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From: "pynchon-l-digest" <owner-pynchon-l-digest@waste.org>
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Sent: Sunday, July 13, 2003 5:55 PM
Subject: pynchon-l-digest V2 #3402
>
> pynchon-l-digest Sunday, July 13 2003 Volume 02 : Number
3402
>
>
>
> Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2003 19:36:27 +1000
> From: jbor <jbor@bigpond.com>
> Subject: NPPF Preliminary: Pope
>
> Pope's 'Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady', an early masterpiece
of
> the poet's which relates the circumstances surrounding a young woman's
> suicide, contains much which resonates in _Pale Fire_. Note the first and
> final lines in particular, the lines relating to the "dim lights of life"
> and "eastern kings ... close confined in their own palace", those
> acknowledging that "Poets themselves must fall, like those they sung", and
> many more besides, as well as the general themes and mood:
>
> http://www.poetry-archive.com/p/elegy_to_the_memory.html
>
> See also Johnson's 'Life of Pope' for further possible correspondences and
> connections:
>
> http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/pope.html
>
> I think there is much in each of these texts which may have provided both
> inspiration and substance to VN for his composition of _Pale Fire_.
>
> best
>
> on 13/7/03 2:57 PM, jbor wrote:
>
> > it's worth recalling the prominence of Pope
> > throughout all facets of the text of _Pale Fire_.
>
>
> Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2003 09:59:31 -0400
> From: "Jasper Fidget" <jasper@hatguild.org>
> Subject: RE: NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> On
> > Behalf Of jbor
> >
> >
> > The other thing which doesn't quite gel for me is the assumption that
> > Nabokov was trying to conceal the fact of his own overall authorship of
> > the
> > novel, his ultimate "control" over the fiction. Plainly, he wasn't. The
> > puzzles of the text, and their ultimate answerability, answerabilities
or
> > unanswerability, are intentional ones. I think that in this respect
> > Nabokov
> > himself, and _Pale Fire in particular, probably stand at one of those
cusp
> > points between Modernism and postmodernism (see eg. McHale 1987, 1992),
> > and
> > that Nabokov still perceived the author's position -- his own
position --
> > in
> > respect to the text as one of preeminence, even though, admittedly, the
> > themes and structural complexities within the text do challenge and
> > problematise that whole relationship between "authorship" and
"authority".
> > I
> > don't think Nabokov sees this paradox as an issue. Thus, the question of
> > whether Shade or Kinbote or any other character could write "as well as"
> > Nabokov seems to me to be irrelevant. It is Nabokov who can write as
well
> > as
> > Nabokov: his characters are the *products* of his writing, not the
> > producers. Certainly, however, I can imagine his bemusement at the
> > critical
> > controversies surrounding the "authorship" of _Pale Fire_, and I can
> > imagine
> > his tongue firmly planted in his cheek when in interviews and memoirs he
> > subsequently referred to Kinbote or Shade as if they were real people.
> >
> > best
>
>
> Any framing of the novel is ultimately VN's, but it's a novel concerned
with
> characters in the process of not only living the story, but actively
writing
> it as well. While the argument can be made, and I think it should be,
that
> ultimately the clues in the text do point beyond Shade and Kinbote to VN
> himself, the novel at least ostensibly presents itself less as the
artifact
> of a novelist than as the combined artifact of its characters. Surely
then
> these creative acts in the story, their resultant text, and the identity
of
> their creators, are a matter worthy of concern, no?
>
> akaJasperFidget
>>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2003 11:33:16 -0400
> From: "Don Corathers" <gumbo@fuse.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> akaJasper:
>
> While the argument can be made, and I think it should be, that
> > ultimately the clues in the text do point beyond Shade and Kinbote to VN
> > himself, the novel at least ostensibly presents itself less as the
> artifact
> > of a novelist than as the combined artifact of its characters. Surely
> then
> > these creative acts in the story, their resultant text, and the identity
> of
> > their creators, are a matter worthy of concern, no?
> >
>
> Sure. And the question becomes more interesting because Shade's text is
> mediated through Kinbote. (If you accept that Shade wrote the poem and
> Kinbote edited it. I'm sure we'll be talking about other readings later,
but
> for now let's just assume for the sake of discussion that Kinbote exists.)
>
> Kinbote, who almost certainly would not have had any involvement in
> preparing the poem for publication under different circumstances,
> essentially steals the manuscript, imposes a contract of dubious equity on
> the bereaved widow, and holes up in a backwoods hideout to edit it. He is
> not just an unreliable narrator, he is deranged, and he may be an
unreliable
> or even malicious editor. He does, after all, confess to fabricating two
> lines from what he claims is Shade's draft, assuring us "it is the _only_
> time in the course of the writing of these difficult comments, that I have
> tarried, in my distress and disappointment, on the brink of
falsification."
> (p 228) Well, maybe.
>
> So yeah, the internal authorship questions are crucial. And fascinating.
>
> Don Corathers
>
> >
> > >
>
>
>
> >
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2003 10:27:06 -0700
> From: "s~Z" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> Subject: NPPF: Shade's Poem
>
> chtodel@cox.net writes:
>
> >>>All that said, this section of Shade's poem, juxtaposing his ablutions
> with his poetic pretensions and methods, is a prime example of the
> poet's self-indulgent banality, and thus of Nabokov's satiric intent,<<<
>
> Surely this is nonsense! It is a prime example of the poet's self-irony,
> as Nabokov imagines Shade.
>
> Anthony Stadlen
> STADLEN@AOL.COM
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 04:06:23 +1000
> From: jbor <jbor@bigpond.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> on 13/7/03 11:59 PM, Jasper Fidget wrote:
>
> > Any framing of the novel is ultimately VN's, but it's a novel concerned
with
> > characters in the process of not only living the story, but actively
writing
> > it as well. While the argument can be made, and I think it should be,
that
> > ultimately the clues in the text do point beyond Shade and Kinbote to VN
> > himself, the novel at least ostensibly presents itself less as the
artifact
> > of a novelist than as the combined artifact of its characters. Surely
then
> > these creative acts in the story, their resultant text, and the identity
of
> > their creators, are a matter worthy of concern, no?
>
> Of course. But they're questions of plot rather than of authorship.
>
> best
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 04:29:07 +1000
> From: jbor <jbor@bigpond.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF: Shade's Poem
>
> >> All that said, this section of Shade's poem, juxtaposing his ablutions
> >> with his poetic pretensions and methods, is a prime example of the
> >> poet's self-indulgent banality, and thus of Nabokov's satiric
intent,<<<
> >
> > Surely this is nonsense! It is a prime example of the poet's
self-irony,
> > as Nabokov imagines Shade.
> >
> > Anthony Stadlen
> > STADLEN@AOL.COM
>
> It's the affectation of it -- the "self-irony" -- which *is*
self-indulgent
> and banal.
>
> My Adam's Apple is a prickly pear:
> Now I shall speak of evil and despair
>
> It's doggerel. Laughably so.
>
> best
>
> ------------------------------
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2003 16:16:11 EDT
> From: MalignD@aol.com
> Subject: Re: NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> - --part1_4d.323ce643.2c43180b_boundary
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>
> <<I don't know that this is a particularly convincing argument. I'm sure
that
> Alexander Pope was proud of his 'The Rape of the Lock' as well, and that
he
> read it aloud on occasion; and it's worth recalling the prominence of Pope
> throughout all facets of the text of _Pale Fire_. A satiric poem such as
Pope's
> can be, and certainly is regarded as, a "great" one, and it's not at all
> inconsistent or implausible to imagine that Nabokov put much creative
effort into the
> composition of the poem by his "invented" poet, and that he was pleased
with
> the results, but that he still intended it to be a satire.>>
>
> Pope has always seemed the touchstone here and Rape of the Lock is a good
> guess as to Nabokov's intended tone.
>
> <<The other thing which doesn't quite gel for me is the assumption that
> Nabokov was trying to conceal the fact of his own overall authorship of
the novel,
> his ultimate "control" over the fiction. plainly, he wasn't. The puzzles
of
> the text, and their ultimate answerability, answerabilities or
> unanswerability, are intentional ones. >>
>
> I'm not sure I'm with you. this seems at odds with:
>
> <<... Nabokov still perceived the author's position -- his own position --
in
> respect to the text as one of preeminence, even though, admittedly, the
> themes and structural complexities within the text do challenge and
problematise
> that whole relationship between "authorship" and "authority". I don't
think
> Nabokov sees this paradox as an issue. Thus, the question of whether Shade
or
> Kinbote or any other character could write "as well as" Nabokov seems to
me to be
> irrelevant. It is Nabokov who can write as well as Nabokov: >>
>
> Here I'm not so sure. This point has been raised (not originally by me)
in
> the context of suspended disbelief. In brief, one reads first-person
novels
> (the example given, The Great Gatsby) and readily suspends disbelief;
i.e.,
> the disbelief that Nick Carroway could write as well as Fitzgerald. But
in
> Pale Fire, the question of the quality of the poem and of the writers of
the Poem
> and the Commentary (Kinbote and Shade), are pertinent to the novel itself.
> Boyd, for example, believes the poem first-rate and much of his analysis
of
> the novel, indeed the entirety, I would say, of his first, now rejected,
> explanation of Shade as creator of Kinbote and author of the entirety of
Pale Fire
> (poem and commentary) would have been impossible but for the idea that
Shade
> could have created Kinbote, but the opposite would be quite impossible.
> However, Richard Rorty argued that the poem is second-rate and that
Kinbote, despite
> his madness, writes like Nabokov and thus Kinbote could have created Shade
and
> not the opposite.
>
> We can go into this--the question of authorship within the novel; it's
> endlessy interesting--further, but the idea that Nabokov was indifferent
to this and
> simply wrote as himself in the Commentary is not an argument I'm ready to
> accept.
>
>> Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2003 16:38:14 EDT
> From: MalignD@aol.com
> Subject: Pale Fire: VN, TP, and film
>
> - --part1_140.15630afc.2c431d36_boundary
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>
> ynchon's use of film in his novels is hardly in need of mentioning. An
> early essay on GR by a man named Lippman (Bertram?) called "The Reader of
the
> Movies,"--I'll give a full cite when I track it down (The Denver
Quarterly?), or
> someone else may have it-- is a useful reference.
>
> Alfred Appel wrote this about VN:
>
> Nabokov's novels abound in the slapstick elements, the cosmic sight gags,
as
> it were, of Keaton, Clair, Laurel and Hardy, and the Marx Brothers. Pale
> Fire's kingdom of Zembla recalls the funhouse place of Duck Soup (1933),
with its
> ludicrous functionaries, uniformed guards and mirror walls, as well as the
> sequence in A Night at the Opera in which, managed by Groucho, the others
> disguise themselves as the three identically bearded Russian aviators,
Chicoski,
> Harpotski, and Baronoff. Witness Kinbote in Pale Fire as King Charles,
modestly
> "lectur[ing] under an assumed name and in a heavy makeup, with wig and
false
> whiskers (his real, immense, American-grown beard will earn him his
sobriquet,
> The Great Beaver), or the vision of him making his escape from Zembla,
> abetted by a hundred loyalists who, in a brilliant diversionary ploy, don
red caps
> and sweaters identical to the King's , in their apprehension packing the
local
> prison, which is "much too small for more kings" (shades of A Night at the
> Opera's crowded cabin!). The activities of The Shadows, that regicidal
> organization of stooges, recall Mack Sennett's Keystone Cops, and "The
Shadows"
> grotesque, bumbling, but lethal agent, assassin Gradus, is a vaudevillian,
jet-age
> Angel of Death, imagined as "always streaking across the sky with black
> traveling bag in one hand and loosely folded umbrella in the other, in a
sustained
> glide high over sea and land." And in The Defense (1930), Luzhin's means
of
> suicide is suggested to him by a movie still, lying on a table, showing "a
> white-faced man with his lifeless features and big American glasses,
hanging by his
> hands from the ledge of a skyscraper--just about to fall off into the
> abyss"--the most famous scene in Harold Lloyd's Safety Last (1923). I
trust you
> have enjoyed this note, to paraphrase, a comment made by Kinbote under
very
> different circumstances.
>> Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2003 21:34:19 +0100
> From: "Burns, Erik" <Erik.Burns@dowjones.com>
> Subject: NPPF: preliminary - epigraph
>
> Foax:
>
> jbor wrote:
>
> >And Kinbote certainly expresses strong opinions
> >about those "scholars" who he sees as "blockheads".
>
> A-and someone asked if there was any _Lot 49_ criticism that connected it
to
> _PF_ -- well, I don't know the answer to that one (I'm just a blockhead,
not
> an academic) but we can always generate some.
>
> To wit:
>
> "Among them ['those dear daft numina who'd mothered over Oedipa's so
> temperate youth'] they had managed to turn the young Oedipa into a rare
> creature indeed, unfit perhaps for marches and sit ins, but just a whiz at
> pursuing strange words in Jacobean texts." (_Lot 49,_ pp 71-72, Viking UK
> edition, 2000).
>
> Oed's no hippie, she's an _academic_ (speak with sneer).
>
> Meanwhile, in _Lot 49_ Pynchon also displays the sneering attitude to
Freud
> and pyschoanalysis that Nabokov famously also displayed (and not only in
> naming his main character for a famous disorder's mad king (yet another PF
> echo!)):
>
> "'I came,' she [Oedipa] said, 'hoping you could talk me out of a fantasy'
> 'Cherish it!' cried Hilarius, fiercely. 'What else do any of you have?
Hold
> it tightly by its little tentacle, don't let the Freudians coax it away or
> the pharmacists poison it out of you. Whatever it is, hold it dear, for
when
> you lose it you go over by that much to the others. You begin to cease to
> be.'" (pp 95-96, same edition)
>
> Seems to me, that ways lies Kinboteville, with its amusement parks and log
> cabins.
>
> (cf. VN's _Speak Memory_, (re. the "Viennese Quack"): "We will leave him
and
> his fellow travelers to jog on, in their third-class carriage of thought,
> through the police state of sexual myth (incidentally, what a great
mistake
> of the part of dictators to ignore psychoanalysis -- a whole generation
> might be so easily corrupted that way!)." (found here
>
http://www.dutchgirl.com/foxpaws/biographies/O_Window_in_the_Dark!/nabokovap
> pendixe.html, with a ton of other VN/Freud comments, all of them unkind.)
>
> Finally, my inner Kinbote hears an echo of Zembla and its King in this:
>
> "She remembered drifters she had listened to, Americans speaking their
> language carefully, scholarly, as if they were in exile from somewhere
else
> invisible yet congruent with the cheered land she lived in ... [big snip
of
> gorgeous scary writing about America & Tristero] ...Another mode of
meaning
> behind the obvious, or none. Either Oedipa in the orbiting ecstasy of a
true
> paranoia, or a real Tristero. For there either was some Tristero beyond
the
> appearance of the legacy America, or there was just America and if there
was
> just America then it seemed the only way she could continue, and manage to
> be at all relevant to it, was an alien, unfurrowed, assumed full circle
into
> some paranoia." (pp 125-126, same edition)
>
> As I tried to argue yesterday, I think there are certainly affinities
> between Kinbote & Oedipa -- they are at different phases of madness (he's
> gone, she's nearing the cusp). This does not an influence make, surely not
a
> direct one, but it raises the probability of familiarity, sure - and
> interest.
>
> etb
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2003 14:00:27 -0700
> From: "s~Z" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> >>>Pope has always seemed the touchstone here and Rape of the Lock is a
good
> guess as to Nabokov's intended tone.<<<
>
> And a subtitle for the poem Pale Fire could be "The Rape of the Shade"
> couldn't it? Doesn't the imagery of the first two Cantos suggest Aunt Maud
> forced Shade to quench her thirst with his pure tongue? Isn't the truth
> being hidden from him, not so much truth about survival after death, but
the
> truth that his memory has dimmed regarding being forced to orally pleasure
> Aunt Maud? My favorite references are how his childish palate loved the
> taste/Half-fish, half-honey, of that golden paste (nature's glue, lines
> 103-5), -- the cryptic erotic description of lines 147-156, "How ludicrous
> these efforts to translate/Into one's private tongue a public fate!"
(lines
> 231-2) and
>
> Life is a message scribbled in the dark.
> Anonymous.
> Espied on a pine's bark.
> As we were walking home the day she died,
> An empty emerald case, squat and frog-eyed,
> Hugging the trunk; and its companion piece,
> A gum-logged ant. (235-40)
>
> Aunt Maud = a 'gum'-logged aunt.
>
> Ant = insect
> Aunt = incest
>
>
>
>>
> Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 10:57:26 +1000
> From: jbor <jbor@bigpond.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> >>... Nabokov still perceived the author's position -- his own position --
in
> >> respect to the text as one of preeminence, even though, admittedly, the
> themes
> >> and structural complexities within the text do challenge and
problematise
> that
> >> whole relationship between "authorship" and "authority". I don't think
> Nabokov
> >> sees this paradox as an issue. Thus, the question of whether Shade or
Kinbote
> >> or any other character could write "as well as" Nabokov seems to me to
be
> >> irrelevant. It is Nabokov who can write as well as Nabokov:
>
> on 14/7/03 6:16 AM, MalignD@aol.com at MalignD@aol.com wrote:
>
> > Here I'm not so sure. This point has been raised (not originally by
me) in
> > the context of suspended disbelief. In brief, one reads first-person
novels
> > (the example given, The Great Gatsby) and readily suspends disbelief;
i.e.,
> > the disbelief that Nick Carroway could write as well as Fitzgerald.
But in
> > Pale Fire, the question of the quality of the poem and of the writers of
the
> > Poem and the Commentary (Kinbote and Shade), are pertinent to the novel
> > itself.
>
> There are questions around Nick's personal relationships and involvement
in
> the events of the narrative to do with his reliability, prejudices etc as
> narrator as well, of course. We view Gatsby and Daisy sympathetically
> because he does; his estrangement from Tom and Jordan colours the way they
> are portrayed; there's attitude towards the Wilsons, Meyer Wolfsheim etc.
> Sure, some of this might be down to Fitzgerald's own biases, but there's
not
> a 1:1 alignment between Carraway and his author either. There are moments
> when we get glimpses of the characters and events in the novel from a
> vantage point which is outside of Nick's, and the perspectives which
emerge
> at these moments are altered from those which Nick gives us. And we do get
a
> definite sense of Nick as character also. It's not really so different
from
> what Nabokov is doing in _Pale Fire_.
>
> While I agree that the "quality" of Shade's poem is worth discussing, I
> would say that this aspect of it is also down to Nabokov. Critical
arguments
> based on whether Shade or Kinbote could write "as well as" Nabokov, such
as
> those made in the essay Jasper posted, seem irrelevant, was my point.
>
> > Boyd, for example, believes the poem first-rate and much of his
> > analysis of the novel, indeed the entirety, I would say, of his first,
now
> > rejected, explanation of Shade as creator of Kinbote and author of the
> > entirety of Pale Fire (poem and commentary) would have been impossible
but for
> > the idea that Shade could have created Kinbote, but the opposite would
be
> > quite impossible.
>
> I'm inclined to reject this idea. I don't think the poem is "first-rate"
in
> itself. I do think it's a first-rate parody of a type of pseudo-Eliotesque
> bombast, however. In that sense, it's Nabokov's poem, rather than Shade's,
> which might be called "first-rate". I also don't buy either of the "Shade
> creates Kinbote" or "Kinbote creates Shade" arguments, but I haven't yet
> seen these cases elaborated, and I guess the evidence will present itself
as
> we venture into the text further with the group read.
>
> > However, Richard Rorty argued that the poem is second-rate
> > and that Kinbote, despite his madness, writes like Nabokov and thus
Kinbote
> > could have created Shade and not the opposite.
> >
> > We can go into this--the question of authorship within the novel; it's
> > endlessy interesting--further, but the idea that Nabokov was indifferent
to
> > this and simply wrote as himself in the Commentary is not an argument
I'm
> > ready to accept.
>
> No, that's not what I've said at all. I don't understand why the obvious
> possibility, that Nabokov created both Shade and Kinbote as separate and
> independent characters, and consciously endowed them with the particular
> artistic, critical, intellectual, emotional etc talents and foibles they
> present with, and that (Nabokov's) Shade wrote the poem and (Nabokov's)
> Kinbote the Foreword and Commentary, has been discarded. To take any one
of
> the four propositions offered in the essay Jasper linked just one short
> (logical) step further -- How could Shade, or Kinbote, or Kinbote
channeling
> Shade's ghost, or Botkin, manage to get the text, as it stands, past the
> publisher? They couldn't. Only Nabokov could.
>
> best
>
> ------------------------------
>
> End of pynchon-l-digest V2 #3402
> ********************************
From: "pynchon-l-digest" <owner-pynchon-l-digest@waste.org>
To: <pynchon-l-digest@waste.org>
Sent: Sunday, July 13, 2003 5:55 PM
Subject: pynchon-l-digest V2 #3402
>
> pynchon-l-digest Sunday, July 13 2003 Volume 02 : Number
3402
>
>
>
> Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2003 19:36:27 +1000
> From: jbor <jbor@bigpond.com>
> Subject: NPPF Preliminary: Pope
>
> Pope's 'Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady', an early masterpiece
of
> the poet's which relates the circumstances surrounding a young woman's
> suicide, contains much which resonates in _Pale Fire_. Note the first and
> final lines in particular, the lines relating to the "dim lights of life"
> and "eastern kings ... close confined in their own palace", those
> acknowledging that "Poets themselves must fall, like those they sung", and
> many more besides, as well as the general themes and mood:
>
> http://www.poetry-archive.com/p/elegy_to_the_memory.html
>
> See also Johnson's 'Life of Pope' for further possible correspondences and
> connections:
>
> http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/pope.html
>
> I think there is much in each of these texts which may have provided both
> inspiration and substance to VN for his composition of _Pale Fire_.
>
> best
>
> on 13/7/03 2:57 PM, jbor wrote:
>
> > it's worth recalling the prominence of Pope
> > throughout all facets of the text of _Pale Fire_.
>
>
> Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2003 09:59:31 -0400
> From: "Jasper Fidget" <jasper@hatguild.org>
> Subject: RE: NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> On
> > Behalf Of jbor
> >
> >
> > The other thing which doesn't quite gel for me is the assumption that
> > Nabokov was trying to conceal the fact of his own overall authorship of
> > the
> > novel, his ultimate "control" over the fiction. Plainly, he wasn't. The
> > puzzles of the text, and their ultimate answerability, answerabilities
or
> > unanswerability, are intentional ones. I think that in this respect
> > Nabokov
> > himself, and _Pale Fire in particular, probably stand at one of those
cusp
> > points between Modernism and postmodernism (see eg. McHale 1987, 1992),
> > and
> > that Nabokov still perceived the author's position -- his own
position --
> > in
> > respect to the text as one of preeminence, even though, admittedly, the
> > themes and structural complexities within the text do challenge and
> > problematise that whole relationship between "authorship" and
"authority".
> > I
> > don't think Nabokov sees this paradox as an issue. Thus, the question of
> > whether Shade or Kinbote or any other character could write "as well as"
> > Nabokov seems to me to be irrelevant. It is Nabokov who can write as
well
> > as
> > Nabokov: his characters are the *products* of his writing, not the
> > producers. Certainly, however, I can imagine his bemusement at the
> > critical
> > controversies surrounding the "authorship" of _Pale Fire_, and I can
> > imagine
> > his tongue firmly planted in his cheek when in interviews and memoirs he
> > subsequently referred to Kinbote or Shade as if they were real people.
> >
> > best
>
>
> Any framing of the novel is ultimately VN's, but it's a novel concerned
with
> characters in the process of not only living the story, but actively
writing
> it as well. While the argument can be made, and I think it should be,
that
> ultimately the clues in the text do point beyond Shade and Kinbote to VN
> himself, the novel at least ostensibly presents itself less as the
artifact
> of a novelist than as the combined artifact of its characters. Surely
then
> these creative acts in the story, their resultant text, and the identity
of
> their creators, are a matter worthy of concern, no?
>
> akaJasperFidget
>>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2003 11:33:16 -0400
> From: "Don Corathers" <gumbo@fuse.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> akaJasper:
>
> While the argument can be made, and I think it should be, that
> > ultimately the clues in the text do point beyond Shade and Kinbote to VN
> > himself, the novel at least ostensibly presents itself less as the
> artifact
> > of a novelist than as the combined artifact of its characters. Surely
> then
> > these creative acts in the story, their resultant text, and the identity
> of
> > their creators, are a matter worthy of concern, no?
> >
>
> Sure. And the question becomes more interesting because Shade's text is
> mediated through Kinbote. (If you accept that Shade wrote the poem and
> Kinbote edited it. I'm sure we'll be talking about other readings later,
but
> for now let's just assume for the sake of discussion that Kinbote exists.)
>
> Kinbote, who almost certainly would not have had any involvement in
> preparing the poem for publication under different circumstances,
> essentially steals the manuscript, imposes a contract of dubious equity on
> the bereaved widow, and holes up in a backwoods hideout to edit it. He is
> not just an unreliable narrator, he is deranged, and he may be an
unreliable
> or even malicious editor. He does, after all, confess to fabricating two
> lines from what he claims is Shade's draft, assuring us "it is the _only_
> time in the course of the writing of these difficult comments, that I have
> tarried, in my distress and disappointment, on the brink of
falsification."
> (p 228) Well, maybe.
>
> So yeah, the internal authorship questions are crucial. And fascinating.
>
> Don Corathers
>
> >
> > >
>
>
>
> >
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2003 10:27:06 -0700
> From: "s~Z" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> Subject: NPPF: Shade's Poem
>
> chtodel@cox.net writes:
>
> >>>All that said, this section of Shade's poem, juxtaposing his ablutions
> with his poetic pretensions and methods, is a prime example of the
> poet's self-indulgent banality, and thus of Nabokov's satiric intent,<<<
>
> Surely this is nonsense! It is a prime example of the poet's self-irony,
> as Nabokov imagines Shade.
>
> Anthony Stadlen
> STADLEN@AOL.COM
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 04:06:23 +1000
> From: jbor <jbor@bigpond.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> on 13/7/03 11:59 PM, Jasper Fidget wrote:
>
> > Any framing of the novel is ultimately VN's, but it's a novel concerned
with
> > characters in the process of not only living the story, but actively
writing
> > it as well. While the argument can be made, and I think it should be,
that
> > ultimately the clues in the text do point beyond Shade and Kinbote to VN
> > himself, the novel at least ostensibly presents itself less as the
artifact
> > of a novelist than as the combined artifact of its characters. Surely
then
> > these creative acts in the story, their resultant text, and the identity
of
> > their creators, are a matter worthy of concern, no?
>
> Of course. But they're questions of plot rather than of authorship.
>
> best
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 04:29:07 +1000
> From: jbor <jbor@bigpond.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF: Shade's Poem
>
> >> All that said, this section of Shade's poem, juxtaposing his ablutions
> >> with his poetic pretensions and methods, is a prime example of the
> >> poet's self-indulgent banality, and thus of Nabokov's satiric
intent,<<<
> >
> > Surely this is nonsense! It is a prime example of the poet's
self-irony,
> > as Nabokov imagines Shade.
> >
> > Anthony Stadlen
> > STADLEN@AOL.COM
>
> It's the affectation of it -- the "self-irony" -- which *is*
self-indulgent
> and banal.
>
> My Adam's Apple is a prickly pear:
> Now I shall speak of evil and despair
>
> It's doggerel. Laughably so.
>
> best
>
> ------------------------------
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2003 16:16:11 EDT
> From: MalignD@aol.com
> Subject: Re: NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> - --part1_4d.323ce643.2c43180b_boundary
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>
> <<I don't know that this is a particularly convincing argument. I'm sure
that
> Alexander Pope was proud of his 'The Rape of the Lock' as well, and that
he
> read it aloud on occasion; and it's worth recalling the prominence of Pope
> throughout all facets of the text of _Pale Fire_. A satiric poem such as
Pope's
> can be, and certainly is regarded as, a "great" one, and it's not at all
> inconsistent or implausible to imagine that Nabokov put much creative
effort into the
> composition of the poem by his "invented" poet, and that he was pleased
with
> the results, but that he still intended it to be a satire.>>
>
> Pope has always seemed the touchstone here and Rape of the Lock is a good
> guess as to Nabokov's intended tone.
>
> <<The other thing which doesn't quite gel for me is the assumption that
> Nabokov was trying to conceal the fact of his own overall authorship of
the novel,
> his ultimate "control" over the fiction. plainly, he wasn't. The puzzles
of
> the text, and their ultimate answerability, answerabilities or
> unanswerability, are intentional ones. >>
>
> I'm not sure I'm with you. this seems at odds with:
>
> <<... Nabokov still perceived the author's position -- his own position --
in
> respect to the text as one of preeminence, even though, admittedly, the
> themes and structural complexities within the text do challenge and
problematise
> that whole relationship between "authorship" and "authority". I don't
think
> Nabokov sees this paradox as an issue. Thus, the question of whether Shade
or
> Kinbote or any other character could write "as well as" Nabokov seems to
me to be
> irrelevant. It is Nabokov who can write as well as Nabokov: >>
>
> Here I'm not so sure. This point has been raised (not originally by me)
in
> the context of suspended disbelief. In brief, one reads first-person
novels
> (the example given, The Great Gatsby) and readily suspends disbelief;
i.e.,
> the disbelief that Nick Carroway could write as well as Fitzgerald. But
in
> Pale Fire, the question of the quality of the poem and of the writers of
the Poem
> and the Commentary (Kinbote and Shade), are pertinent to the novel itself.
> Boyd, for example, believes the poem first-rate and much of his analysis
of
> the novel, indeed the entirety, I would say, of his first, now rejected,
> explanation of Shade as creator of Kinbote and author of the entirety of
Pale Fire
> (poem and commentary) would have been impossible but for the idea that
Shade
> could have created Kinbote, but the opposite would be quite impossible.
> However, Richard Rorty argued that the poem is second-rate and that
Kinbote, despite
> his madness, writes like Nabokov and thus Kinbote could have created Shade
and
> not the opposite.
>
> We can go into this--the question of authorship within the novel; it's
> endlessy interesting--further, but the idea that Nabokov was indifferent
to this and
> simply wrote as himself in the Commentary is not an argument I'm ready to
> accept.
>
>> Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2003 16:38:14 EDT
> From: MalignD@aol.com
> Subject: Pale Fire: VN, TP, and film
>
> - --part1_140.15630afc.2c431d36_boundary
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> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>
> ynchon's use of film in his novels is hardly in need of mentioning. An
> early essay on GR by a man named Lippman (Bertram?) called "The Reader of
the
> Movies,"--I'll give a full cite when I track it down (The Denver
Quarterly?), or
> someone else may have it-- is a useful reference.
>
> Alfred Appel wrote this about VN:
>
> Nabokov's novels abound in the slapstick elements, the cosmic sight gags,
as
> it were, of Keaton, Clair, Laurel and Hardy, and the Marx Brothers. Pale
> Fire's kingdom of Zembla recalls the funhouse place of Duck Soup (1933),
with its
> ludicrous functionaries, uniformed guards and mirror walls, as well as the
> sequence in A Night at the Opera in which, managed by Groucho, the others
> disguise themselves as the three identically bearded Russian aviators,
Chicoski,
> Harpotski, and Baronoff. Witness Kinbote in Pale Fire as King Charles,
modestly
> "lectur[ing] under an assumed name and in a heavy makeup, with wig and
false
> whiskers (his real, immense, American-grown beard will earn him his
sobriquet,
> The Great Beaver), or the vision of him making his escape from Zembla,
> abetted by a hundred loyalists who, in a brilliant diversionary ploy, don
red caps
> and sweaters identical to the King's , in their apprehension packing the
local
> prison, which is "much too small for more kings" (shades of A Night at the
> Opera's crowded cabin!). The activities of The Shadows, that regicidal
> organization of stooges, recall Mack Sennett's Keystone Cops, and "The
Shadows"
> grotesque, bumbling, but lethal agent, assassin Gradus, is a vaudevillian,
jet-age
> Angel of Death, imagined as "always streaking across the sky with black
> traveling bag in one hand and loosely folded umbrella in the other, in a
sustained
> glide high over sea and land." And in The Defense (1930), Luzhin's means
of
> suicide is suggested to him by a movie still, lying on a table, showing "a
> white-faced man with his lifeless features and big American glasses,
hanging by his
> hands from the ledge of a skyscraper--just about to fall off into the
> abyss"--the most famous scene in Harold Lloyd's Safety Last (1923). I
trust you
> have enjoyed this note, to paraphrase, a comment made by Kinbote under
very
> different circumstances.
>> Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2003 21:34:19 +0100
> From: "Burns, Erik" <Erik.Burns@dowjones.com>
> Subject: NPPF: preliminary - epigraph
>
> Foax:
>
> jbor wrote:
>
> >And Kinbote certainly expresses strong opinions
> >about those "scholars" who he sees as "blockheads".
>
> A-and someone asked if there was any _Lot 49_ criticism that connected it
to
> _PF_ -- well, I don't know the answer to that one (I'm just a blockhead,
not
> an academic) but we can always generate some.
>
> To wit:
>
> "Among them ['those dear daft numina who'd mothered over Oedipa's so
> temperate youth'] they had managed to turn the young Oedipa into a rare
> creature indeed, unfit perhaps for marches and sit ins, but just a whiz at
> pursuing strange words in Jacobean texts." (_Lot 49,_ pp 71-72, Viking UK
> edition, 2000).
>
> Oed's no hippie, she's an _academic_ (speak with sneer).
>
> Meanwhile, in _Lot 49_ Pynchon also displays the sneering attitude to
Freud
> and pyschoanalysis that Nabokov famously also displayed (and not only in
> naming his main character for a famous disorder's mad king (yet another PF
> echo!)):
>
> "'I came,' she [Oedipa] said, 'hoping you could talk me out of a fantasy'
> 'Cherish it!' cried Hilarius, fiercely. 'What else do any of you have?
Hold
> it tightly by its little tentacle, don't let the Freudians coax it away or
> the pharmacists poison it out of you. Whatever it is, hold it dear, for
when
> you lose it you go over by that much to the others. You begin to cease to
> be.'" (pp 95-96, same edition)
>
> Seems to me, that ways lies Kinboteville, with its amusement parks and log
> cabins.
>
> (cf. VN's _Speak Memory_, (re. the "Viennese Quack"): "We will leave him
and
> his fellow travelers to jog on, in their third-class carriage of thought,
> through the police state of sexual myth (incidentally, what a great
mistake
> of the part of dictators to ignore psychoanalysis -- a whole generation
> might be so easily corrupted that way!)." (found here
>
http://www.dutchgirl.com/foxpaws/biographies/O_Window_in_the_Dark!/nabokovap
> pendixe.html, with a ton of other VN/Freud comments, all of them unkind.)
>
> Finally, my inner Kinbote hears an echo of Zembla and its King in this:
>
> "She remembered drifters she had listened to, Americans speaking their
> language carefully, scholarly, as if they were in exile from somewhere
else
> invisible yet congruent with the cheered land she lived in ... [big snip
of
> gorgeous scary writing about America & Tristero] ...Another mode of
meaning
> behind the obvious, or none. Either Oedipa in the orbiting ecstasy of a
true
> paranoia, or a real Tristero. For there either was some Tristero beyond
the
> appearance of the legacy America, or there was just America and if there
was
> just America then it seemed the only way she could continue, and manage to
> be at all relevant to it, was an alien, unfurrowed, assumed full circle
into
> some paranoia." (pp 125-126, same edition)
>
> As I tried to argue yesterday, I think there are certainly affinities
> between Kinbote & Oedipa -- they are at different phases of madness (he's
> gone, she's nearing the cusp). This does not an influence make, surely not
a
> direct one, but it raises the probability of familiarity, sure - and
> interest.
>
> etb
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2003 14:00:27 -0700
> From: "s~Z" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> >>>Pope has always seemed the touchstone here and Rape of the Lock is a
good
> guess as to Nabokov's intended tone.<<<
>
> And a subtitle for the poem Pale Fire could be "The Rape of the Shade"
> couldn't it? Doesn't the imagery of the first two Cantos suggest Aunt Maud
> forced Shade to quench her thirst with his pure tongue? Isn't the truth
> being hidden from him, not so much truth about survival after death, but
the
> truth that his memory has dimmed regarding being forced to orally pleasure
> Aunt Maud? My favorite references are how his childish palate loved the
> taste/Half-fish, half-honey, of that golden paste (nature's glue, lines
> 103-5), -- the cryptic erotic description of lines 147-156, "How ludicrous
> these efforts to translate/Into one's private tongue a public fate!"
(lines
> 231-2) and
>
> Life is a message scribbled in the dark.
> Anonymous.
> Espied on a pine's bark.
> As we were walking home the day she died,
> An empty emerald case, squat and frog-eyed,
> Hugging the trunk; and its companion piece,
> A gum-logged ant. (235-40)
>
> Aunt Maud = a 'gum'-logged aunt.
>
> Ant = insect
> Aunt = incest
>
>
>
>>
> Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 10:57:26 +1000
> From: jbor <jbor@bigpond.com>
> Subject: Re: NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph
>
> >>... Nabokov still perceived the author's position -- his own position --
in
> >> respect to the text as one of preeminence, even though, admittedly, the
> themes
> >> and structural complexities within the text do challenge and
problematise
> that
> >> whole relationship between "authorship" and "authority". I don't think
> Nabokov
> >> sees this paradox as an issue. Thus, the question of whether Shade or
Kinbote
> >> or any other character could write "as well as" Nabokov seems to me to
be
> >> irrelevant. It is Nabokov who can write as well as Nabokov:
>
> on 14/7/03 6:16 AM, MalignD@aol.com at MalignD@aol.com wrote:
>
> > Here I'm not so sure. This point has been raised (not originally by
me) in
> > the context of suspended disbelief. In brief, one reads first-person
novels
> > (the example given, The Great Gatsby) and readily suspends disbelief;
i.e.,
> > the disbelief that Nick Carroway could write as well as Fitzgerald.
But in
> > Pale Fire, the question of the quality of the poem and of the writers of
the
> > Poem and the Commentary (Kinbote and Shade), are pertinent to the novel
> > itself.
>
> There are questions around Nick's personal relationships and involvement
in
> the events of the narrative to do with his reliability, prejudices etc as
> narrator as well, of course. We view Gatsby and Daisy sympathetically
> because he does; his estrangement from Tom and Jordan colours the way they
> are portrayed; there's attitude towards the Wilsons, Meyer Wolfsheim etc.
> Sure, some of this might be down to Fitzgerald's own biases, but there's
not
> a 1:1 alignment between Carraway and his author either. There are moments
> when we get glimpses of the characters and events in the novel from a
> vantage point which is outside of Nick's, and the perspectives which
emerge
> at these moments are altered from those which Nick gives us. And we do get
a
> definite sense of Nick as character also. It's not really so different
from
> what Nabokov is doing in _Pale Fire_.
>
> While I agree that the "quality" of Shade's poem is worth discussing, I
> would say that this aspect of it is also down to Nabokov. Critical
arguments
> based on whether Shade or Kinbote could write "as well as" Nabokov, such
as
> those made in the essay Jasper posted, seem irrelevant, was my point.
>
> > Boyd, for example, believes the poem first-rate and much of his
> > analysis of the novel, indeed the entirety, I would say, of his first,
now
> > rejected, explanation of Shade as creator of Kinbote and author of the
> > entirety of Pale Fire (poem and commentary) would have been impossible
but for
> > the idea that Shade could have created Kinbote, but the opposite would
be
> > quite impossible.
>
> I'm inclined to reject this idea. I don't think the poem is "first-rate"
in
> itself. I do think it's a first-rate parody of a type of pseudo-Eliotesque
> bombast, however. In that sense, it's Nabokov's poem, rather than Shade's,
> which might be called "first-rate". I also don't buy either of the "Shade
> creates Kinbote" or "Kinbote creates Shade" arguments, but I haven't yet
> seen these cases elaborated, and I guess the evidence will present itself
as
> we venture into the text further with the group read.
>
> > However, Richard Rorty argued that the poem is second-rate
> > and that Kinbote, despite his madness, writes like Nabokov and thus
Kinbote
> > could have created Shade and not the opposite.
> >
> > We can go into this--the question of authorship within the novel; it's
> > endlessy interesting--further, but the idea that Nabokov was indifferent
to
> > this and simply wrote as himself in the Commentary is not an argument
I'm
> > ready to accept.
>
> No, that's not what I've said at all. I don't understand why the obvious
> possibility, that Nabokov created both Shade and Kinbote as separate and
> independent characters, and consciously endowed them with the particular
> artistic, critical, intellectual, emotional etc talents and foibles they
> present with, and that (Nabokov's) Shade wrote the poem and (Nabokov's)
> Kinbote the Foreword and Commentary, has been discarded. To take any one
of
> the four propositions offered in the essay Jasper linked just one short
> (logical) step further -- How could Shade, or Kinbote, or Kinbote
channeling
> Shade's ghost, or Botkin, manage to get the text, as it stands, past the
> publisher? They couldn't. Only Nabokov could.
>
> best
>
> ------------------------------
>
> End of pynchon-l-digest V2 #3402
> ********************************