Odon

I wanted to see if there was any historical reference to the name Odon. My reader will remember Odon was the actor in Zembla who helped Charles Kinbote to escape. A quick google search directed me to this person, Odon von Horváth. Horváth was an extremely influential playwright of the early 20th century. His name, Odon, as the article states, is the Hungarian form of the word Edmund (perhaps a reference here to Shakespeare, yet again?).

One interesting bit of information about Odon is that he lived in constant fear of being struck by lightning. Ironically enough, he died from a falling branch in a thunderstorm.

One of his plays, Faith, Hope, and Charity, tells the story of a young girl in dire financial straits who the cruelty and harshness of this world breaks down. The play opens with her attempting to sell her cadaver for the money to pay off fines. In the end, she jumps into a river to kill herself, but is unsuccessful. She dies just after her rescue when her heart gives out. The story seems to parallel Hazel's story in several ways. However, the most interesting part of the review hyperlinked above, was the playwright's explanation of this tragedy he calls a comedy.

"All my comedies are tragedies --- they become funny only because they are sinister. The eeriness has to be there."

Comedy and tragedy, stand ,paradoxically, united. Hazel's tragic suicide and the beauty of Shade's poetry, unites with a pompous, conceited, purposely misguided commentator and we laugh! As we saw in class on Thursday, the only difference between the cosmic and the comic is a single letter.

Santos Dumont's Demoiselle

Just a quick, perhaps random side note, one of the MANY planes that "King Alfin" crashes is the Santos Dumont Demoiselle, pictured here. It was a plane perhaps similar to this one in which Alfin crashes to his death against the castle walls.

John Shade...

This is my representation of John Shade from Pale Fire. He is standing nonchalantly, as if out for a stroll, hand in pocket, his writing implements at the ready. Note the Atalanta Butterfly in the corner and the red hankerchief in his pocket. The drawing was completed rather quickly, so it could be better, and the pictures don't do it justice, but I gave it a shot. =)

John Shade

Detail of Drawing

Duplicity, Disguise, Disa!

(Orsino And Viola by Frederick Pickersgill)

In class we've spoken on several occasions about duplicity in Nabokov's work. We talked about doppelgangers in realation to Humbert Humbert and Quilty in Lolita. In Pale Fire, we've lightly touched on the subject in reference to the recurrence of mirrors throughout the book, this concept of reflections. Water plays a key role in this. However, it wasn't until Gretchen Minton's visit on Thursday, and her explanation of the influence of Shakespeare on this novel, that I made my discovery.

On page 173 of Pale Fire, this passage caught my eye; Kinbote recalls his first encounter with his soon-to-be-wife Disa: "She had come in male dress, as a Tirolese boy, a little knock-kneed but brave and lovely".

For those of you (like myself) who had no idea what a "Tirolese boy" looked like, here's a video of Tirolese dancers. ( Tirol is a small state in Austria.)

This one line from Pale Fire, seemingly serving only to show Kinbote's homosexual attractions, brought to mind the similar disguise of Viola from Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. Disguise and duplicity play a major role in this play as well. Viola is doubled by her brother Sebastian. Olivia is doubled by Orsino. The list continues for almost every character in the play. Resemblance and this disguising of self manifests itself most aptly in the person of Viola. Here is a woman dressed as a man who then loves a man, Orsino. Homoerotic tendencies can be found in this relationship as well. Orsino says "I'll sacrifice the lamb that I do love" (here speaking of Viola who he thinks is a man) "to spite a raven's heart within a dove" (here speaking of Olivia who he supposedly loves) (5.1.127-128).

Disa disguises herself as a man and loves a man, Kinbote, just as Viola does. However, Kinbote, unlike Orsino, does not end up loving Disa once this disguise is abandoned.

The disguise theme does not stray far from the character of Kinbote himself. He lives in exile, disguised as a professor and all-too-interested neighbor. He escapes Zembla in disguise, wearing a red cap and red outfit. This red echoes the Red Admiral butterfly seen in the last passage just before John Shade's death.

When I researched the meaning of the name Disa, I found that in Greek, it means double. Disa also refers to a genus of orchids. Though they come in several colors, the majority of the pictures I found were red.

(Disa Uniflora)

Mumblings on 188

This Tuesday in class, Dr. Sexson put the following words (transcribed by Hazel from a supposed ghost) on the board:

pada ata lane pad not ogo old wart alan ther tale feur far rant lant tal told

He asked us to decipher the message, if indeed there was a message before class today. Throughout the period, I continued to stare at the words, trying in vain to divine some pattern. I was, as Kinbote, mystified as to the meaning. Of course, like him, I could make out the words "war" "talant" "her" and "arrant" (the last of which could refer to one line from Shakespeare's Timon of Athens, "The moon's an arrant thief"). We all know this play, Timon of Athens, recurs quite frequently both in Zembla and in the exiled Charles "Kinbote"s new homeland. Could there possibly be a hint here to the thievery inherent in Kinbote's actions? After all, he is now in hiding after having stolen Shade's final masterpiece. The circumstances of John's death alone seem open to question and interpretation.

After following these and similar threads for some time, I hit a wall. Finally, I resorted to googling the words, in effect, I begged to be told how the trick worked. I found it confirmed an offhand notation I had written in my book.

This site highlights the pattern, just as in my book I had found the first part of it by circling, in a row:

pada ata lane

As the site shows, this is but the beginning of the pattern:

pada ata lane pad not ogo old wart alan ther tale feur far rant lant tal told

Atalanta....over and over. The name alone refers to the Atalanta of Greek myth and Ovid's Metamorphoses. Atalanta also, as I found in this article on Brian Boyd's interpretation of Pale Fire, refers to the Atalanta butterfly, this Red Admirable as it is often called, who hovers before John Shade and Kinbote, just before Shade's imminent death. The reference, so early in the notes in connection to Hazel, leads one to believe that this is the foreshadowing of her death, her immortality the soul (psyche) of the butterfly.

Alphina

To go off on a tangent of sorts, I found this picture of the Clematis Alphina. To me, it echoes the mysterious sphere of light flitting about in the dark, elusive and intangible.

Waxwing

After surfing the internet for a while, researching some topics related to Pale Fire, I happened upon this music video and it made me smile. It's titled Waxwing: A Music Video with Commentary. The title alone, hopefully, sets the reader on guard for some Kinbote...esque behavior. Enjoy!