NPPF - Preliminary - Zembla (1)

[Jasper Fidget]

Zembla - resembla: a sort of bizarro-world of reflections and fairy tales,
peopled by real-world caricatures and literary characters, located somewhere
between Russia and Scandinavia, Kinbote's Zembla is obviously fictitious,
but it has many real-world sources:

Novaya Zemlya (Nova Zembla - "New Land"): an archipelago north of western
Russia between the Barents Sea and the Kara Sea.  The two main islands are
separated by the Matochkin Strait and divided by a northern continuation of
the Ural Mountains, the southern of the two mainly tundra, the northern more
glacial.  Although sparsely populated, Novaya Zemlya has often been used for
nuclear testing.

"The Russians knew of Novaya Zemlya from the 11th or 12th century, when
traders from Novgorod visited the area. For western Europeans, the search
for the Northeast passage in the 16th century led to its exploration. The
first visit was by Hugh Willoughby in 1553. Willem Barentsz in 1596 rounded
the north point of Novaya Zemlya, and wintered on the east coast near the
northern tip. During this voyage the west coast was mapped."  (from
wikipedia)

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novaya_Zemlya

Terra MODIS Satellite image: 
http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/viewrecord?8126

Some photos: 
http://www.grandpoohbah.net/novaya_zemlya.htm

See _Pale Fire_ pp 137-138 for some Zembla geography.  

Kinbote asserts that his own Zembla is *not* Nova Zembla (see p. 267).

The Novaya Zemlya Effect: "Named after the Russian island in the Arctic
Ocean, where it often occurs, the Novaya Zemlya Effect is produced by a
strong, shallow, surface-based inversion acting as a mirror, which reflects
the light of the sun when it is just below the horizon."
(jackstephensimages.com)

http://jackstephensimages.com/Merchant/photographicgallery/novayazemlya/nova
yazemlyapage.html

http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf015/sf015p12.htm

Zemlya means "land" in Russian, and there are others: Severnaya Zemlya,
Zemlya Frantsa Iosefa, etc.

*

Pope in his "Essay on Man" lists Zembla as one "extreme of Vice"

Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, 
As to be hated needs but to be seen; 
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, 
We first endure, then pity, then embrace. 
But where th'extreme of Vice was ne'er agreed: 
Ask where's the north?--at York 'tis on the Tweed; 
In Scotland at the Orcades; and there 
At Greenland, Zembla, or the Lord knows where. 
No creature owns it in the first degree, 
But thinks his neighbour farther gone than he; 
E'vn those who dwell beneath its very zone, 
Or never feel the rage or never own; 
What happier natures shrink at with affright, 
The hard inhabitant contends is right. 
(II-V)

http://www.theotherpages.org/poems/pope-e2.html

(Kinbote refers to this poem in _Pale Fire_, p. 272)

In _Battle of the Books_, Swift refers to Nova Zembla as the home of
Criticism: "She dwelt on the Top of a snowy Mountain in Nova Zembla":

'Meanwhile Momus, fearing the worst, and calling to mind an ancient prophecy
which bore no very good face to his children the Moderns, bent his flight to
the region of a malignant deity called Criticism.  She dwelt on the top of a
snowy mountain in Nova Zembla; there Momus found her extended in her den,
upon the spoils of numberless volumes, half devoured.  At her right hand sat
Ignorance, her father and husband, blind with age; at her left, Pride, her
mother, dressing her up in the scraps of paper herself had torn.  There was
Opinion, her sister, light of foot, hood-winked, and head-strong, yet giddy
and perpetually turning.  About her played her children, Noise and
Impudence, Dulness and Vanity, Positiveness, Pedantry, and Ill-manners.  The
goddess herself had claws like a cat; her head, and ears, and voice
resembled those of an ass; her teeth fallen out before, her eyes turned
inward, as if she looked only upon herself; her diet was the overflowing of
her own gall; her spleen was so large as to stand prominent, like a dug of
the first rate; nor wanted excrescences in form of teats, at which a crew of
ugly monsters were greedily sucking; and, what is wonderful to conceive, the
bulk of spleen increased faster than the sucking could diminish it.
"Goddess," said Momus, "can you sit idly here while our devout worshippers,
the Moderns, are this minute entering into a cruel battle, and perhaps now
lying under the swords of their enemies? who then hereafter will ever
sacrifice or build altars to our divinities?  Haste, therefore, to the
British Isle, and, if possible, prevent their destruction; while I make
factions among the gods, and gain them over to our party."'  (Swift, 1704).

http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/s/s97ba/


A running theme in _Life of Johnson_ surrounds Boswell's attempts to
convince Johnson of the value of Scotland (from which Boswell hails and
toward which Johnson has a low opinion).  (Zembla as the generic North.)

akaPasperLidget