Dear List,
We know that Hazel's death takes place exactly on line 500, at the end
of Canto II and that, apparently, the mirror of Canto IV should end
with line 1000, but the poet died before its completion.
Shade's poem was written in three weeks, in July 1959, the same year in
which Nabokov moved to
down once, following Kinbote's instructions:
Canto I - July
Canto II - July 5 (Birthday: line 181 "Today I'm sixty-one.
Waxwings...) -11, 334 lines 27 cards (ends with Hazel's death as written
in July 11)
Canto III-
)
Canto IV- July 19-20 ( 9 cards)- 21 (4), 165 lines, 13 cards (ends, or
stops, at Shade's death, written July 21)
Interspersed information:
In July 5 Shade was writing on card 14 and reached line 208.
From July 5 to July 6 he reached card 18 and line 230.
On July 10 he wrote on his 33 card, lines 406-416
On the eve of his death Shade wrote on card 76, line 237, a reference to
A.Pope.
On July 21 Shade began his last batch of cards ( 77-80)
1. Why did Shade stop after filling in the fourth and last batch of
cards (was there a "faircopy" made since he was killed before its
completion?). Did Kinbote's visit interrupt him then?
2. What can we make out of Kinbote's commentaries and chronology from
lines 991 until 999? Kinbote seems to have finally managed to enter
Shade's text to develop his commentaries as if inhabiting some sort of
"real time".
Any thoughts about this?
A new query to Lines: 992-994 Where is Shade writing and looking from?
When?
Time: July 21
lines 977-982:
"I / Shall wake at six tomorrow, on July/
The twenty-second,
lines 983-984:
So this alarm clock let me set myself,/Yawn, and put back.../
(any relation with the clockwork-toy seen in early in July 1909?)
line 985:
"But it's not bedtime yet. The sun attains..."
( 1959: would he be writing at
The poem closes on line 999 with neighbor's gardener ( is he Kinbote's
Balthasar, one of the three Magi? Maud's "moor"? The clockwork toy at
his first "conflagration/sunburst/black night", also in July but after
Shade had just turned 11 - as on lines 141/143?)
Space:
a. Where is Sybil?
line 989-990 & line 992
Where are you? In the garden. I can see
Part of your shadow near the shagbark tree
................
(Leaning against its lamppost like a drunk)
b. Where is Shade?
In an early note Kinbote informed us (lines 47-48)
"If I wanted to see its south side...
If I yearned for the opposite side..
...walk uphill to the top of my garden...patch of line under the lone
streetlamp on the road below.
So Shade was looking down to the streetlamp (both words: Lamppost and
streetlamp have no hyphen and this "lone" one seems to be only existing
post close to Shade's home...)
The time ( not bedtime & a setting sun in the Summer as seen from
Shade's perch) informs us something about space: " The sun attains/ Old
Dr. Sutton's last two windowpanes"
We also had, in the past, clear instructions about Dr.Sutton's home (
above JS and CK's)
Kinbote's version is different. When he describes his stroll with JS
(after Sybil has left) it must be still be light enough to find shades
and shadows,or a flying Vanessa. Enough daylight to aim at John Shade
and hit him...
Tom Rymour, where is the map you promised to us?
Jansy