NPPF Get Real

[Jasper Fidget]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On
> Behalf Of s~Z
> Sent: Friday, September 05, 2003 2:51 PM
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Subject: Re: NPPF Get Real
> 
> >>>Correct me if I'm mistaken, but I believe he compared Zembla to Ultima
> Thule
> and Ultima Thule to Scandinavia, thus the equation.<<<
> 
> There is no such equation of Ultima Thule and Scandinavia.
> Ultima Thule is another fictional far-off land.
> 
> Your initial point confuses the reality out here with the reality of Pale
> Fire.
> I am quite aware that Zembla is Nabokov's fictional realm. I was
> addressing
> the issue of whether or not Zembla is a real land within the novel, one
> that
> John Shade and Chuck K recognized, or if it is a delusional creation of
> Chuck's. Nabokov's comment points towards it being fictionally consensual.

Personally I'm inclined to believe K made it up, but there is a middle
ground -- if it's fictionally consensual that doesn't necessarily mean that
our narrator was the king there.  After the Russian revolution, Europe and
America had no shortage of émigrés claiming to be Romanovs, pretenders, or
otherwise connected to royalty, maybe in the hope of kinder treatment there
or maybe hoping for a piece of Tsar Nicholas II's legendary bank or land
holdings or maybe because they really believed it (hell, some members of my
own family have claimed as much) -- for instance the case of Anna Anderson,
who was quite thoroughly convinced she was the Tsar's youngest daughter,
Grand Duchess Anastasia:

http://www.freewarehof.org/manahans.html

I wonder if this was one of the Life clippings Aunt Maud had pasted in her
scrapbook by the way:

http://www.freewarehof.org/czarkids.jpg