Subject
Re: Glass city and Wax person
From
Date
Body
Alexey Sklyarenko: "According to Kinbote, the Zemblan Revolution had flickered first at the famous Glass Factory (Pale Fire, note to Line 130). The regicide Yakob Gradus was in the glass business...Note the mention of vino ...Voskovaya persona (wax person) is the famous post-mortem model of Peter I by Carlo Rastrelli ."
JM: The day in which Dr. E. Botkin was shot, July 17th, was also the day when the entire Imperial family was assassinated and old Russia was changed for ever. Carlo Rastrelli, sculptor, was the father of Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli, the architect who designed Rozhdestveno, the estate Nabokov inherited - before everything was taken away from him. The definite date of Dr. Botkin's assassination inspired me to investigate if there was anything to be discovered about these catastrophic events, at the time Shade started to write the July 17th verses, or in Botkin/Kinbote's commentaries to them.
According to Kinbote Canto III was written on twenty seven cards and it took Shade an entire week (from July 12 to July 18) to complete them.
Kinbote is explicit about July 16, when the lines 698-746 were set down, and as he adds, in a tearful mystical mood: "The passage 797 (second part of line)-809, on the poet's sixty-fifth card, was composed between the sunset of July 18 and the dawn of July 19." Shade's July 17th verses must lie in-between lines 745 and 796.
After describing his near-death experience, the poet writes (743-746) : "There in the background of my soul it stood,/ Old Faithful! And its presence always would/ Console me wonderfully. Then, one day,/ I came across what seemed a twin display." (a false twin display innaugurates the July 17 lines). Kinbote's references to a killed Balkan king and to gloomy Russian spies, inspired by Shade's antecedent lines, find no echo here. His commentary is scant and the entire episode of the mountain-fountain misprint is an anti-climax. Besides, the commentator's assurance that Shade's 65th card was written "between the sunset...and dawn" is as unsettling as the indication that Shade's daily interruptions permitted him to leave an emotion or an idea suspended in mid-air*.
Once again I went off on a false trail while trying to investigate the names "Botkin", "Kinbote" and Pale Fire's Zemblan King. Actually, PF's farsical developments leave no space for any link of such a tragic nature!
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* - However July 17 might be a significant date in "Ada", related to Van's second (and 'real' birthday): "My first recollection goes back to mid-July, 1870, i.e., my seventh month of life (with most people, of course, retentive consciousness starts somewhat later, at three or four years of age) when, one morning, in our Riviera villa, a chunk of green plaster ornament, dislodged from the ceiling by an earthquake, crashed into my cradle. The 195 days preceding that event being indistinguishable from infinite unconsciousness, are not to be included in perceptual time, so that, insofar as my mind and my pride of mind are concerned, I am today (mid-July, 1922) quite exactly fifty-two, et treve de mon style plafond peint." Van was saved from the stucco by a "cease-fire" and his "real" birthday (i.e, when his conscious recollection makes its first register) takes place in mid-July, between July 15 ( the date when his father Vladimir D. Nabokov was born) and July 17.
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JM: The day in which Dr. E. Botkin was shot, July 17th, was also the day when the entire Imperial family was assassinated and old Russia was changed for ever. Carlo Rastrelli, sculptor, was the father of Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli, the architect who designed Rozhdestveno, the estate Nabokov inherited - before everything was taken away from him. The definite date of Dr. Botkin's assassination inspired me to investigate if there was anything to be discovered about these catastrophic events, at the time Shade started to write the July 17th verses, or in Botkin/Kinbote's commentaries to them.
According to Kinbote Canto III was written on twenty seven cards and it took Shade an entire week (from July 12 to July 18) to complete them.
Kinbote is explicit about July 16, when the lines 698-746 were set down, and as he adds, in a tearful mystical mood: "The passage 797 (second part of line)-809, on the poet's sixty-fifth card, was composed between the sunset of July 18 and the dawn of July 19." Shade's July 17th verses must lie in-between lines 745 and 796.
After describing his near-death experience, the poet writes (743-746) : "There in the background of my soul it stood,/ Old Faithful! And its presence always would/ Console me wonderfully. Then, one day,/ I came across what seemed a twin display." (a false twin display innaugurates the July 17 lines). Kinbote's references to a killed Balkan king and to gloomy Russian spies, inspired by Shade's antecedent lines, find no echo here. His commentary is scant and the entire episode of the mountain-fountain misprint is an anti-climax. Besides, the commentator's assurance that Shade's 65th card was written "between the sunset...and dawn" is as unsettling as the indication that Shade's daily interruptions permitted him to leave an emotion or an idea suspended in mid-air*.
Once again I went off on a false trail while trying to investigate the names "Botkin", "Kinbote" and Pale Fire's Zemblan King. Actually, PF's farsical developments leave no space for any link of such a tragic nature!
................................................................................................................................................
* - However July 17 might be a significant date in "Ada", related to Van's second (and 'real' birthday): "My first recollection goes back to mid-July, 1870, i.e., my seventh month of life (with most people, of course, retentive consciousness starts somewhat later, at three or four years of age) when, one morning, in our Riviera villa, a chunk of green plaster ornament, dislodged from the ceiling by an earthquake, crashed into my cradle. The 195 days preceding that event being indistinguishable from infinite unconsciousness, are not to be included in perceptual time, so that, insofar as my mind and my pride of mind are concerned, I am today (mid-July, 1922) quite exactly fifty-two, et treve de mon style plafond peint." Van was saved from the stucco by a "cease-fire" and his "real" birthday (i.e, when his conscious recollection makes its first register) takes place in mid-July, between July 15 ( the date when his father Vladimir D. Nabokov was born) and July 17.
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/