NPPF - Foreword - Notes (1)

[Jasper Fidget]

On
> Behalf Of Malignd
> Sent: Tuesday, July 15, 2003 8:15 AM
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Subject: Re: NPPF - Foreword - Notes (1)
> 
> <<I'm not arguing that the college and town aren't
> modeled on Cornell and Ithaca, but why the elaborate
> dodge to direct our attention elsewhere?>>
> 
> My guess on this is that all the pertinent places and
> place names (Cedarn, Utana) are fictional so that the
> possibility that Zembla might be other than something
> imagined by Kinbote, can't be disqualified on that
> basis; i.e., as the only made-up place (name) in the
> novel.
> 
> 

So then Cedarn, Utana, Idoming = fantasy Northwest; Wordsmith, New Wye =
fantasy college and town; and Zembla = fantasy Russia.  I think if one
accepts this, it changes the terms of the novel dramatically, in that
Kinbote may not be insane or extravagantly lying at all.  In fact it makes
these places much like the Vineland in Pynchon's novel: an imaginary place
that stands directly for real places.

Someone's mentioned the fact that K's royal identity is known to some
characters on the Wordsmith plane (according to K), and that Charles II is
discussed by the faculty there (including K's resemblance to him).  So if
Zembla is a real place in the story-world, then either Kinbote is its exiled
king, or Kinbote is making *all* of this up (which ends up having little
difference), or Kinbote has taken the fact of his resemblance to Charles II
and pretended to *be* Charles II.  I thinking answering that question might
be a key to answering many others.