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More on Pale Fire wiki?
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[EDNOTE. Jerry Friedman sends more information about PF on Wikipedia.
-- SES]
> It's already there: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Fire
I'd been working on that article a lot lately, which is one reason
I posted some queries about the book last week and have been so
involved in the present discussions.
Other people working on the Wikipedia article are always welcome!
For those who don't want to or can't edit it, I also welcome
comments on the article; post them here or e-mail them to me.
(I don't recognize any of the other contributors to the article
as participants in this list.) For instance, I added the sentence,
"The only consensus is that the book is unique," but I'm now
reconsidering--is there really such a consensus?
> See below fragment with reference to Botkin.
> Since Wikipedia content is writable by any registered user
(You don't even need to register.)
> with minimum
> moderation and not clear ownership (all there is log of changes with
> user id)
(Clearly no ownership.)
> I can see how proponents of different theories of authorship fight
> it
> out in their Text Editors. Just imagine all Shadean, Kinbotian,
> multi-personality disorder and other proponents out there, lurking in
> the
> dark. With current activity here that's going to become a fun project.
> Who knows, may be even ultimate Wikipedia page ;)
>
> - George Shimanovich
Indeed, it's fun to imagine that rather Kinbotean palimpsest,
but my opinion is that a /Pale Fire/ wiki would need some rules,
including that this list and scholarly journals and hotel bars
during conferences are the right places to carry out debates.
I can easily see articles on ghosts, the Shadean theory,
the Kinbotean, the Jekyll-and-Hydean, the Sybilline, etc., though.
Jerry Friedman
> Some readers, starting with Mary McCarthy[15] and including Boyd,
> Nabokov's
> annotator Alfred Appel,[16] and D. Barton Johnson,[17] see Charles
> Kinbote
> as an alter-ego of the insane Professor V. Botkin, to whose delusions
> John
> Shade and the rest of the faculty of Wordsmith College generally
> condescend.
> Nabokov himself endorsed this reading, writing in his diary in 1962
(the
> novel's year of publication) in case it was needed for an interview:
"I
> wonder if any reader will notice...that the nasty commentator is not
an
> ex-king and not even Dr. Kinbote, but Prof. Vseslav Botkin, a Russian
> and a
> madman."[18] (Some may regard this as another example of "authorial
> trespassing".[citation needed])
>
> Still other readers de-emphasize any sort of "real story" and may
doubt
> the
> existence of such a thing. In the interplay of allusions and thematic
> links,
> they find a picture of English literature,[14] criticism,[11] or some
> other topic.
>
> The only consensus is that the book is unique.
>
> [18]^ Quoted in Boyd (1991), p. 709
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
-- SES]
> It's already there: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Fire
I'd been working on that article a lot lately, which is one reason
I posted some queries about the book last week and have been so
involved in the present discussions.
Other people working on the Wikipedia article are always welcome!
For those who don't want to or can't edit it, I also welcome
comments on the article; post them here or e-mail them to me.
(I don't recognize any of the other contributors to the article
as participants in this list.) For instance, I added the sentence,
"The only consensus is that the book is unique," but I'm now
reconsidering--is there really such a consensus?
> See below fragment with reference to Botkin.
> Since Wikipedia content is writable by any registered user
(You don't even need to register.)
> with minimum
> moderation and not clear ownership (all there is log of changes with
> user id)
(Clearly no ownership.)
> I can see how proponents of different theories of authorship fight
> it
> out in their Text Editors. Just imagine all Shadean, Kinbotian,
> multi-personality disorder and other proponents out there, lurking in
> the
> dark. With current activity here that's going to become a fun project.
> Who knows, may be even ultimate Wikipedia page ;)
>
> - George Shimanovich
Indeed, it's fun to imagine that rather Kinbotean palimpsest,
but my opinion is that a /Pale Fire/ wiki would need some rules,
including that this list and scholarly journals and hotel bars
during conferences are the right places to carry out debates.
I can easily see articles on ghosts, the Shadean theory,
the Kinbotean, the Jekyll-and-Hydean, the Sybilline, etc., though.
Jerry Friedman
> Some readers, starting with Mary McCarthy[15] and including Boyd,
> Nabokov's
> annotator Alfred Appel,[16] and D. Barton Johnson,[17] see Charles
> Kinbote
> as an alter-ego of the insane Professor V. Botkin, to whose delusions
> John
> Shade and the rest of the faculty of Wordsmith College generally
> condescend.
> Nabokov himself endorsed this reading, writing in his diary in 1962
(the
> novel's year of publication) in case it was needed for an interview:
"I
> wonder if any reader will notice...that the nasty commentator is not
an
> ex-king and not even Dr. Kinbote, but Prof. Vseslav Botkin, a Russian
> and a
> madman."[18] (Some may regard this as another example of "authorial
> trespassing".[citation needed])
>
> Still other readers de-emphasize any sort of "real story" and may
doubt
> the
> existence of such a thing. In the interplay of allusions and thematic
> links,
> they find a picture of English literature,[14] criticism,[11] or some
> other topic.
>
> The only consensus is that the book is unique.
>
> [18]^ Quoted in Boyd (1991), p. 709
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