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Kingbot inter alia
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While perusing ADA, and related articles, in search for special quotes, I came across a set of surprises:
1. "More fiercely than ever he execrated all sham art, from the crude banalities of junk sculpture to the italicized passages meant by a pretentious novelist to convey his fellow hero's cloudbursts of thought. He had even less patience than before with the 'Sig' (Signy-M.D.-M.D.) school of psychiatry"
2. Brian Boyd, p. 213: "Violet Knox's participation in the preparation of Ada is explained in Pt.5,Ch.4 where at the end of the chapter we see her limited competence. he "redicatated the entire thing to indefatigable Violet, whose pretty fingers tapped out a final copy in 1967. E,p,i - why 'y', my dear?" (578) Van has to spell out the beginning of "epistemic," which he has used earlier in the page, and Violet Knos transcribes his correction."
JM: 1.Finally, another supposition about Signy Mon Dieu Mon Dieu*. It might stand for M-D, ie, Doctor of Medicine (Medicinae Doctor)!
2. One of the editorial intromissions by R.Oranger deals with a repeated use of words beginning with "epi""[The epithetic tone strongly suggests that this speech has an epistolary source. Ed."] This same prefix shall reappear right at the time when Van's memoirs approach their end. However, Brian Boyd interprets the spelt letters as indicating the term "epistemic," because they appear in a preceding paragraph.** Although the word "epilogue" doesn't appear at the end of the book (there are two more chapters), judging from the overall meaning, it occurred to me that it might have been "epilogue," instead. In this case it would have been intended for the next chapters (ch.5-6).
While searching in "Pale Fire" for "sonorous intromissions" there were other items to pop up:
1. "The suburban houses here have open letter boxes out in the street, and anybody can cram them with advertisements or purloin letters addressed to me (not out of mere curiosity, mind you, but from other, more sinister, motives). 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."
2. "He began with the day's copy of The New York Times. His lips moving like wrestling worms, he read about all kinds of things...Last night, in Newark, an apartment house at 555 South Street was hit by a thunderbolt that smashed a TV set and injured two people watching an actress lost in a violent studio storm (those tormented spirits are terrible! C.X.K. teste J.S.)". p.271 (line 949)
3. Index: "Charles II, Charles Xavier Vseslav, last King of Zembla, surnamed The Beloved, b. 1915, reigned 1936-1958;... identity almost revealed, 991; Solus Rex, 1000. See also Kinbote.; Kinbote, Charles, Dr., an intimate friend of S, his literary adviser, editor and commentator; first meeting and friendship with S, Foreword; his interest in Appalachian birds.. Shade, John Francis, poet and scholar, 1898-1959; his work on Pale Fire and friendship with K, Foreword; his physical appearance, mannerisms, habits, etc., ibid.; his first brush with death as visualized by K, and his beginning the poem while K plays chess at the Students' Club, 1; his sunset rambles with K, 12; his dim precognition of G, 17..."; 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; K, see Charles II and Kinbote..
4.Line 1000:" [= Line 1...] "We know how firmly, how stupidly I believed that Shade was composing a poem, a kind of romaunt, about the King of Zembla...I even suggested to him a good title - the title of the book in me whose pages he was to cut: Solus Rex; instead of which I saw Pale Fire, which meant to me nothing.... Shade could not write otherwise than beautifully - but void of my magic, of that special rich streak of magical madness which I was sure would run through it and make it transcend its time..."
JM: The quotes related to Kinbote don't disclose his putative hidden identity as Botkin (except in his remark about Sybil's imprecations) and remain tied to the change from an emigré Charless II into Charles Kinbote. The Index offers an enigmatic entry for "his identity almost disclosed", refered to line 991 - where there's a description of CK's and JS's move towards Kinbote's home taking along the finished draft of "Pale Fire". It also indicates the poem's last line as "1000," and "Solus Rex."
The correction "Dr. C. Kinbote, Kinbote (not "Charles X. Kingbot, Esq.)" deals with Disa's or Sylvia's mistake, indirectly revealing CK's "royalty" or rank, by substituting "Kinbote" for "Kingbot." They also eliminated the academic position he claimed ("Dr.") and his superiority to John Shade ("poet and scholar").
It seems that "Kingbot" (ambassador to a king?) and "Esquire" could be somehow related to chess in tje "Solus Rex"*** However, the note that might suggest Kinbote's initials [ "CXK, teste JS,"] mingles Charles Xavier Veslav and Charles Kinbote. (it seems the two should remain separate)
According to Sybil, Kinbote meant something else. Rather, in her mind he wasn't Kinbote, but the untitled Botkin, V:" I was to learn later that when alluding to me in public she used to call me 'an elephantine tick; a king-sized botfly; a macaco worm; the monstrous parasite of a genius.' I pardon her - her and everybody." (the same words Kinbote himself used for Botkin ("king-bot, maggot of extinct fly that once bred in mammoths"). Sybil's intuitive image of something "king-sized" must have been merely derived from of ordinary terms, applied to bed and cigarette measurements...
(I still need to check again the fascinating article "Parasitism and Pale Fire's Camouflage: the King-bot, the crown jewels and the man in the brown macintosh" by James Ramey...).
Any Thoughts???????
..........................................................................................
* ADA: "A Dr Froid, one of the administerial centaurs, who may have been an émigré brother with a passport-changed name of the Dr Froit of Signy-Mondieu-Mondieu in the Ardennes or, more likely, the same man, because they both came from Vienne, Isère, and were only sons..."
** The full quote, and where I underlined the word and prefix: "As Ada, Mr Oranger (a born catalyzer), and Van were discussing those matters one afternoon in 1957 (Van's and Ada's book Information and Form had just come out), it suddenly occurred to our old polemicist that all his published works - even the extremely abstruse and specialized Suicide and Sanity (1912), Compitalia (1921), and When an Alienist Cannot Sleep (1932), to cite only a few - were not epistemic tasks set to himself by a savant, but buoyant and bellicose exercises in literary style. He was asked why, then, did he not let himself go, why did he not choose a big playground for a match between Inspiration and Design; and with one thing leading to another it was resolved that he would write his memoirs - to be published posthumously.
He was a very slow writer. It took him six years to write the first draft and dictate it to Miss Knox, after which he revised the typescript, rewrote it entirely in long hand (1963-1965) and redictated the entire thing to indefatigable Violet, whose pretty fingers tapped out a final copy in 1967. E, p, i - why 'y,' my dear?"
*** - Esquire is cognate with the word squire which originally meant an apprentice or assistant to a knight...(wikipedia)
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1. "More fiercely than ever he execrated all sham art, from the crude banalities of junk sculpture to the italicized passages meant by a pretentious novelist to convey his fellow hero's cloudbursts of thought. He had even less patience than before with the 'Sig' (Signy-M.D.-M.D.) school of psychiatry"
2. Brian Boyd, p. 213: "Violet Knox's participation in the preparation of Ada is explained in Pt.5,Ch.4 where at the end of the chapter we see her limited competence. he "redicatated the entire thing to indefatigable Violet, whose pretty fingers tapped out a final copy in 1967. E,p,i - why 'y', my dear?" (578) Van has to spell out the beginning of "epistemic," which he has used earlier in the page, and Violet Knos transcribes his correction."
JM: 1.Finally, another supposition about Signy Mon Dieu Mon Dieu*. It might stand for M-D, ie, Doctor of Medicine (Medicinae Doctor)!
2. One of the editorial intromissions by R.Oranger deals with a repeated use of words beginning with "epi""[The epithetic tone strongly suggests that this speech has an epistolary source. Ed."] This same prefix shall reappear right at the time when Van's memoirs approach their end. However, Brian Boyd interprets the spelt letters as indicating the term "epistemic," because they appear in a preceding paragraph.** Although the word "epilogue" doesn't appear at the end of the book (there are two more chapters), judging from the overall meaning, it occurred to me that it might have been "epilogue," instead. In this case it would have been intended for the next chapters (ch.5-6).
While searching in "Pale Fire" for "sonorous intromissions" there were other items to pop up:
1. "The suburban houses here have open letter boxes out in the street, and anybody can cram them with advertisements or purloin letters addressed to me (not out of mere curiosity, mind you, but from other, more sinister, motives). 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."
2. "He began with the day's copy of The New York Times. His lips moving like wrestling worms, he read about all kinds of things...Last night, in Newark, an apartment house at 555 South Street was hit by a thunderbolt that smashed a TV set and injured two people watching an actress lost in a violent studio storm (those tormented spirits are terrible! C.X.K. teste J.S.)". p.271 (line 949)
3. Index: "Charles II, Charles Xavier Vseslav, last King of Zembla, surnamed The Beloved, b. 1915, reigned 1936-1958;... identity almost revealed, 991; Solus Rex, 1000. See also Kinbote.; Kinbote, Charles, Dr., an intimate friend of S, his literary adviser, editor and commentator; first meeting and friendship with S, Foreword; his interest in Appalachian birds.. Shade, John Francis, poet and scholar, 1898-1959; his work on Pale Fire and friendship with K, Foreword; his physical appearance, mannerisms, habits, etc., ibid.; his first brush with death as visualized by K, and his beginning the poem while K plays chess at the Students' Club, 1; his sunset rambles with K, 12; his dim precognition of G, 17..."; 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; K, see Charles II and Kinbote..
4.Line 1000:" [= Line 1...] "We know how firmly, how stupidly I believed that Shade was composing a poem, a kind of romaunt, about the King of Zembla...I even suggested to him a good title - the title of the book in me whose pages he was to cut: Solus Rex; instead of which I saw Pale Fire, which meant to me nothing.... Shade could not write otherwise than beautifully - but void of my magic, of that special rich streak of magical madness which I was sure would run through it and make it transcend its time..."
JM: The quotes related to Kinbote don't disclose his putative hidden identity as Botkin (except in his remark about Sybil's imprecations) and remain tied to the change from an emigré Charless II into Charles Kinbote. The Index offers an enigmatic entry for "his identity almost disclosed", refered to line 991 - where there's a description of CK's and JS's move towards Kinbote's home taking along the finished draft of "Pale Fire". It also indicates the poem's last line as "1000," and "Solus Rex."
The correction "Dr. C. Kinbote, Kinbote (not "Charles X. Kingbot, Esq.)" deals with Disa's or Sylvia's mistake, indirectly revealing CK's "royalty" or rank, by substituting "Kinbote" for "Kingbot." They also eliminated the academic position he claimed ("Dr.") and his superiority to John Shade ("poet and scholar").
It seems that "Kingbot" (ambassador to a king?) and "Esquire" could be somehow related to chess in tje "Solus Rex"*** However, the note that might suggest Kinbote's initials [ "CXK, teste JS,"] mingles Charles Xavier Veslav and Charles Kinbote. (it seems the two should remain separate)
According to Sybil, Kinbote meant something else. Rather, in her mind he wasn't Kinbote, but the untitled Botkin, V:" I was to learn later that when alluding to me in public she used to call me 'an elephantine tick; a king-sized botfly; a macaco worm; the monstrous parasite of a genius.' I pardon her - her and everybody." (the same words Kinbote himself used for Botkin ("king-bot, maggot of extinct fly that once bred in mammoths"). Sybil's intuitive image of something "king-sized" must have been merely derived from of ordinary terms, applied to bed and cigarette measurements...
(I still need to check again the fascinating article "Parasitism and Pale Fire's Camouflage: the King-bot, the crown jewels and the man in the brown macintosh" by James Ramey...).
Any Thoughts???????
..........................................................................................
* ADA: "A Dr Froid, one of the administerial centaurs, who may have been an émigré brother with a passport-changed name of the Dr Froit of Signy-Mondieu-Mondieu in the Ardennes or, more likely, the same man, because they both came from Vienne, Isère, and were only sons..."
** The full quote, and where I underlined the word and prefix: "As Ada, Mr Oranger (a born catalyzer), and Van were discussing those matters one afternoon in 1957 (Van's and Ada's book Information and Form had just come out), it suddenly occurred to our old polemicist that all his published works - even the extremely abstruse and specialized Suicide and Sanity (1912), Compitalia (1921), and When an Alienist Cannot Sleep (1932), to cite only a few - were not epistemic tasks set to himself by a savant, but buoyant and bellicose exercises in literary style. He was asked why, then, did he not let himself go, why did he not choose a big playground for a match between Inspiration and Design; and with one thing leading to another it was resolved that he would write his memoirs - to be published posthumously.
He was a very slow writer. It took him six years to write the first draft and dictate it to Miss Knox, after which he revised the typescript, rewrote it entirely in long hand (1963-1965) and redictated the entire thing to indefatigable Violet, whose pretty fingers tapped out a final copy in 1967. E, p, i - why 'y,' my dear?"
*** - Esquire is cognate with the word squire which originally meant an apprentice or assistant to a knight...(wikipedia)
Search archive with Google:
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Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
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Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/