NPPF--commentary--615--two tongues

[Paul Mackin]

On Fri, 2003-11-07 at 10:43, Ghetta Life wrote:
> 
> >From: Paul Mackin <paul.mackin at verizon.net>
> >About all I notice here is that the English-Russian combination is the only 
> >one mentioned more than once and that "American and European" is not a 
> >combination of languages. One's most immediate thought might be that K is, 
> >like Nabokov, a Russian and European living in America and writing in 
> >English. Good a guess as any I think.
> 
> Kinbote thinks the "two tongues" refers to language, but I can't see why 
> Shade would make this reference.  It seems to me that two tongues evokes a 
> sinister image, like a forked tongue of a serpent, one fork for invading 
> each lung.  Very sexual overtones in this image too.
> 
> Ghetta
> 

That's a possibility.

Also, can the stanza in which the phrase occurs be an anticipation on
Shade's part of Kinbote's final days? Old man dying in a shabby motel
room, trying to put together an apologia pro vita sua. Formulating his
thoughts in the two languages he is most conversant in, the two tongues
having the further sense or implication that he is engaged to some
degree in deception.