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If I may add another boulder to the mountain/fountain...
Tiffany DeRewal wrote:
...
> Like Kunin, I believe (and have been developing for my senior honors
> thesis)
> a Shadean theory in which Kinbote and Gradus are alternate
personalities
> of
> Shade's and I agree that Kinbote appeared when Shade had his October
17,
> 1958 heart attack.
>
> One key element of my theory concerns the nature of the Oct. 17
attack:
> I believe it was a reoccurrence of Shade's childhood disorder, the
> fainting
> fit that begins to occur when he is eleven (140-46). In Kinbote's
> commentary to the Oct. 17 account, he mentions "an alert doctor who as
I
> well know once confused neuralgia with cerebral sclerosis" (p. 250).
> Neuralgia is a basic term describing shooting pains along the nerve
> pathway
> that can be caused by a variety of injuries to the nerves, while
> cerebral
> sclerosis is a rare central nervous system disorder affecting
primarily
> children - in which the nerves disintegrate, causing dementia.
This prompted me to look up cerebral sclerosis on Google. I found
several types (tuberous, Schilder's, Balo's, and others), all
demyelinating diseases, all rare as you say (unless multiple
sclerosis is one, but I don't think anyone in the book has MS
as it was understood back then).
> Shade was
> misdiagnosed as a child with neuralgia (which often accompanies growth
> in children) when he actually had cerebral sclerosis.
The cerebral sclerotides I looked at often cause motor problems,
but it seems hard to believe that if Shade's motor problems were
caused by it, a doctor would have overlooked them.
It seems much more likely to me that some form of cerebral
sclerosis caused Kinbote's insanity and headaches. (I forget
where I read that--probably here.) He denies his insanity by
claiming that his headaches are neuralgia, even though Dr.
Ahlert told him they were symptoms of cerebral sclerosis.
> The disease led to
> deterioration of psychological faculties and development of dementia,
> and
> misdiagnosis and lack of treatment led Shade to suppress [or be
> conditioned
> out of] the effects of the disease until it resurfaced on October 17.
I'm with Sergei here. If only one could suppress those diseases
or be conditioned out of them!
...
> Kinbote is a projection, or expression of, Shade's perhaps of his
> suppressed
> desires. Every facet of the Kinbote narrative, thus, stems from
Shade's
> mind and can be traced to information that would have been a part of
> Shade's psyche (Zembla, as an obvious example.)
This is safe, as we have no way of knowing what could be in
Shade's psyche, but for the same reason it's not very convincing
to me. Are you thinking of any compelling examples of what's in
Shade's psyche?
> While Shade is composing the poem,
> he is trying to fight off the influence of the Kinbote personality.
He
> intentionally creates Gradus as another personality, a self-contained
> assassin intended to destroy the Kinbote personality. Shade can
> intentionally invent this new character by weaving him into the fabric
> of
> his poem; Kinbote comments on the power of art to render reality when
he
> points out "the basic fact that 'reality' is neither the subject nor
the
> object of true art which creates its own special reality by having
> nothing
> to do with the average 'reality' perceived by the communal eye" (p.
> 130).
I find this quotation very puzzling and interesting. I'd like
to point out that Nabokov can't endorse the whole thing on the
subject of literary art, because he uses Eystein's exact method
of incorporating real material in his composition, most notably
in inserting the long extract from Franklin Lane's last piece
of writing.
...
> A variety of points of evidence point to the existence of Kinbote
within
> Shade's mind, as well as the creation of Kinbote from the Oct. 17
> attack.
> For one, as Kinbote observes, "John Shade's heart attack (Oct. 17,
1958)
> practically coincided with the disguised king's arrival in America . .
> ."
> (p. 246). Kinbote drops in to New Wye, entering Shade's reality, on
the
> day
> of Shade's attack. In addition, the doctor who tends to Shade answers
> his
> "But, Doctor, I was dead!" with "Not quite: just half a shade"
> (727-28). He is now half-Shade: half himself, and half Kinbote.
Possibly a clue, but possibly just a clever pun connecting with
the theme of the afterlife.
> Shade is a Pope scholar, and Kinbote is a king from Zembla, a
> romanticized
> Utopia derived from Pope's "Essay on Man." Zembla's existence relies
> upon
> Shade's creation of it, as Kinbote notes, "the miracle of a few
written
> signs being able to contain immortal imagery, involutions of thought,
> new worlds with live people, speaking, weeping, laughing" (p. 289).
There's no clear connection to Zembla. If you do see such
a connection, Kinbote can as well be referring to himself as
to Shade.
> When Kinbote grasps the poem at Shade's "assassination," he quotes
Matthew
> Arnold's The Scholar Gypsy," a poem about a scholar traveling through
> the
> mountains, finding shelter in a barn which parallels Kinbote's escape
> from
> Zembla: "In a hat of antique shape, and cloak of gray." Moreover,
> Arnold's
> poem also mentions "a dark red-fruited yew-tree's shade" (140) like
the
> L'if of Canto Three (498). Also when Kinbote is grasping Shade's poem,
> he
> observes, "I was holding all Zembla pressed unto my heart" (p. 289).
I'm grateful to you and Matthew Roth for pointing out these
connections, but I don't see any relevance to Kinbote's identity.
> Evidence for the integration of Gradus as another personality within
the
> Shade psyche hinges on the origins of the name Gradus. In "Pale Fire"
> Shade
> references the art of counterpoint. Johann Fux's seminal 1725 text on
> the
> musical notion of counterpoint is entitled Gradus ad Parnassum (Step
by
> Step
> Up Mount Parnassus.) In it, he describes a counterpoint of "note
> against
> note in three parts," asserting that "three part composition is the
most
> perfect of all . . . one can have a complete harmonic triad" (71).
> Gradus,
> thus, is a necessary incorporation to Shade's work which, when
> incorporated with the input of his other personality, is the entirety
of
> Pale Fire.
>
> This is just a basic sketch of what I am looking into; I invite the
> queries and points of finer discussion offered by others.
How about objections?
In addition to the points of detail above and those Sergei noted,
I see, as I said to Carolyn Kunin, two very strong objections.
One is that you have to reject almost all of the book as Kinbote's
fantasy, but then I don't think you can rely on the few points you
use as clues (as that a doctor confused two diseases). That is,
unless you have some way of determining that one detail is real
among all those that aren't.
In other words, your theory may be "Shadean", but I think it
can't deal with one of the strongest arguments against the
Kinbotean theory: If Kinbote invented nearly everything, he's
so unreliable that nothing he says can be trusted and there's
no possibility of a "real story".
The other is that Nabokov's comments on the book seem incompatible
with your theory. Anthony Stadlen posted several from /Strong
Opinions/ on Oct. 10--if you missed them, you can see them in
the archive with the title "Re: [NABOKV-L] Replies from CK
(and note on index to SO)"--and I posted one from Boyd's
biography on the same day with the title "JF replies to CK's
reply".
Other objections of mine are in my post of Oct. 9 entitled
"JF against CK's theory". One is in keeping with Andrew
Brown's statement that it's just too complex. Occam's
razor is a dangerous tool to use on Nabokov's writings,
but the mental illness you impute to Shade piles one
elaboration on top of another without any precedent that
Carolyn could mention (or that I know of) in psychology
or literature.
I hope that I'm not damaging your thesis too much, that is,
that you can argue against the objections you think are
invalid and discuss those you think are valid, without running
out of time.
Jerry Friedman
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
Tiffany DeRewal wrote:
...
> Like Kunin, I believe (and have been developing for my senior honors
> thesis)
> a Shadean theory in which Kinbote and Gradus are alternate
personalities
> of
> Shade's and I agree that Kinbote appeared when Shade had his October
17,
> 1958 heart attack.
>
> One key element of my theory concerns the nature of the Oct. 17
attack:
> I believe it was a reoccurrence of Shade's childhood disorder, the
> fainting
> fit that begins to occur when he is eleven (140-46). In Kinbote's
> commentary to the Oct. 17 account, he mentions "an alert doctor who as
I
> well know once confused neuralgia with cerebral sclerosis" (p. 250).
> Neuralgia is a basic term describing shooting pains along the nerve
> pathway
> that can be caused by a variety of injuries to the nerves, while
> cerebral
> sclerosis is a rare central nervous system disorder affecting
primarily
> children - in which the nerves disintegrate, causing dementia.
This prompted me to look up cerebral sclerosis on Google. I found
several types (tuberous, Schilder's, Balo's, and others), all
demyelinating diseases, all rare as you say (unless multiple
sclerosis is one, but I don't think anyone in the book has MS
as it was understood back then).
> Shade was
> misdiagnosed as a child with neuralgia (which often accompanies growth
> in children) when he actually had cerebral sclerosis.
The cerebral sclerotides I looked at often cause motor problems,
but it seems hard to believe that if Shade's motor problems were
caused by it, a doctor would have overlooked them.
It seems much more likely to me that some form of cerebral
sclerosis caused Kinbote's insanity and headaches. (I forget
where I read that--probably here.) He denies his insanity by
claiming that his headaches are neuralgia, even though Dr.
Ahlert told him they were symptoms of cerebral sclerosis.
> The disease led to
> deterioration of psychological faculties and development of dementia,
> and
> misdiagnosis and lack of treatment led Shade to suppress [or be
> conditioned
> out of] the effects of the disease until it resurfaced on October 17.
I'm with Sergei here. If only one could suppress those diseases
or be conditioned out of them!
...
> Kinbote is a projection, or expression of, Shade's perhaps of his
> suppressed
> desires. Every facet of the Kinbote narrative, thus, stems from
Shade's
> mind and can be traced to information that would have been a part of
> Shade's psyche (Zembla, as an obvious example.)
This is safe, as we have no way of knowing what could be in
Shade's psyche, but for the same reason it's not very convincing
to me. Are you thinking of any compelling examples of what's in
Shade's psyche?
> While Shade is composing the poem,
> he is trying to fight off the influence of the Kinbote personality.
He
> intentionally creates Gradus as another personality, a self-contained
> assassin intended to destroy the Kinbote personality. Shade can
> intentionally invent this new character by weaving him into the fabric
> of
> his poem; Kinbote comments on the power of art to render reality when
he
> points out "the basic fact that 'reality' is neither the subject nor
the
> object of true art which creates its own special reality by having
> nothing
> to do with the average 'reality' perceived by the communal eye" (p.
> 130).
I find this quotation very puzzling and interesting. I'd like
to point out that Nabokov can't endorse the whole thing on the
subject of literary art, because he uses Eystein's exact method
of incorporating real material in his composition, most notably
in inserting the long extract from Franklin Lane's last piece
of writing.
...
> A variety of points of evidence point to the existence of Kinbote
within
> Shade's mind, as well as the creation of Kinbote from the Oct. 17
> attack.
> For one, as Kinbote observes, "John Shade's heart attack (Oct. 17,
1958)
> practically coincided with the disguised king's arrival in America . .
> ."
> (p. 246). Kinbote drops in to New Wye, entering Shade's reality, on
the
> day
> of Shade's attack. In addition, the doctor who tends to Shade answers
> his
> "But, Doctor, I was dead!" with "Not quite: just half a shade"
> (727-28). He is now half-Shade: half himself, and half Kinbote.
Possibly a clue, but possibly just a clever pun connecting with
the theme of the afterlife.
> Shade is a Pope scholar, and Kinbote is a king from Zembla, a
> romanticized
> Utopia derived from Pope's "Essay on Man." Zembla's existence relies
> upon
> Shade's creation of it, as Kinbote notes, "the miracle of a few
written
> signs being able to contain immortal imagery, involutions of thought,
> new worlds with live people, speaking, weeping, laughing" (p. 289).
There's no clear connection to Zembla. If you do see such
a connection, Kinbote can as well be referring to himself as
to Shade.
> When Kinbote grasps the poem at Shade's "assassination," he quotes
Matthew
> Arnold's The Scholar Gypsy," a poem about a scholar traveling through
> the
> mountains, finding shelter in a barn which parallels Kinbote's escape
> from
> Zembla: "In a hat of antique shape, and cloak of gray." Moreover,
> Arnold's
> poem also mentions "a dark red-fruited yew-tree's shade" (140) like
the
> L'if of Canto Three (498). Also when Kinbote is grasping Shade's poem,
> he
> observes, "I was holding all Zembla pressed unto my heart" (p. 289).
I'm grateful to you and Matthew Roth for pointing out these
connections, but I don't see any relevance to Kinbote's identity.
> Evidence for the integration of Gradus as another personality within
the
> Shade psyche hinges on the origins of the name Gradus. In "Pale Fire"
> Shade
> references the art of counterpoint. Johann Fux's seminal 1725 text on
> the
> musical notion of counterpoint is entitled Gradus ad Parnassum (Step
by
> Step
> Up Mount Parnassus.) In it, he describes a counterpoint of "note
> against
> note in three parts," asserting that "three part composition is the
most
> perfect of all . . . one can have a complete harmonic triad" (71).
> Gradus,
> thus, is a necessary incorporation to Shade's work which, when
> incorporated with the input of his other personality, is the entirety
of
> Pale Fire.
>
> This is just a basic sketch of what I am looking into; I invite the
> queries and points of finer discussion offered by others.
How about objections?
In addition to the points of detail above and those Sergei noted,
I see, as I said to Carolyn Kunin, two very strong objections.
One is that you have to reject almost all of the book as Kinbote's
fantasy, but then I don't think you can rely on the few points you
use as clues (as that a doctor confused two diseases). That is,
unless you have some way of determining that one detail is real
among all those that aren't.
In other words, your theory may be "Shadean", but I think it
can't deal with one of the strongest arguments against the
Kinbotean theory: If Kinbote invented nearly everything, he's
so unreliable that nothing he says can be trusted and there's
no possibility of a "real story".
The other is that Nabokov's comments on the book seem incompatible
with your theory. Anthony Stadlen posted several from /Strong
Opinions/ on Oct. 10--if you missed them, you can see them in
the archive with the title "Re: [NABOKV-L] Replies from CK
(and note on index to SO)"--and I posted one from Boyd's
biography on the same day with the title "JF replies to CK's
reply".
Other objections of mine are in my post of Oct. 9 entitled
"JF against CK's theory". One is in keeping with Andrew
Brown's statement that it's just too complex. Occam's
razor is a dangerous tool to use on Nabokov's writings,
but the mental illness you impute to Shade piles one
elaboration on top of another without any precedent that
Carolyn could mention (or that I know of) in psychology
or literature.
I hope that I'm not damaging your thesis too much, that is,
that you can argue against the objections you think are
invalid and discuss those you think are valid, without running
out of time.
Jerry Friedman
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