NPPF - Pale Fire Chronology (Part 1)

Wed Aug 27 15:16:08 CDT 2003

>From the N-List archives:

From: "Jerry Friedman" <jerry_friedman at yahoo.com>

> ---------------- Message requiring your approval (1001 lines) ---------
> Thanks to D. Barton Johnson and Mary Bellino for their interest in
> seeing this timeline.  As soon as I asked about posting it, I found
> some omissions, which I've filled in.  What it contains is every
> datable event I found in _Pale Fire_, including some that I could
> date only speculatively or only to a range.  I've supplied exact
> dates for a few real events (such as the birth of Tennyson) for
> which only years were given in the text.  The timeline does not
> contain real events mentioned but not dated in the text, such as
> the publication of _In Memoriam_, or events from history or
> Nabokov's life.  Each event is (I hope) accompanied by a reference
> to the text--FW for the Foreword, l. for a line in the poem, n. for
> a note to a line, and I. for the Index.  When the Index entry isn't
> obvious, I've given it with the abbreviation s.v.
>
> Events dated "sometime" occurred at an unknown time in the given
> yearEvents may not be in the correct order, especially with >"sometime"
and other non-specific dates.  Dates with question marks >or words  such as
"probably" and "possibly" are consistent with the >text, I  believe, and
arise from my evidence-less speculations based >on my  ideas of narrative
plausibility.
>
> I've made no attempt to discriminate between real, fictionally "real",
> and fictionally "unreal" events, since some people seem to disagree
> strongly with the categories I'd have chosen.  I have, however,
> referred to a character whose life Kinbote tells us about as "Gradus",
> but to the murderer as "Grey".
>
> The three apparent temporal discrepancies I found are all indicated
> with the word "discrepancy".  If the mistakes aren't on my part,
> I'm taking no position on whether they're on Kinbote's or Nabokov's
> part.  However, I think it's interesting that two could have arisen
> if someone thought Shade was born in 1899 and later changed or
> corrected it to 1898--but not everywhere.  On this subject, I assume
> the discrepancy about trucks on Dulwich road has been pointed out?
> And the Duke of Rahl thing?
>
> In some places where the dating isn't obvious, I've mentioned
> something about how I reached my conclusions.  In other places I
> haven't.  I'd be happy to answer any questions or clarify anything
> obscure.  Also, I'd be grateful for any comments, comparisons to
> other chronologies, criticisms, or corrections.
>
>
> _Pale Fire_ Timeline:
>
> 10th Century
> "A thousand years ago five minutes were/ Equal to forty ounces of
> fine sand" (ll. 120-121).
>
> 12th Century
> The _Kong-skugg-sio_ is written (n. 12).
>
> 1637
> Thomas Flatman is born (I.).
>
> 1688
> Thomas Flatman does not disappear, but only dies (I.).
>
> 1700-1800
> "Two Queens, three Kings, and fourteen Pretenders died violent deaths"
> in Zembla during this (extended) century (n. 62).
>
> 1778
> Hodinski a.k.a. Hodyna moves to Zembla (I.).
>
> 1798
> Hodinski collects (or forges) Zemblan variants of the Kong-skugg-sio
> (n. 12).
>
> 1798-1799
> Emperor Uran the Last reigns in Zembla (n. 681, I.).
>
> 1799
> Queen Yaruga's favorites kill Uran and she reigns in Zembla (I.).
>
> 1800 Jan. 1 (O.S.)
> Queen Yaruga and Hodinski drown in an ice-hole during the New Year's
> festivity (I. s.v. Hodinski and Yaruga). She is succeeded by her son
> Igor II, whose father is ostensibly her late brother Uran but according
> to most historians Hodinski (n. 681, I s.v. Hodinski and Igor II).
>
> Early 19th Century
> Count Komarovski, a Russian diplomat, becomes famous for
> mispronouncing his own name at foreign courts (I. s.v. Marrowsky).
>
> 1809 Aug. 5
> Alfred [Lord] Tennyson is born (n. 920).
>
> 1824 or 1825
> The future Thurgus III is born. (I.)
>
> 1835 June 2
> Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto, later Pope Saint Pius X, is born (n. 85).
>
> 1845
> Igor II dies and is succeeded by Thurgus III (I.).
>
> 1851 or 1852
> Samuel Shade is born (n. 71).
>
> 1855
> Conmal, Duke of Aros and half-brother of Queen Blenda, is born (I.).
>
> 1859 March 26
> A[lfred] E. Housman is born (n. 920).
>
> 1864
> Franklin Knight Lane, later U.S. Secretary of the Interior, is born
> (I.).
>
> 1869
> Maud Shade is born (n. 86-90).
> The oldest of the Shadows, the probable murderer of Iris Acht, is born
> (I. s.v. Acht, Iris).
>
> 1873
> The future King Alfin the Vague is born (n. 71, I.)
>
> 1874
> Robert Frost is born (n. 426).
>
> 1876
> An extraordinary episode takes place at Onhava University (n. 347).
>
> 1877?
> "Dr. Sutton" is born (ll. 987-988).  (I'm assuming that, as usual in
> _Pale Fire_, ages are obtained simply by subtracting years.  Then
> Shade was 21 in 1919, the year of his marriage, so Dr. Sutton was 42,
> so he was born in 1919 - 42 = 1877.  With other interpretations, Dr.
> Sutton could have been born in 1876, 1878, or 1879.)
>
> 1878
> The future Queen Blenda is born (I.).
>
> 1880
> Around this time Conmal learns English.  He translates Shakespeare's
> _Sonnets_ on of a bet with a fellow officer, and then retires from
> the Army to start his career as a translator (n. 962).
>
> 1885
> Around this time the maternal grandfather of the Shadows' leader
> makes repairs to the king's quarters (including the secret passage?)
> and shortly thereafter is poisoned in the royal kitchens (I. s.v.
> Shadows).
>
> Mid 1880s
> Thurgus the Third has trysts with the actress Iris Acht in a secret
> passage from his dressing room, later a lumber room, to a lumbarkamer
> in the Royal Theater (n. 130, I.).
>
> 1888
> Iris Acht dies, officially by suicide and unofficially by murder
> (n. 130, I.).  Around this time ("some seventy years ago" in 1958
> or 1959), Ferz and Zule Bretwit have their correspondence (n. 286).
>
> 1889?
> The owner of the motor court in Cedarn is born (a "seventy-year-old
> man" in the fall of 1959) (n. 810).
>
> 1890? 1895?
> Sylvia O'Connell is born (I.).
>
> 1890
> Walter Campbell, later Charles's tutor, is born (I.).
>
> 1892 Oct. 6
> Alfred, Lord Tennyson dies (n. 920).
>
> 1898 Early in the year
> Sybil Irondell is born ("a few months his [Shade's] senior") (n. 247).
>
> July 5
> John Shade is born in New Wye (FW, n. 167, I.).
>
> 1900
> Thurgus the Third dies (n. 130, I.) and King Alfin accedes to the
> throne of Zembla (n. 71, I.).
>
> 1900-1914 Summer
> At some point King Alfin mislays an emperor (n. 71).
>
> 1902 Before July 5
> Samuel Shade dies (but John Shade seems to be "not quite three",
> which would put his birth in 1899 or Samuel's death in 1901, an
> apparent discrepancy) (n. 71).
>
> 1903 Summer
> Wordsmith College photographed "on a remarkably gloomy summer day"
> (FW).
> G. M. Sarto becomes Pope Pius X August 9 (n. 85).
>
> 1908
> Disa's grandfather builds a villa at Cap Turc called Villa Paradiso
> (Italian) or Villa Paradisa (Zemblan), later Villa Disa (n. 433-434).
>

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