To Better Explain My Minton Discovery....

While in class last Thursday, I sat wanting to ask Dr. Minton if the ghost words, "pada ata lane pad not ogo old wart alan ther tale feur far rant lant tal told" (from pg. 188 in Pale Fire) had anything to do with Timon of Athens. And I think it does, even though I'm not sure if she had ever thought of it in this way.....

On page 189, Kinbote pulls a few words from this ghostly statement, "war, talant, her, arrant". Arrant being the key word. In Timon of Athens, the words "arrant thief" come up in the line just before the infamous "pale fire" words.

I think this can be looked at from two sides.

On one, it can be seen as proof that the title of the book really did come from the Timon of Athens passage. Since Kinbote had never read the true English translation of the play (his Zemblan copy says nothing about an "arrant thief"), it can be a hint from Nabokov that this is the direction he wants the reader to look towards. It can't just be coincidence that Nabokov had Kinbote pull this word from the ghost line, being an important word in a different translation of his favorite play, a translation he had never read. No, I don't believe in coincidences.

However, there is another way to look at it. We can look at it as a way to misguide the reader. Nabokov gives this word to Kinbote to pull us away from thinking that the Hamlet quote, " The glow-worm shows the matin to be near and 'gins to pale its uneffectual fire." (Line 89-90, Act One, Scene Five) was where the title of this novel comes from. I think this is also a plausible argument, as the lines about a bug showing the morning coming, and so begins to turn off its light could play a big part in the story, if one was to look at it this way. This line could in fact explain the very events in the barn, where a ghost is telling the characters of a sad "morning" to come, but because no one understands it, the "pale light" it exudes is "uneffectual". Let me explain further.

On pg. 289, within Kinbote's commentary on line 991: horseshoes, he says, ".... and for a moment I found myslef enriched with an indescribable amazement as if informed that fire-flies were making decodable signals on behalf of stranded spirits....". This line relates directly to the glow-worm that it is signaling the end of the night for the ghost in Hamlet. It also ties us back into page 188, where a "roundlet of pale light, the size of a small doily; flitted across the dark walls....". This light, like the light of a ghost, like the light of a glow worm, is pale (it's also small and flitting). It quite possibly could be that fire-flies, ghosts, and Hamlet have a lot more to do in this novel than most people think.

But do I know for sure.... noooo way. No one can, but it's always fun to find more clues that brings that bring you closer to some sort of "reality".