NPPF - Foreword - Summary / Commentary (3)

[Jasper Fidget]

Page 16-17:
"another person ([Shade's] former literary agent) has wondered with a sneer
if Mrs. Shade's tremulous signature might not have been penned 'in some
peculiar kind of red ink.'"

Red is the color most associated with King Charles II (see 133 for
instance).  Also, a "peculiar kind of red ink" implies a deal with the
devil.

Page 17:
"One of our sillier Zemblan proverbs says: _the lost glove is happy_."  This
is the first reference to Zembla.

Next paragraph, "historical personage" is the first reference to K's
elevated importance.

"As mentioned, I think, in my last note to the poem." (pg 17).  More
evidence the Foreword was written last.

Page 18:
"I alone am responsible for any mistakes in my commentary."  Kinbote's
acknowledgement is further evidence that his manuscript has not been
proof-read or edited by anyone other than himself.

"my cave in Cedarn": Kinbote's present whereabouts and the first (very
veiled) allusion to _Timon of Athens_ (see p. 79)

"the Goldsworthian château": See C. 12, p. 76 for Kinbote's rented home in
Zembla.

Page 20:
Kinbote's first attempted meeting with the Shades is a failed intrusion,
setting the stage for K's impotent desire to shove himself into their life
(preferably when the wife's away).  

Page 21:
The reference to the girl that Kinbote implies Shade is having an affair
with.  Also see p. 228.

Page 22:
"two ping-pong tables in my basement": a mirrored pair and another example
of a synthesis of two parts.  Ping-pong is associated with sex with young
boys for Kinbote, often describing them as ping-pong partners.  Something
about the sound of the words "ping" and "pong" I think, but I'm not sure I
wish to pursue this idea....

"Main Hall (or now Shade Hall, alas)" -- it's unclear whether Kinbote
bemoans the reminder that Shade is dead or that it's not now named Kinbote
Hall or perhaps Zembla Hall.

"I wanted to buy some chocolate-coated cookies" -- one gets the sense
Kinbote buys all sorts of stuff lure young boys home.

"From the inside of the supermarket, through a plate-glass window, I saw the
old chap pop into a liquor store."  

Another glass window.  This is actually the first time we catch Kinbote
spying on Shade, and it's not from the Goldsworth house.

"A comfortable burp told me he had a flask of brandy concealed about his
warmly coated person."  

Shade, tippler, is not permitted by Sybil to drink, so he hides liquor from
her (on his bookshelf behind the bust of Dante if I recall correctly).

Page 23:
"Henceforth I began seeing more and more of my celebrated neighbor.  The
view from one of my windows kept providing me with first-rate entertainment,
especially when I was on the wait for some tardy guest."  

Now Kinbote has begun spying on Shade in earnest.  I find it interesting
that this act is linked to waiting for one of his lovers to show up, as if
spying on Shade is a voyeuristic sublimation of his sexual desire.
Kinbote's attitude toward Shade is made sexual in a number of places (e.g.
see note to 991, page 287, 2nd paragraph).

"From the second story of my house the Shades' living-room window remained
clearly visible so long as the branches of the deciduous trees between us
were still bare"

The first reference (immediate upon his beginning to spy on them) to
Kinbote's having to vie with nature in order to conduct his voyeurism (see
also p. 86, etc).  Is Kinbote's behavior made to seem therefore "unnatural"?
At odds with the natural patterns of the world?

"One knew that bedtime was closing in with all its terrors"

The first reference to Kinbote's trouble with the night and his paranoid
fears of assassination.  This can be treated in a number of ways: true
paranoia, simple yearning for Shade's company, simple loneliness, isolation,
despair.

Page 24:
"And sometimes Sybil Shade would trip by with the velocity and swinging arms
of one flouncing out in a fit of temper"

Here really begins the theme of Kinbote's jealousy toward Sybil and his
misogyny.  On 18 he refers to her as a misguided widow, but his reason is
explained in the context of his ongoing struggle to publish the manuscript.
Now it's grown into something more, and later it will only get more intense
(see 91 for instance: "so rapt a look on her face that one might have
supposed she had just thought up a new recipe.").  

"the riddle of her behavior was entirely solved one night when by dialing
their number and watching their window at the same time I magically induced
her to go through the hasty and quite innocent motions that had puzzled me."


Kinbote playing with the Shades' as a cat with a mouse; a first and rather
ominous indication that his sense of their existence is as it pertains to
himself, machiavellian and solipsistic.  This too gets worse.