Subject
Re: Date palm
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Date
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Jerry Friedman quoted (see below):
On the other hand, in some cases potting might help. They may take the palm
into a greenhouse in winter.
Here I again feel an impulse to intrude. On my grandfather's estate in
Sweden there was a date palm, growing in a large wooden container, which was
placed outside in leafy state during the summer, and which during the winter was
taken indoors to keep company with, and enjoy the warm exhalations of, about
300 cows. This palm had been planted in the year of my grandfather's birth,
1881, and he used to say that when it died he too would die. It died two
years before he died, in 1966. All the family members were aware of his empathy
with this exotic growth in their northern land.
At this place, I think in about 1957, I have a dim memory of meeting a
distant kinswoman, an aspiring poetess and a lesbian, called Filippa Rolf. She
later, or perhaps at about this time, translated The Gift into Swedish; and
subsequently visited the Nabokovs at the time VN was putting the finishing
touches to Pale Fire. Filippa Rolf later went to the US, and I believe had
something of a nervous breakdown, dying some years later. She is mentioned by Brian
Boyd in unflattering terms, and also in less unflattering terms by Stacy
Schiff. It could be said, perhaps, that she had bouts of madness. Her closer
relations, with whom I have met and discussed her life, looked on her fate as a
tragedy, as she had been thought of as unusually gifted, when a young girl.
There are, to my mind, many unnoticed allusions to matters Swedish in Pale
Fire. I overstated what I saw as these connections between Rolf and Pale Fire,
on this list a few years ago, and decided to button my lip on the matter.
However, I did express some of them in a little note in The Nabokovian some
time ago.
I was just struck by the above remark, and Jerry's response.
Charles
In a message dated 09/11/2006 17:57:31 GMT Standard Time,
NABOKV-L@HOLYCROSS.EDU writes:
Dieter Zimmer wrote:
> If you think it was a mistake to place a date palm in New Wye's
> Shakespeare
> Alley, please don't forget that it is Kinbote who lists some of the
> trees
> supposed to be growing there, and that he is ignorant in matters of
> nature.
> I suppose quite a few of Shakespeare's trees would not exactly prosper
> in Appalachia.
Since the comment about date palms was mine originally (though
Matthew Roth brought it up again), I thank you for responding.
Are you suggesting above that Kinbote invented the famous
avenue and didn't think it through? I've certainly wondered
whether he invented it based on the list in his pocketbook
(n. 172)--which also might have led him to invent at least part
of the dialogue with Shade where Kinbote quotes Augustine (n.
549).
I incline to think that the palm was not a mistake, but
rather a clue that Kinbote invents even New Wye material.
The connections of the "phoenix" to the themes of the afterlife
and red-and-green suggest that it might be more important than
it looks. (Or not.)
> On the other hand, in some cases potting might help. They
> may take the palm into a greenhouse in winter.
I hadn't thought of that. It would be a big project, assuming
the palm is tall enough for that photogenic "colonnade",
and designing the avenue to look good both with and without a
potted palm would be challenging. (Maybe that's why it
needed a landscaper of genius?)
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