Subject
Re: Sergei on split personalities in Pale Fire
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Sergei said: "There is great difference between using
multiple personalities as a valid plotting device.
and making ALL central characters parts of one."
Dear Sergei,
I was not, in my post, intending to support the notion that Shade had
multiple personalities (though I do, in fact, support that notion). I
was
simply responding to those who would dismiss CK's theory out-of-hand on
the
grounds that Nabokov would not have found multiple personalities to be
an
interesting plot device. The most conservative reading of the novel
takes
as a given that Kinbote is a personality stemming from V. Botkin. Thus,
when I said at the end of my post that "the only alternative is to
actually
believe that Kinbote really is the king of Zembla," I was trying to
argue
that this was the only reading of PF that would completely exclude the
concept of multiple personalities. I was not saying that this is the
only
alternative to CK's Shadean theory. Sorry for the confusion.
I'm a little late to this list, but I want to add that a student of
mine--I
am advisor for her senior honors thesis on PF--has been working for the
last
six months or so on a theory similar to Carolyn's. Given the discussion
here, I have encouraged her to post her theory to the list; I believe
she
will do so within the next few days.
Matthew Roth
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
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
multiple personalities as a valid plotting device.
and making ALL central characters parts of one."
Dear Sergei,
I was not, in my post, intending to support the notion that Shade had
multiple personalities (though I do, in fact, support that notion). I
was
simply responding to those who would dismiss CK's theory out-of-hand on
the
grounds that Nabokov would not have found multiple personalities to be
an
interesting plot device. The most conservative reading of the novel
takes
as a given that Kinbote is a personality stemming from V. Botkin. Thus,
when I said at the end of my post that "the only alternative is to
actually
believe that Kinbote really is the king of Zembla," I was trying to
argue
that this was the only reading of PF that would completely exclude the
concept of multiple personalities. I was not saying that this is the
only
alternative to CK's Shadean theory. Sorry for the confusion.
I'm a little late to this list, but I want to add that a student of
mine--I
am advisor for her senior honors thesis on PF--has been working for the
last
six months or so on a theory similar to Carolyn's. Given the discussion
here, I have encouraged her to post her theory to the list; I believe
she
will do so within the next few days.
Matthew Roth
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
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