Subject
VN's Self-Reference in Pale Fire
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<SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: times, serif" class=Apple-style-span>
[Jim Twiggs' post was apparently misplaced during the birthday
celebrations on Friday. Here it is now! -- SES]
Nick,
You mention the place at the end of the Commentary where Kinbote gives
way to "the old, happy, heterosexual Russian." I've always thought
there's a corresponding point near the end of Shade's poem. It comes
here, in lines 923-930:
Now I shall speak of evil as none has
Spoken before. I loathe such things as jazz;
The white-hosed moron torturing a black
Bull, rayed with red; abstractist bric-a-brac;
Primitivist folk-masks; progressive schools;
Music in supermarkets; swimming pools;
Brutes, bores, class-conscious <SPAN id=lw_1272209850_1
class=yshortcuts>Philistines, Freud, Marx
Fake thinkers, puffed-up poets, frauds and sharks.
<SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12px" class=Apple-style-span>
Everything after "I loathe" is not Shade but rather pure Nabokov--the VN
who speaks in interviews and critical essays and for whom Humbert often
provided the voice. But here it is such an obvious intrusion--as if
Shade had stopped writing and a pre-cut set of pet peeves had been
pasted in--that I assume it's VN's way of winking at us from behind the
character he's created and is now making fun of.
If, on the other hand, as many now are claiming, VN was trying in every
line to write the best poem he could write, then these lines strike me
as being among the weakest in the poem--weak because, if for no other
reason, they're downright silly.
It's worth remembering that VN did not always describe the poem in the
manner quoted in the article that Matt recently posted. In his letter to
Rust Hills dated March 23, 1961, offering the poem to Esquire, he said:
"If you want this poem despite its being rather racy and tricky, and
unpleasant, and bizarre, I must ask you to publish all four cantos."
Those are adjectives that some readers would prefer not to apply to
Shade's poem, though they obviously apply to the Commentary and to many
other of VN's works.
In any case, I was pleased to read Simon's query and your response. It's
good to know that someone besides Dowling is pursuing this line of
thought. The problem I've had when I've tried to follow it through is
that I can't keep my "ahh" from collapsing, finally, into my "duh" and I
find myself back where I started. It's too bad that Dowling himself, at
least as far as I know, has never published his promised second paper on
the subject.
Jim Twiggs
<HR SIZE=1>
From: Nick Greer <<SPAN id=lw_1272209850_2
class=yshortcuts>nicholas.t.greer@GOOGLEMAIL.COM>
To: <SPAN id=lw_1272209850_3 class=yshortcuts>NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Thu, April 22, 2010 10:55:07 PM
Subject: Re: [NABOKV-L] THOUGHTS: VN's Self-Reference in Pale Fire
Simon,
I gave a lot of attention to this theory during my third reading of PF
and ended up writing a paper investigating Nabokov's actual (duh) and
inset (ahh) authorship. My initial rationale was that between the veiled
but literal V. Botkin explanation, the ghostwriting Shadean & Kinbotean
explanations, and even the ghostly Hazel explanation, we as readers
could zoom out a meta-level and enjoy the question of authorship itself
as a pluralistic authorship rather than a competition between individual
explanations. The pluralstic view has one unified perspective,
Nabokov's. On the surface this observation seems trivial (i.e. Nabokov
is the author of PF so of course he has ultimate authorship, hence the
aforementioned 'duh'), but Nabokov makes deliberate gestures that give
this some weight.
The baldheaded suntanned professor in a Hawaiian shirt works
particularly well as far as an explicit inclusion. I also had Hurricane
Lolita and "a nymphet pirouetted" Here are some additional nuggets I
cite in support of this view:
<SPAN style="TEXT-DECORATION: underline"
class=Apple-style-span>Nabokov's unabashed "Russianness"
* Russian “was the fashionable language par excellence, much m* “<SPAN id=lw_1272209850_4 class=yshortcuts>Charles the Beloved[,]
could boast some Russian blood (p. 245 l. 681).
* An old world <SPAN id=lw_1272209850_5 class=yshortcuts>Russia “that
hated tyrants and Philistines, injustice and cruelty, the Russia of
ladies and gentlemen and liberal aspirations” (p. 245 l. 681).
* “Charles Xavier Vseslav,…, surnamed <SPAN id=lw_1272209850_6
class=yshortcuts>The Beloved” (p. 306), Charles' surname calls out
"slav."
* “Botkin, V., American scholar of Russian descent: (p. 306).
Considering the former bullet point, a likely choice is "Vseslav," but
the initialization allows for a nice insertion of "Vladimir."
<SPAN style="TEXT-DECORATION: underline"
class=Apple-style-span>Inclusions of Pnin
<BLOCKQUOTE style="BORDER-LEFT: rgb(204,204,204) 1px solid; MARGIN: 0px
0px 0px 0.8ex; PADDING-LEFT: 1ex" class=gmail_quote>“’You do know
Russian, though?’ said Pardon. ‘I think I heard you, the other day,
talking to - what's his name - oh, my goodness’ [laboriously composing
his lips].
Shade: ‘Sir, we all find it difficult to attack that name’ [laughing].
Professor Hurley: ‘Think of the French word for “tire”: punoo.’
Shade: ‘Why, Sir, I am afraid you have only punctured the difficulty’
[laughing uproariously].” (p. 268 l. 894)
* Pardon calls out Kinbote speaking with Pnin.
* Shade's use of "attack" is an ironic reference to how Nabokov as
narrator in Pnin, attacks Professor Pnin. It is also an acknowledgment
of the difficulty a lot of readers had with pronouncing "Pnin" when the
book was released. Both jokes are unique to Nabokov's perspective. Note
that Prof. Hurley pronounces it incorrectly as well.
<SPAN style="TEXT-DECORATION: underline" class=Apple-style-span>End of
the Commentary
<BLOCKQUOTE style="BORDER-LEFT: rgb(204,204,204) 1px solid; MARGIN: 0px
0px 0px 0.8ex; PADDING-LEFT: 1ex" class=gmail_quote>“I may assume other
disguises, other forms, but I shall try to exist. I may turn up yet, on
another campus, as an old, happy, healthy, heterosexual Russian, a
writer in exile, sans fame, sans future, sans audience, sans anything
but his art. I may join forces with Odon in a new motion picture: Escape
from Zembla (ball in the palace, bomb in the palace square). I may
pander to the simple tastes of theatrical critics and cook up a stage
play, an old-fashioned melodrama… History permitting, I may sail back to
my recovered kingdom, and with a great sob greet the gray coastline and
the gleam of a roof in the rain.” (p. 300-301 l. 1000)
* "[A]n old, happy, healthy, heterosexual Russian, a writer in exile,
sans fame, sans future, sans audience, sans anything but his art" is the
Nabokov we know.
* "I may join forces with Odon in a new motion picture: Escape from
Zembla[.]" A potential reference to his Lolita screenplay.
* "History permitting, I may sail back to my recovered kingdom, and with
a great sob greet the gray coastline and the gleam of a roof in the
rain." Nabokov forecasting his eventual relocation to Montreux?
I'd be curious if anybody else has notes on this topic. Thanks for
reading my patchwork commentary.
-Nick
P.S. Dowling on Pale Fire, great!
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/
[Jim Twiggs' post was apparently misplaced during the birthday
celebrations on Friday. Here it is now! -- SES]
Nick,
You mention the place at the end of the Commentary where Kinbote gives
way to "the old, happy, heterosexual Russian." I've always thought
there's a corresponding point near the end of Shade's poem. It comes
here, in lines 923-930:
Now I shall speak of evil as none has
Spoken before. I loathe such things as jazz;
The white-hosed moron torturing a black
Bull, rayed with red; abstractist bric-a-brac;
Primitivist folk-masks; progressive schools;
Music in supermarkets; swimming pools;
Brutes, bores, class-conscious <SPAN id=lw_1272209850_1
class=yshortcuts>Philistines, Freud, Marx
Fake thinkers, puffed-up poets, frauds and sharks.
<SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12px" class=Apple-style-span>
Everything after "I loathe" is not Shade but rather pure Nabokov--the VN
who speaks in interviews and critical essays and for whom Humbert often
provided the voice. But here it is such an obvious intrusion--as if
Shade had stopped writing and a pre-cut set of pet peeves had been
pasted in--that I assume it's VN's way of winking at us from behind the
character he's created and is now making fun of.
If, on the other hand, as many now are claiming, VN was trying in every
line to write the best poem he could write, then these lines strike me
as being among the weakest in the poem--weak because, if for no other
reason, they're downright silly.
It's worth remembering that VN did not always describe the poem in the
manner quoted in the article that Matt recently posted. In his letter to
Rust Hills dated March 23, 1961, offering the poem to Esquire, he said:
"If you want this poem despite its being rather racy and tricky, and
unpleasant, and bizarre, I must ask you to publish all four cantos."
Those are adjectives that some readers would prefer not to apply to
Shade's poem, though they obviously apply to the Commentary and to many
other of VN's works.
In any case, I was pleased to read Simon's query and your response. It's
good to know that someone besides Dowling is pursuing this line of
thought. The problem I've had when I've tried to follow it through is
that I can't keep my "ahh" from collapsing, finally, into my "duh" and I
find myself back where I started. It's too bad that Dowling himself, at
least as far as I know, has never published his promised second paper on
the subject.
Jim Twiggs
<HR SIZE=1>
From: Nick Greer <<SPAN id=lw_1272209850_2
class=yshortcuts>nicholas.t.greer@GOOGLEMAIL.COM>
To: <SPAN id=lw_1272209850_3 class=yshortcuts>NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Thu, April 22, 2010 10:55:07 PM
Subject: Re: [NABOKV-L] THOUGHTS: VN's Self-Reference in Pale Fire
Simon,
I gave a lot of attention to this theory during my third reading of PF
and ended up writing a paper investigating Nabokov's actual (duh) and
inset (ahh) authorship. My initial rationale was that between the veiled
but literal V. Botkin explanation, the ghostwriting Shadean & Kinbotean
explanations, and even the ghostly Hazel explanation, we as readers
could zoom out a meta-level and enjoy the question of authorship itself
as a pluralistic authorship rather than a competition between individual
explanations. The pluralstic view has one unified perspective,
Nabokov's. On the surface this observation seems trivial (i.e. Nabokov
is the author of PF so of course he has ultimate authorship, hence the
aforementioned 'duh'), but Nabokov makes deliberate gestures that give
this some weight.
The baldheaded suntanned professor in a Hawaiian shirt works
particularly well as far as an explicit inclusion. I also had Hurricane
Lolita and "a nymphet pirouetted" Here are some additional nuggets I
cite in support of this view:
<SPAN style="TEXT-DECORATION: underline"
class=Apple-style-span>Nabokov's unabashed "Russianness"
* Russian “was the fashionable language par excellence, much m* “<SPAN id=lw_1272209850_4 class=yshortcuts>Charles the Beloved[,]
could boast some Russian blood (p. 245 l. 681).
* An old world <SPAN id=lw_1272209850_5 class=yshortcuts>Russia “that
hated tyrants and Philistines, injustice and cruelty, the Russia of
ladies and gentlemen and liberal aspirations” (p. 245 l. 681).
* “Charles Xavier Vseslav,…, surnamed <SPAN id=lw_1272209850_6
class=yshortcuts>The Beloved” (p. 306), Charles' surname calls out
"slav."
* “Botkin, V., American scholar of Russian descent: (p. 306).
Considering the former bullet point, a likely choice is "Vseslav," but
the initialization allows for a nice insertion of "Vladimir."
<SPAN style="TEXT-DECORATION: underline"
class=Apple-style-span>Inclusions of Pnin
<BLOCKQUOTE style="BORDER-LEFT: rgb(204,204,204) 1px solid; MARGIN: 0px
0px 0px 0.8ex; PADDING-LEFT: 1ex" class=gmail_quote>“’You do know
Russian, though?’ said Pardon. ‘I think I heard you, the other day,
talking to - what's his name - oh, my goodness’ [laboriously composing
his lips].
Shade: ‘Sir, we all find it difficult to attack that name’ [laughing].
Professor Hurley: ‘Think of the French word for “tire”: punoo.’
Shade: ‘Why, Sir, I am afraid you have only punctured the difficulty’
[laughing uproariously].” (p. 268 l. 894)
* Pardon calls out Kinbote speaking with Pnin.
* Shade's use of "attack" is an ironic reference to how Nabokov as
narrator in Pnin, attacks Professor Pnin. It is also an acknowledgment
of the difficulty a lot of readers had with pronouncing "Pnin" when the
book was released. Both jokes are unique to Nabokov's perspective. Note
that Prof. Hurley pronounces it incorrectly as well.
<SPAN style="TEXT-DECORATION: underline" class=Apple-style-span>End of
the Commentary
<BLOCKQUOTE style="BORDER-LEFT: rgb(204,204,204) 1px solid; MARGIN: 0px
0px 0px 0.8ex; PADDING-LEFT: 1ex" class=gmail_quote>“I may assume other
disguises, other forms, but I shall try to exist. I may turn up yet, on
another campus, as an old, happy, healthy, heterosexual Russian, a
writer in exile, sans fame, sans future, sans audience, sans anything
but his art. I may join forces with Odon in a new motion picture: Escape
from Zembla (ball in the palace, bomb in the palace square). I may
pander to the simple tastes of theatrical critics and cook up a stage
play, an old-fashioned melodrama… History permitting, I may sail back to
my recovered kingdom, and with a great sob greet the gray coastline and
the gleam of a roof in the rain.” (p. 300-301 l. 1000)
* "[A]n old, happy, healthy, heterosexual Russian, a writer in exile,
sans fame, sans future, sans audience, sans anything but his art" is the
Nabokov we know.
* "I may join forces with Odon in a new motion picture: Escape from
Zembla[.]" A potential reference to his Lolita screenplay.
* "History permitting, I may sail back to my recovered kingdom, and with
a great sob greet the gray coastline and the gleam of a roof in the
rain." Nabokov forecasting his eventual relocation to Montreux?
I'd be curious if anybody else has notes on this topic. Thanks for
reading my patchwork commentary.
-Nick
P.S. Dowling on Pale Fire, great!
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/