NPPF: Notes C.1-4 - C.42

[Jasper Fidget]

C.1-4
pg 73
"a bird knocking itself out": Kinbote assumes the bird has not died,
although this is not stated explicitly in the poem.

"We can visualize John Shade in his early boyhood": Kinbote assumes that
Shade is a boy when the event with the bird takes place, although -- again
-- this is not explicit.

"a young New Wye gardener": see Foreword, PF 998, etc

C.12
pg 74
"a domestic anti-Karlist": K links Sybil to the Zemblan revolutionaries who
have dethroned him and are determined to kill him.  "anti-Karlist" =
anti-Charles, so anti-Kinbote in particular to anything else.  Does Sybil's
animosity cause Kinbote to invent the anti-Karlists as part of the
germination for the Zemblan story?  Or is he just figuratively comparing her
to those others he considers his enemies?  (One compelling reading of the
early New Wye sections of Kinbote's Commentary notes the elements that might
have been used as generative sources for the Zemblan fantasy.)

pg 75
"his impregnable fortress and my humble home": elsewhere the humbled home is
a chateau and a castle (pg 19, 20).  Kinbote transforms the Goldstein house
into whatever best suits his narrative intent.

pg 75
"Parachuting had become a popular sport": parachuting == escaping?  What's
the deal with Zemblans and parachuting?  It's a pretty odd national pastime.
A person travels with limited volition from a moving origin to an uncertain
destination.  One can steer to an extent but one cannot return.  Death is a
distinct possibility.

pg 75
"/Sosed/ (Zembla's gigantic neighbor)": USSR

pg 75
"Conchologists": conchology: "The branch of zoology that deals with shells
and shellfish" (OED).  Kinbote's example of "special research" and "personal
culture" on the part of kings -- listening to internal echoes?

http://coa.acnatsci.org/conchnet/

pg 76
"Southey's Lingo-Grande ('Dear Stumparumper,' etc)": I have no idea other
than Lingo-Grande == Great (or large) Language (or lick)?  "Dear
Stumparumper" sounds German, der Stümper (blunderer) and der Rumpf (body,
torso) maybe?

pg 76
"Hodinski": my (old) notes indicate that Hodinski is connected to "The Song
of Igor's Campaign" but I can't fathom why at the moment (anyone?).  Anyway
and just in case:

VN translated the Old Russian epic "The Song of Igor's Campaign" (~1187) in
1953, and maintains in his notes that early Russian material was linked by
the Vikings to early Scottish / Celtic literature.

http://www.kulichki.com/moshkow/NABOKOW/slovo.txt
http://www.cossackweb.com/slovo/slovo.htm
http://aquatory.mccinet.ru/song/

"The Kongs-skugg-sio": Kinbote is correct, it means "The Royal Mirror," but
"Skugg" alone means "shade, shadow."  It is a 13th century Old Icelandic
history that ends with a conflict between Archbishop Eystein and his king,
and with Eystein's exit to England.  See pg 130 for Eystein.

http://www.lysator.liu.se/nordic/scn/faq55.html

I tracked Hodinski to this place:

http://www.invisiblelibrary.com/libauthor4.htm

which is a pretty interesting collection of books that only appear in other
books.  They have several dozen for VN but only a few for Pynchon (all from
COL49 -- they obviously need help!).

pg 76 
"Coriolanus Lane" (where Charles Xavier lives while slumming at the lectern
of Zembla U): 

Plutarch's Coriolanus (75 CE): Life of Coriolanus
http://classics.mit.edu/Plutarch/coriolan.html
http://www.mostweb.cc/Classics/Plutarch/PlutarchsLives/PlutarchsLives14.html
	
Shakespeare's _Tragedy of Coriolanus_ (1608), a play about political unrest
and class warfare (probably S's most political work) in which Caius Martius
wins the name Coriolanus as reward for his great deeds in battle.  In order
to secure consul status, Coriolanus must go out and win the consent of the
Roman citizens (who are angry over a grain shortage), which doesn't go well
and results his in his exile from Rome.  He then teams up with the
Volscians, masses an army, and lays siege to his old hometown, making him a
Volscian hero, but is later assassinated by Aufidius, a jealous rival.

http://the-tech.mit.edu/shakespeare/coriolanus/

C.17
pg 78
"distant dim Zembla": Zembla is still dim at this point in the narrative --
it hasn't been fully created yet.

pg 80
"a Zemblan poetical version of /Timon/":

Immediately noteworthy re the Timon quote is that compared to the original
all the genders are reversed (this theme returns, for instance "with sexes
reversed" on p.83 and "boy-girls and girl-boys" on p.104).  Conmal also
replaces the key phrase "pale fire" with "silvery light" -- interesting that
Kinbote should have chosen these particular four lines.


C.42
pg 80
"I could make out the outlines of some of my images in the shape his genius
might give them; by mid-June I felt sure at last that he would recreate in a
poem the dazzling Zembla burning in my brain." ...

Kinbote has this expectation of what he'll find in Shade's poem, as if the
ideas that dominate his mind should also dominate the poet's.  VN comments
in _Strong Opinions_ regarding the "middlebrow or the upper Philistine" who
"likes to recognize his own thoughts and throws in those of the author"
(41), and Kinbote's expectations may imply those of some critics who gave
negative reviews of VN because of a lack of "ideas" (see p 275 for "A hack
reviewer of new books" which may refer to Orville Prescott who panned
_Lolita_ in the NY Times in 1958).  

Also interesting is the notion that Kinbote is constructing an artificial
pattern of references for Shade (and also for the reader), in contrast to
the natural patterns that Shade seeks in his poem.

pg 81
"pale and diaphanous final phase": another echo of the title which K admits
"cannot be regarded as a direct echo of my narrative".

pg 81
"have caught myself borrowing a kind of opalescent light from my poet's
fiery orb, and unconsciously aping the prose style of his own critical
essays.": this passage is often offered up in the Shade-wrote-it arguments
in response to the question over whether Shade's prose style could be as
good as Kinbote's (in which case why didn't he write prose?).  

pg 81
"control exercised upon my poet by a domestic censor and God knows whom
else": K again implies that Sybil has coerced her husband into removing
Zembla references from his poem.  The "God knows whom else" is interesting,
though -- what might K be thinking of?

Jasper Fidget