Subject
PF Narrator?
Date
Body
EDITOR's NOTE. Ellen Pifer is the author of NABOKOV AND THE NOVEL (Harvard
UP, 1980). She is the current President of the International Vladimir
Nabokov Society.
---------------------------------------------------
From : ellen pifer <epifer@odin.english.udel.edu>
Having been out of the country for the past month and a half, I
have but a shadowy notion of the recent (but hardly new) debate on the
"authorial" status of PALE FIRE's narrators. Prompted by Dmitri's recent
comments from the "equine mouth" of the only true author of that text, VN
himself, I shall take the liberty of quoting a statement made by Robert
Alter, more than two decades ago, which still strikes me as eminently
sensible. The statement comes from his PARTIAL MAGIC: THE NOVEL AS A
SELF-CONSCIOUS GENRE (1975)--and it is cited on p. 187 (n.15) of my
NABOKOV AND THE NOVEL (1980):
"This novel is not a Jamesian experiment in reliability of
narrative point-of-view, and there is no reason to doubt the existence of
the basic fictional data--the Poem and its author, on the one hand, and
the mad Commentary and *its* perpetrator, on the other, inverted left
hand" (p. 186).
In response to Dimitri's worthy suggestion that readers pay particular
attention to the "'poetic'--Shakespearean--sense of the word 'shade,'" I
shall take the (more questionable?) liberty of quoting myself on that
point:
"One of the most interesting effects of Shade's powerful presence
within the context of Kinbote's Commentary is the way the poet's
compassion for his mad neighbor informs and enlarges the reader's own
perception of Kinbote. While Kinbote remains blind to the essential
realities of Shade's life, marriage and the very poem he cherishes, the
poet's luminous shade (Clare Obscure in a very different sense) inspires
sympathy and understanding for Kinbote's own plight" (p. 116).
Ellen Pifer
UP, 1980). She is the current President of the International Vladimir
Nabokov Society.
---------------------------------------------------
From : ellen pifer <epifer@odin.english.udel.edu>
Having been out of the country for the past month and a half, I
have but a shadowy notion of the recent (but hardly new) debate on the
"authorial" status of PALE FIRE's narrators. Prompted by Dmitri's recent
comments from the "equine mouth" of the only true author of that text, VN
himself, I shall take the liberty of quoting a statement made by Robert
Alter, more than two decades ago, which still strikes me as eminently
sensible. The statement comes from his PARTIAL MAGIC: THE NOVEL AS A
SELF-CONSCIOUS GENRE (1975)--and it is cited on p. 187 (n.15) of my
NABOKOV AND THE NOVEL (1980):
"This novel is not a Jamesian experiment in reliability of
narrative point-of-view, and there is no reason to doubt the existence of
the basic fictional data--the Poem and its author, on the one hand, and
the mad Commentary and *its* perpetrator, on the other, inverted left
hand" (p. 186).
In response to Dimitri's worthy suggestion that readers pay particular
attention to the "'poetic'--Shakespearean--sense of the word 'shade,'" I
shall take the (more questionable?) liberty of quoting myself on that
point:
"One of the most interesting effects of Shade's powerful presence
within the context of Kinbote's Commentary is the way the poet's
compassion for his mad neighbor informs and enlarges the reader's own
perception of Kinbote. While Kinbote remains blind to the essential
realities of Shade's life, marriage and the very poem he cherishes, the
poet's luminous shade (Clare Obscure in a very different sense) inspires
sympathy and understanding for Kinbote's own plight" (p. 116).
Ellen Pifer