Anabasis and the perfect move in chess

The Eystein style of painting is the key to it all.
I got this from the short story Solus Rex by Nabokov. It was the final words of short story that changed my thought process. It is written "As K advanced toward the exit, he had the nightmare sensation that, maybe, the door was a stil-life painting, that its handle was en rompe-l'oeil, and could not be turned. But all at once the door became real, and, escorted by a youth, who had softly come out of some other room in his bedslippers with a bundle of keys, K proceeded to go down a long and dark staircase." (And just for the readers sake the french phrase above means "deceive the eye").
The object of chess is to capture the opponents king which is called check mate. K stands for Solus Rex or  Lone Black King. The story of K is related to the lone black king being chased around a board. Anabasis is "an expedition from coastline up into the interior of a country" (Wikipedia). The strategy of keeping your king in the middle of the chess board, which is the goal when a player only has one piece, correlates with Anabasis. This strategy could go on for ever but it is to be a good Nabokovian player to go through the tedious step 50 to be exact to turn a lost game into a draw.
Besides the obvious topic of a draw in Pale Fire which is the result of all the games played in the novel (example is on page 83 of Pale Fire where Beauchamp and Campbell end their game in a draw), there is a huge emphasis on trickery and trap doors which is also the best strategy for winning at chess. I plan to tie this topic in with the idea of love and loss. The chess game of Pale Fire is played by Nabokov and himself alone. He separates himself into two alter egos that is neither himself nor representation of himself. I thought to myself that no wonder all the games end in draws if he is playing himself. But within the context of love and loss there has to be a winner that differs from either player (an outsider or third wheel). It is Platonic idea of love that is displayed in this romantic chess game. As Mary McCarthy put it "Love is felt as a kind of homesickness, that yearning for union described by Plato, the pining for the other half of a once-whole body, the straining of the soul's black horse to unite with the white"(McCarthy). Love is the reason the game must be played but it is loss that is how the game must be played. Loss, which can sometimes be confused by the opponent for love or the sadness of loss, is the trickery or trap that leads to an overall gain. All chess game traps consist of major pieces being lost. In pale fire the game had been won and it was the death of Shade that set up the trap for the game to be won.
Another topic of my paper will be the idea of combining the two halves so a new whole can be transformed. How a draw can be transformed into a win. That we allow ourselves to be tricked by what we perceive to be real.
My paper will also deal with the topic of the details of history and how knowing all the past moves will lead to a chess player making the right move. Going back to my chapter in Nabokov's Blues and page 306 where Nabokov is quoted saying "In high art and pure science detail is everything." and before this quote where they talk about connecting details to find the overall picture.
Now going back to the first line of this blog which I think is the solution to the missing crown jewels. The two Soviet professionals had come so close but were so far away blinded by the real world. It was the flaw of Eystein's painting that was the detail the Russians should have been looking at. The Picture contained the jewels it was art that has no real purpose that contained the most valued objects. True art is the answer not the goal, "the basic fact that "reality" is neither the subject nor the object of true art which creates its own special reality having nothing to do with the average "reality" perceived by the communal eye" (Nabokov).

The Butterfly as a Mirror 

"People have thought she tried to cross the lake at Lochan Neck where zesty skaters crossed from Exe to Wye on days of special frost. Others supposed she might have lost her way by turning left from Bridgeroad; and some say she took her poor young life. I know. You know."

As Mary McCarthy said in her essay "Love is the burden of Pale Fire, love and loss. Love is felt as a kind of homesickness, that yearning for union described by Plato, the pining for the other half of a once-whole body,"
Hazel shade looked at her reflection "Lady in the Lake" in the icy lake Omega. It was her yearning to cross the others side and unite the body that led her to cross the icy layer.
If we think of the butterfly as being split in half it resembles itself. The wings split by the thorax is like a the ice splitting the air and water or a window splitting the outside from inside.
This moment splits the poem and is where Shade goes from imagining the other wing to looking at the reflection of the ice, water, or hazel window pane. It is a reflection but all reflection have some difference or mole (Lines 737 - 766 say it all). At first glance at the butterfly above the two wings look the same but with a closer look we can see slight differences in the shades of colors especially closer to the outside of the wings. There has been no prof of crossing "The Land Beyond the Veil" but we can have a better explanation of the others side by paying attention to the details of the reflection we are looking at.
As the book as a whole one wing is the unfinished poem and the other is the commentary to the poem. It is our job to look at the details in both sides to find what the reflection is that has been seen by kinbote and Shade. Its working backwards but as is the life of the reader. Details are the imperfections of the reflection.

My Paper

For the topic of my paper I will stay away from chess as the model for this entire book. But I will go into a more specific role of chess and the solus rex or the king-in-the -corner, which is referring to King Charles or the last king of Zembla (the only black piece). I will compare the fall of his Regime to the French Rebellion of March 1830. Also Compare King Charles Xavier with the young king of France at the time Charles X, since their is many similarities. This will lead me to the line in the poem 894 "Sit like a king there, and like Marat bleed." This I believe is referring to Jean-Paul Marat, who was a doctor and journalist whose efforts where a main fuel for the French Revolution, who was murdered in his bath tub by Charlotte Corday or "the Angel of Assassination" (Just go up to line 891 for the tub reference). Marat was the leader of the Jacobin club which was the starters of the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution. The Reign of Terror was a violent battle between two rival political groups, the Jacobin and the Girodins. This really make me think about the connection with Jakob Gradus who symbolizes the violent movement of Zembla. I have not found out the connection with Corday maybe she is close to Sybil in her personality but that is about the extent of what I can find. But Something very interesting that I found about Charles X was that he was exiled just like Charles Xavier and one of his first political attempt as king was to re-establish male only primogeniture but it was turned down by the Chamber of Deputies. It was also said that Charles X was the most attractive of his family while his wife Marie was considered quite ugly.

After all my research tonight I am pretty confident that Kinbotes tale of Zembla represented or at least somewhat came from the French Revolution. I plan on doing a lot more research on the history and re-reading Pale Fire to find more similarities between the two.

Life is a game of Chess

This poem revolves around Shades daughter Hazel's death. The start of canto three right after the discovery of Hazel taking her own life is where shade start to think of I.P.H. (Institute of preparation for the hereafter) or the grand potato. There is a sense in canto three that Shade thinks there is no way we can imagine life after life. And as we discussed in class Shade is the great imaginer and if he can non imagine than no one can. He talks about all the ways that humans might measure the afterlife. Time which he says is always changing and means growth. But he disclaims this measurement by saying "Growth means nothing in Elysian life." He aslo proves wrong our measurement through sentiment. We might think the after life to be a great pond full of dreamy skies when actually it might just be a pond. He says that are human connection will never be the same because they are just not quite the same. But with all that said, Shade still has a romantic view of death and life and life before life. It is all a chess game. It is the excitement and strategie of life that is thrilling and we do not know what the other will do but we play the game anyway and make a move. For the best players in chess are the ones that appreciate the check mate even if it is to their own demise. An example of this is Shade at the end and also men like Steve Jobs and his words "oh wow, oh wow, oh wow."

A Circle

As far as the crown jewels are concerned the index does not help us find the secret location but more leads us in a never ending circle. But it does refer us to line 130 in the poem where Shade states "I never bounced a ball or swung a bat." I went back to Kinbotes commentary on the line where Kinbote states a false continuation of the line "As children playing in a castle find in some old closet full of toys, behind the animals and masks, a sliding door [four words heavily crossed out] a secret corridor." This makes it clear that the crown jewels have something to do with the princes discovery of the secret passage. Also I can not remember where in my notes I wrote, but Kinbote wrote that the secret passage leads outside Zembla which leads me to think it has something to do with the Russians and Taynik (which never gives us much of a def. besides a secret place but I believe that the location is contained in the "four words heavily crossed out").              
The title Pale Fire is some what of an oxymoron which seems to be the theme of the poem since there is so many contained in it. line 131-132 has one of the most important oxymorons which helps in the discovery of Shades killer. "I was the shadow of the waxing slain by feigned remoteness in the windowpane." Feigned remoteness is the oxymoron that should tell us the killer which I am guessing the reflection was in the windowpane but instead it leads us in circles. This is just like Kinbotes added line 1000 which is line one "I was the shadow of the waxing slain" Waxing refering to the bird that was killed. The third to last line which states "A man, unheedful of the butterfly-" (butterfly being Vennessa which I believe to be Sybil or maybe Hazel im just not sure, if we go back to line993. So all this confusion leads me to think that there was no killer but a Suicide. But....

If we go to a few more lines

177-181 "And finally there was the sleepless night when i decided to explore and fight the foul, the inadmissible abyss, Devoting all my twisted life to this one task. Today I'm sixty-one.Waxwings are berry-picking. A cicada sings."

726-727 "But Doctor, I was dead! He smiled. "Not quite: just half a shade," he said."

756 "Then, one day, I came across what seemed a twin display."

There was a day when someone the waxwing was sixty-one when a twin was born one being shade.
I believe that shade committed suicide like the dear Venessa or Hazel, but only half or one twin did the dead, which left half or the other twin to explain the unfinished poem.