"A dignified beat of the mandarin's fan"

Hi there, folks!

I'm quite new to the forum, actually premiering here with this very post, and I need your help with an excerpt from the foreword to Nabokov's Strong Opinions, written by Nabokov himself.

On the two opening paragraphs of his foreword, Nabokov talks about his poor abilities as speaker as opposed to being a writer. He says:

"I think like a genius, I write like a distinguished author and I speak like a child. Throughout my academic ascent in America, from lean lecturer to Full Professor, I have never delivered to my audience one scrap of information not prepared in typescript beforehand and not held under my eyes on the bright-lit lectern. My hemmings and hawings over the telephone cause long-distance callers to switch from their native English to pathetic French. At parties, if I attempt to entertain people with a good story, I have to go back to every other sentence for oral erasures and inserts. Even the dream I describe to my wife across the breakfast table is only a first draft.

In these circumstances nobody should ask me to submit to an interview if by 'interview' a chat between two normal human beings is implied. It has been tried at least twice in the old days, and once a recording machine was present, and when the tape was rerun and I had finished laughing, I knew that never in my life would I repeat that sort of performance. Nowadays I take every precaution to ensure a dignified beat of the mandarin's fan. The interviewer's questions have to be sent to me in writing, answered by me in writing, and reproduced verbatim. Such are the three absolute conditions."

I don't really get what he means by "dignified beat of the mandarin's fan". Actually I don't understand it at all. Beat in what sense?

Can anybody help me with this?

Cheers.
Viv

Nobody?

You'd be far better, and get more response posting in General Literature:

http://www.online-literature.com/for...isplay.php?f=4

This area's more news/human topic based than literature.

Beat in the sense of a firm measured movement, like a wing beat.

He, like a mandarin, is in a position of authority, and is determined to ensure that he appears to be dignified. He achieves this by keeping to the written word, of which he is master, and avoiding unscripted interviews in which he is incompetent.