate here. The main thing is that it does solve all the debate over "who" is "who." It also adds a structure to the whole plot, and illuminates VN's motifs in his whole oeuvre, such as whether a character is insane or having a spiritual apotheosis (LO, PF, BS, ITAB, RLSK, LATH, and a number of the short stories and plays).   Also:

> No reason to think that VN's adamant "No Freudians Allowed" postings all around his work would necessarily prevent him from employing Jung's formulae, although it does seem to have been successful in keeping the critics at bay. Psychoanalysis was unbelievably HUGE in the 50s, constantly discussed in all intellectual and common milieus. Jung famously broke with Freud over the sexual theory of neurotic etiology (Nabokov's biggest bugaboo) and championed the creative mind and higher consciousness. (No problem there, I think)

> James Joyce was greatly influenced by Jung, as was T.S. Eliot, both of whom were the reigning critic Northrup Frye's examples of the ultimate modern writers. Jung was at the very peak of his career in the 50s.  It would be hard to believe that VN neither knew or cared about one of Switzerland's greatest citizens at the time.VN's very silence on the man, to me speaks volumes. 

> Jung's psychological work spawned a Jungian literary criticism movement. Jung himself wrote occasional criticism (on Joyce) and he was asked to write the foreword to Finnigans Wake (although Joyce decided against it in the end). Joyce sent his schizophrenic daughter to Jung for treatment. Whereas all manner of novels can be subjected to Jungian literary analysis, I maintain that it was intentional and intentionally hidden in PF. ITAB and BS also deal with the insanity/apotheosis motif with it being suggested that all the characters are "images oppressive" to the protagonist (i.e. archetypes).

>Nabokov found a publisher for his "unpublishable" 4-volume Onegin translation in Bollingen, a publisher created to house all of Jung's 22 volumes of work, and named after Jung's famous self-designed hideaway tower. Bollingen also published Eliot, Joseph Campbell, and Chapman's Homer. I imagine there must have been some gratitude at this.

> Pale Fire, if nothing else, is about cryptomnesia (a word coined by Jung.) It is about a man's search for meaning. Jung, btw, wrote about his near-death experience and the possibilities of life after death. It is also about the arcane and occult, Jung's great interests. Jung's PhD thesis was on the psychology of mediumship, a likewise interest of Nabokov which we see in PF. Jung himself "channeled" his remarkable "Red Book."

> Pale Fire's two main characters, Shade and Kinbote are beset with psycho-spiritual disintegration. Would not Nabokov, who apparently assiduously researched the size and weight of 12 year old girls for Lolita, do research on the current medical views on insanity for PF? if only to make fun of them 

> Jung and VN both grew up in Masonic backgrounds (although apparently not members themselves) and have a fair amount of Masonic influences in their work.

> Jung and VN were both seemingly autistic as children; they ignored playmates and played by themselves and roamed the woods in search of bugs and things. Both were equally artistic and scientific. Like young Shade and young Nabokov, young Jung had a bout with seizures.

Well, I got carried away, but these are the main things that suggest "why Jung," aside from the most essential thing which is the formula works.

Mary

For the sake of others reading this, I will say that I was not quite right in saying that Jung “coined” cryptomnesia. He popularized it. Jung wrote his doctoral thesis, under Flournoy. It dealt with cryptomnesia in a séance medium. A paper after that was entitled “Cryptomnesia” wherein he focused more on how that works with plagiarism such as Nietzsche’s Zarathustra. Nabokov was sometimes charged with “borrowing.” Perhaps in answer, Pale Fire is nothing if not an intentional farrago of literary appropriations.

I could substantiate all of the other points I made above, if I had the time and space, if anyone should ask, rather than dismissing out of hand.  

Also, for anyone interested in more substantiation of my Jungian take on Pale Fire, I have several unpublished works-in-progress about PF and Jung on academia.edu. 

As it happens, I have just received some very interesting comments from Sergei Sakun regarding "nikto b." He is Russian and he tells me that he has not been successful, for some reason, registering for the site and therefore is unable to post. He is allowing me to post his comments here:

Hello Mary,

On thenabokovian.org you wrote:

""nikto b" (no one would) has been often discussed as anagram for Botkin. The first mention in the archives is from 1999 L-serve ( https://thenabokovian.org/node/31705 ), but that indicates that it had been "discussed before." Any consensus on who said it first?"

And you answered your own question. The first was of course Andrew Field. And the message on NABOKV-L ( https://thenabokovian.org/node/31705 )in January 1999 was mine.In those years, of course, I didn't read Field. There were no English-language books available in Russia.

/In those days of 1999, I shared my solution to the chess secret in the novel Defense (https://thenabokovian.org/node/30302), which is a much more significant discovery./

In the book of STACY SCHIFF "VÉRA(MRS. VLADIMIR NABOKOV)" we can find another funny quote on this topic "(So disassociated was Vladimir from his family name after his years as Sirin that when first he saw Nabokov in print he read it as “Nobody.” His second thought was that he was reading an obituary.)"

I also wrote about this in my livejournal: https://translated.turbopages.org/proxy_u/ru-en.ru.92419020-654f3a51-340c6999-74722d776562/https/gippodemos.livejournal.com/
The translation problem is now easily solved with translate.yandex.ru.  /It translates Russian and English texts much better than Google/

https://translated.turbopages.org/proxy_u/ru-en.ru.92419020-654f3a51-340c6999-74722d776562/https/gippodemos.livejournal.com/8746.html

By the way, another old observation of mine promises (IMHO)interesting discoveries in "Pale fire".

https://thenabokovian.org/sites/default/files/2018-01/NABOKV-L-0019533___body.html

https://translated.turbopages.org/proxy_u/ru-en.ru.92419020-654f3a51-340c6999-74722d776562/https/gippodemos.livejournal.com/8570.html

Sergei Sakun.

welcome to my Nabokovian website:
https://translated.turbopages.org/proxy_u/ru-en.ru.92419020-654f3a51-340c6999-74722d776562/sersak.chat.ru/ 

 I wrote him back, thanking him for all of this. Then he wrote back the following:

Mary, you wrote:

 

>>> Would not Nabokov, who apparently assiduously researched the size and weight of 12 year old girls for Lolita, do research on the current medical views on insanity for PF? if only to make fun of them

 

And by the way, about cryptomnesia in Nabokov's novels. 

In January of this year, an article was published on my website  ( http://sersak.chat.ru/paranoia.htm ) in which I criticize the generally accepted diagnosis of Autism put to Luzhin and prove that he was suffering from Paranoia. This article traces in detail the influence on the psychotypes of Nabokov's characters of the fundamental work of Eugen Bleuler  "Textbook of Psychiatry" (1920). The features of paranoid personality disorder can also be traced in Kinbot. And Bleuler  notes the frequent concomitant of various forms of paramnesia to paranoid disorder. I will copy a small excerpt from my article on this topic:

 

"And it is to this Nabokov's description of the development of Luzhin's disease that Bleuler's following remark refers:

 

"More important are the systematic distortions of memories, which are designated by the term illusions and hallucinations of memories.

 Illusions of memory (paramnesia) represent a pathological exaggeration of memory disorders, often observed in healthy people under the influence of affects. They play an important role in mentally ill people of all kinds, mainly in paranoia and schizophrenia. There is no paranoid person who would not process his memories in the sense of his delusional ideas. However, it is in these cases that it can sometimes be stated that the original memories, as such, have remained unchanged" [53].

 

The interaction of sleep and reality at the initial stage of amnesia transforms memories into dreams in Luzhin's consciousness. And then there is a complete displacement in the so-called chess reality of the memories of his human life. 

 

We find interesting observations in the description of such a phenomenon as confabulation or paramnesia, false memories. A type of memory disorder characterized by the formation of memories of facts that did not take place in reality. The phenomenon of borderline literary psychopathology, often used in works of fiction. Here Bleuler mentions Keller's "Green Heinrich", but we can also recall an expressive case of such self-forgetful lies by Khlestakov in Gogol's "Inspector General". And it is also quite possible to see signs of this disorder in the history of psychopathological metamorphoses of Botkin-Kinbot consciousness in Nabokov's novel "Pale fire".

 

"Close to confabulation are the fantasies that every healthy person sometimes allows himself, as well as the free creations of poets. In one episode, of course, taken from his own childhood, Gottfrid Keller in the essay "Green Henry" says that he once had to get into an unpleasant situation because of accidentally spoken indecent words, he was interrogated, he called the first name and place in embarrassment, after which, when he was further questioned, it occurred to him to tell a very complicated story with all the details, and it seemed to him that he really experienced it. 

 

What once happened to the future poet, then with Pseudologia phantastica is a common phenomenon. Liars have a vivid imagination, compose a fairy tale about their noble origin or about other things that they really want, and act accordingly. However, this differs from confabulation and hallucination of memory in that these people can understand the real meaning of their fantasies as soon as they are reminded of it by events and even without it; some simply lie. However, these pathological liars may not notice for an arbitrarily long period of time that they live in a world of dreams. Thanks to this, they easily manage to deceive others, especially if they have a great talent to play their role to the end: the inner motivation for this is almost always there in such cases that we have to investigate. This kind of people, if they are not very moral, are meant to play the role of top-flight crooks. Thus, pseidology represents an anomaly of a general nature, and not just one memory" [54]. 

 

And here is a description of the main driving mechanism of the novel. The so-called deja vu phenomena. It feels like it's happened before. Which Bleuler calls "identifying memory deceptions." Let us note here the connection of this phenomenon with psychological fatigue of a person.

 

"Of the parafunctions of memory, we will first name identifying memory deceptions. And a healthy person, especially when he gets tired, sometimes has a feeling that he has already once experienced what is happening in front of him now. Some even think that the idea of transmigration of souls is based on these deceptions. In neurasthenics, this is often observed. Sometimes we see this phenomenon in schizophrenics and epileptics who are angry at it and think that this comedy is deliberately being adjusted for them. One schizophrenic whom I knew for a long time was sure that everything he is going through now, he experienced literally a year ago. One epileptic during twilight states considered everything that happened to him, especially the rounds and the words of doctors to be a repetition of events that took place a few weeks ago. In the end, he noticed that this was often repeated and transferred the actual experiences to the previous twilight states, which excited him terribly.

In this case, the representations acquire the character of memories that do not belong to them. In contrast, cryptomnesia is the essence of memories that have lost this character, and seem to the patient to be something new. There are scientists who first negativistically reject any new idea, then consciously or unconsciously digest it and eventually, when it is convenient for them, accept it, but then forget that they did not discover this idea and present it as something new to the very persons from whom they received it. Senile patients can tell in conversation, as news, a story that was told to others a few minutes before in the same society. Often, however, cryptomnesia repeats literally the words. At the beginning of this century, a critic was once accused of plagiarism, as he literally repeated someone else's criticism and passed it off as his own. According to all the circumstances of the case, it is clear that this was a case of cryptomnesia. Jung proved the existence of cryptomnesia in Nietzsche: Zarathustra got an excerpt from Seherin von Prevorst. The heroine of Keller's work, Elena, was brought a lot of grief by the fairy tale about the "King of Winter", which she unconsciously repeated " [55]."

 

:))By the way, it is very similar to the very paramnesia in this discussion of Carolyn's message 

 

carolynkunin Mon, 11/06/2023 - 09:47 

Permalink 

Nikto b’ history 

In 2002 at the end of one of my first posts to the List, in which I first laid out my multiple personality solution, I asked “who is Botkin? Nikto b’” by which I meant that I took Botkin/e to be a red herring, i.e. that he was  or “would be” nobody. 

Nikto b (thank you, Stephen)

Dear Mary,

Well, if Field didn't notice the "b", then maybe I was the first.... :))

 

 

 

= I will write a comment. Since earlier than my message (01.1999) about this anagram (with mandatory in it, (IMHO) of paramount importance - B (! and be sure to capitalize!, not b!) it was not detected and confirmed. Although the search for primacy in this matter is somewhat wrong, because despite all the enthusiasm of Field, for a Russian person this anagram is quite obvious. And as soon as this work became available to the Russian-speaking reader, the need for a "discoverer" disappeared :). 

But, in my opinion, it is important not just to see this anagram, but to correctly interpret its meaning in the novel. This is where the real disagreement in our discussion manifests itself. As I wrote in 1999, this anagram reflects the nature of the author's presence in the character, V. Nabokov in Botkin. This is a kind of mirror image: В. Набоков - nikto B; ВН - nB. Like the case in the Defense (‘Bac berepom’), this anagram should be read according to the "renyxa system", that is, "Воткин" (Votkin) - никто В (nobody V). By the way, in Russian "Воткин"  can be read as Вот кин, Вот король (Here's the king) with a far-reaching allusion to the gospel story: John 19.14 And Pilate said to the Jews: "Here is your king!"

I will repeat here once again a quote from the book that is relevant in the discussion of this anagram:

 Stasy Schiff "VÉRA(MRS. VLADIMIR NABOKOV)": 

"(So disassociated was Vladimir from his family name after his years as Sirin that when first he saw Nabokov in print he read it as “Nobody.” His second thought was that he was reading an obituary.)" 

“Nobody.”  ['nəubədɪ] / 1. никто - Nikto  (Nikto B)

 

And I will answer the late Donald Barton Johnson here. In 1999 (https://thenabokovian.org/node/31705 ) he wrote:

 

" EDITOR's NOTE. Yes, it has been noted although not frequently. There is a
slight fly in the ointment in that in English the name is spelled KINBOTE
with an E at the end thus marring the anagram"

 

The anagram is broken only when converting Botkin to Kinbote, that is, by the Author of this anagrammatic game. Whereas Botkin - nikto B is a completely pure anagram/palindrome.

"Botkin, V., American scholar of Russian descent," 

or,  V. Botkin, - nikto B. V.    =

 

>>>And this is so interesting, and probably forgotten by many by this time. Would you care to post this? Or, would it be OK if I reposted this? 

 

Unfortunately, my two requests to register on this forum in August 2019 were ignored. I can't write messages here. But you can repost my messages here from any open Internet sites.

 

>>>I am happy to know of your livejournal, too.

 

By the way, if translate.yandex.ru. helps us to overcome the language barrier, I recommend the Russian-language livejournal ru_nabokov

 

https://translated.turbopages.org/proxy_u/ru-en.ru.b4c9f85b-65509a6a-cf6cc4c7-74722d776562/https/ru-nabokov.livejournal.com/  

 

Since 2001, it has been a huge resource of Nabokovian studies. I wrote a lot there too. Let's break down the language barriers between English-speaking and Russian-speaking Nabokovian studies. The first is older and more venerable, sanctified by the authority of the Nabokov's family. The second is more sensitive to the true roots of Nabokov's text.

 

Best regards, Sergey.

I, Mary, just want to respond to Sergey's comments on crytomnesia and paranoia: After his dissertation with Flournoy Jung worked under Bleuler before joining with Freud. Nabokov would most likely have consulted current psychological theories when writing about a mad person. And writing about a mad person is exactly what VN has consistently done. I hope this allays some disbelief about VN and Jung.

And thank you, Sergey, about the Russian translation of Botkin as "Here is the King."  The Christian connotation confirms my suspicions of Christian imagery throughout VN's oeuvre, especially in the ambiguity of madness and apotheosis.