NPPF Comm3: Misc notes (3)

[Jasper Fidget]

pg 119
"Somewhere in the mist of the city"
Another motif in this passage is the commingling of "mist" and "midst":
obscured vision with crowded space: "in the mist of the city " (p 119), "in
the mist of the bath house" (p. 123), "already bemisted" (131) -- part of
the thematic merging of time and space that leads ultimately through the
secret passage.

p. 123-124
"On that particular afternoon a copious shower lacquered the spring foliage
of the palace garden, and oh, how the Persian lilacs in riotous bloom
tumbled and tossed behind the green-streaming amethyst-blotched windopanes!"

>From "When Lilacs Last in the Door-yard Bloom'd" by Walt Whitman (1865):

WHEN lilacs last in the door-yard bloom'd,
And the great star early droop'd in the western sky in the night,
I mourn'd-and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.

O ever-returning spring! trinity sure to me you bring;
Lilac blooming perennial, and drooping star in the west,
And thought of him I love.

http://www.bartleby.com/142/192.html

p. 123
"gilt key"

Guilt key -> guilty?  When exactly did the terms "in the closet" and "out of
the closet" come about?

Perhaps the proximity of the gilt (as in gilded) key to Charles' cage was
intended -- gilt as in coated with gold, gilded as in "rich and superior in
quality," a gilded cage, as where one might keep a bird.  A gilded flicker
is a bird found in the American Southwest, and also what a key might do when
a bedside light casts a spark upon it.

p. 124
"Mandevil Forest"

see Baron Mandevil (147)

Byron's "Manfred" (1817) is a Faustian dramatic poem obsessed with guilt and
remorse and the frustrations of the Romantic spirit.  Man is "half dust,
half deity, alike unfit to sink or soar." 

http://www.hn.psu.edu/faculty/jmanis/byron/manfred.pdf

p. 125
"Oleg arrived.  He carried a tulip."
Hahahahhahaa....  Sorry.  The young Prince observes that Oleg's "soft blond
locks [...] had been cut since his last visit to the palace," and thinks,
like an anticipating lover, "I knew he would be different."  Something in
this reminds me of M. Swann courting Odette, but I've put off trying to find
it.

p. 126
"Academy Boulevard, Coriolanus Lane and Timon Alley"
One gets the sense that Kinbote has been pilfering names from Shakespeare,
and Timon especially has importance.  What are the odds that a work so
obviously in the minds of Zemblans should have inspired John Shade's title?
See p. 92 for the descriptions of Wordsmith's grounds and place names.

p. 126
"glacis slope"

"A gently sloping bank; spec. in Fortification, a natural or artificial bank
sloping down from the covered way of a fort so as to expose attackers to the
defenders' missiles etc. L17." (OED)

also 

"fig. A zone or area, esp. a small country, acting as a protective barrier
or buffer between two (potentially) enemy countries. M20." (OED)

p. 128-129
"[Odon] was a fox-browed, burly Irishman, with a pink head"

What's an Irish actor doing involved in the Zemblan revolution?  Might
suggest Lord Byron, an English poet who involved himself in both Italian and
Greek revolutionary movements (1820, 1822), in the case of the latter
spending lots of time with the Greek prince Mavrocordato, and lots of money
financing a navy for him.

http://www.incompetech.com/authors/byron/

In later passages Odon will come more to resemble Lord Wilmot (later Lord
Rochester), Charles II traveling companion and trusted aid during his escape
from the English Commonwealth.

p. 129
"Bechstein"

Makers of fine pianos since 1853 and still considered among the finest in
the world.  The maker of the original Bechstein was named -- of course --
Carl.

http://www.bechstein.com/english/Estart.html

p. 129
"/The Merman/"
Gender switch and centaurism, typical of Zembla.

p. 129
"a couple of foreign experts", "two Soviet professionals" (131), ("Their
names (probably fictitious) were Andronnikov and Niagarin" -- 244)

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are now searching for the crown jewels.

Jasper Fidget