NPPF--commentary--615--two tongues

[Paul Mackin]

On Fri, 2003-11-07 at 14:30, Ghetta Life wrote:
> 
> >From: Paul Mackin <paul.mackin at verizon.net>
> >
> >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.
> 
> Absolutely, but this would be impossible for Shade to have anticipated, 
> right?  As I noted last week, the stanza before this one refers to a king 
> being led to stand before a firing squad, which also has parallels with the 
> person of Kinbote's "real" identity as the fugitive King.  This however 
> could be explained as the result of Kinbote's many conversations with Shade. 
>   The only plausible explanation of the motel-room fate coicidence would be 
> that Kinbote has imitated the poems image with his choosing it as the place 
> to write from.

Yes, this is plausible--whether or not the purported noisy motel abode
of K actually exists or is a further embedded fiction within a fiction..

 As I said last week, this lends credence to the theory that 
> Shade has made up Kinbote, and was never shot, but this scenario goes pretty 
> close to saying that Nabakov made them all up.

Yes to both but we still have the question of what exactly did N make
up? Did he leave open the possibility of precognition and such. Or of a
still viable Hazel dwelling in an afterlife from which she can introduce
ideas into people's heads. Not that the later would necessarily explain
the motel room coincidence.

I'm one of those amateurs whom Boyd remarks upon as being repelled by a
single-author explanation. Not much taken with the supernatural either.
Anyway . . . 

P.