NPPF Comm 2: Parents: some notes

[Don Corathers]

Thanks for these, Jasper.


> pg. 100
> "Chicago where I interrupted for a couple of days my automobile journey
from
> New Wye to Cedarn"
>
> Reinforces the assumption of Cedarn's location, that it is at least west
of
> Chicago.

Also suggests Kinbote has an acquaintance (the obituary "was shown to me")
in Chicago.

>
> pg. 101
> "the neatly stacked batches of [Pale Fire index cards] lie in the sun on
my
> table as so many ingots of fabulous metal"
>
> Prompts a question that I don't recall being asked: could Kinbote be in it
> for the money?

He says in the foreword that his contract with Sybil provides that "all
profits, except the publisher's percentage, would accrue to her." I think
he's just drawing a contrast between how highly he values the poem and
Hurley's dismissive mention of it.


>
> pg. 101
> From Professor Hurley's "Appreciation of John Shade": "Just before our
> poet's untimely death he seems to have been working on an autobiographical
> poem."
>
> What if this quote from Prof H. were the only reference to the poem that
> Kinbote had ever seen?  What if he wrote his own poem and passed it off as
> Shade's, along with a commentary, in order to profit from the poet's
death?

This is a possibility but seems like a very remote one. Wouldn't it require
Sybil's collusion to pull off such a fraud? And I can't think of anything in
the text that points in that direction. (Of course not! Just shows how well
Charlie covered his tracks, right?)

Don