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Re: PF Narrator (fwd)
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From: joseph brown <joeb@real.com>
Thank you for the citation, I'm very complimented, and wish my prose were
really so elegant. I was privileged to study Russian and Linguistics at
the University of Washington, but unfortunately never got the chance to
attend Galya's courses on Literature and Nabokov.
I enjoyed Ben's letter, and have been meaning to comment on something that
seems to get missed often: in the last paragraph of the novel, our
narrator tells us that Shade was killed simply by getting between two
'figments', Kinbote (who is Botkin) and Gradus (who is Jack Gray).
What makes this novel so appealing is that the narrator is completely
untrustworthy, and part of the joy of reading it is in trying to figure out what is real and what is not.
Joseph Brown
joeb@real.com
At 10:33 01/29/98 -0800, you wrote:
>*** The "elegant summary," for which I am being praised here, was, alas,
>not mine. I do not quite remember who offered it, and can go into our
>archives to check. It may be simpler and faster, however, if the
>true author of the summary quoted in Ben Walsh's posting reveals
>him/her/self to us or if anyone happens to remember who it was and
>sets our record straight. GD***
>
>From: Ben Walsh <benw@meta.dublin.iona.ie>
>
>I apologise for contributing too late if the consensus is that this
>discussion has run its course - but the editor has given another
>fifteen-odd months to come up with a definitive answer. My caveat is that,
>as is no doubt apparent, I'm an amateur and enthusiast and no scholar.
>
>I like very much Mary Bellino's idea that "what we [anti-Shadeans] are
>expressing is an _aesthetic_ reaction to the idea of Shade as author of the
>commentary and inventor of Kinbote/Botkin. My own view is that the book
>does not work as well artistically under this schema".
>
>The idea of having Shade behind the entire operation, as a master
>puppeteer, I find jarring and unwelcome. Much is said about Shade's
>"homeliness" and there is a kind of contemptuous touch to opinion of the
>poem itself; Brian Boyd quotes the phrases "fireside poet" and "eminently
>Appalachian, rather old-fashioned narrative" - the argument being that VN
>would not have have classed Shade as the "greatest of invented poets" based
>on the 999 lines of the poem "Pale Fire" alone.
>
>Shade is a great invented poet because his poem has lent itself to such
>varied interpretations; from Kinbote's paranoid transferance onto the text
>to our own discussions in this forum. Shade is a great invented poet
>_because he is invented_ and can be viewed so clearly from within the
>sphere of Kinbote's madness. Had the "Pale Fire" come out in our sphere of
>reality as a slim volume with an introduction by the poet or a level-headed
>colleague at a humdrum university, it would have been "homely" and
>"old-fashioned" and the poet behind, always behind, Robert Frost.
>
>Brian Boyd wants the character of Shade to be more deceptive - I think that
>this is true deceit, because it is a deception that goes to the core of the
>nature of Shade's existence. The deceit of which Brian accuses Shade is,
>for my taste - aesthetics again! - too lying, cynical and manipulative.
>
>This position may seem a little Jesuitical, but there is another, simpler
>argument why that there can be no other reason Shade is the greatest
>invented poet. If Shade is a fictional poet whose works unwittingly lends
>itself to paranoid interpretation by Kinbote, then he is brilliant. If he
>wrote the whole book - forward, notes and all - he is no longer an
>invention; he is Nabokov. We *know* who wrote the entire work. Nabokov did.
>There is no space in which to fit a secondary author; there is no universe,
>no layer that exists in between the ultimate writer and his creation. Myles
>na gCopaleen - who knew more about layering reality than anyone bar VN -
>played tricks as devilishly clever, but would never have withheld such a
>vital clue. In "The Third Policeman" we have footnotes to a first-person
>narration of hell, and "At-Swim-Two-Birds" provides us with layers and
>different realities interfering with one another, but there are always
>clues enough to find out where we really are. For all the coincidences and
>wordplay of Brian's argument, we're lacking a single real touchstone to
>ground Shade the poet at a level encompassing both the poem and the
>commentary. Nabokov always left us just enough clues - Brian's own
>wonderful treatment resolution of the ownership of the "faded blue eyes and
>long lip" in "Bend Sinister" shows this.
>
>I think the coincidences of which Brian makes much are just that. The
>sharing of birthdays is a red herring - the chances of two individuals
>sharing a birthday are far from astronomical, and VN the scientist knew
>that. Gradus, being a Kinbote invention, will of course share that birthday
>also. It is almost Jesuitical again, but the other coincidences and plays
>on words could be marks left by the creator. It is because VN has created
>the entire universe inhabited by Shade & Kinbote that those things exist -
>he has left his unmistakable stamp on the entire work.
>
>So, for all that, I end up agreeing wholeheartedly with Galya Diment's
>elegant summary of the anti-Shadean position:
>
>"An insane college professor moves next door to the object of his
>obsession, formulates a complex world involving a self-fulfilling
>assassination prophesy, as schizophrenics are wont to do, and afterwards
>publishes his apology."
>
>Of course, there is more than one way to skin a cat. If VN has invented a
>world, the dinosaur bones can be either the remains of long-extinct beasts
>or toys he buried as a diversion. Likewise, when looking to the title, I
>tend to think not of Timon of Athens, but, bearing in mind Brian's thoughts
>re. larvae and flies:
>
>Fare thee well at once!
>The glow-worm shows the matin to be near,
>And 'gins to pale his uneffectual fire:
>Adieu, adieu! Hamlet, remember me.
>
>The prince, of course, wished to effect his quietus with a bare bodkin.
>There's much confusion about who should have been dead and who shouldn't at
>the end of Hamlet, too.
>
>ben
>
>
Thank you for the citation, I'm very complimented, and wish my prose were
really so elegant. I was privileged to study Russian and Linguistics at
the University of Washington, but unfortunately never got the chance to
attend Galya's courses on Literature and Nabokov.
I enjoyed Ben's letter, and have been meaning to comment on something that
seems to get missed often: in the last paragraph of the novel, our
narrator tells us that Shade was killed simply by getting between two
'figments', Kinbote (who is Botkin) and Gradus (who is Jack Gray).
What makes this novel so appealing is that the narrator is completely
untrustworthy, and part of the joy of reading it is in trying to figure out what is real and what is not.
Joseph Brown
joeb@real.com
At 10:33 01/29/98 -0800, you wrote:
>*** The "elegant summary," for which I am being praised here, was, alas,
>not mine. I do not quite remember who offered it, and can go into our
>archives to check. It may be simpler and faster, however, if the
>true author of the summary quoted in Ben Walsh's posting reveals
>him/her/self to us or if anyone happens to remember who it was and
>sets our record straight. GD***
>
>From: Ben Walsh <benw@meta.dublin.iona.ie>
>
>I apologise for contributing too late if the consensus is that this
>discussion has run its course - but the editor has given another
>fifteen-odd months to come up with a definitive answer. My caveat is that,
>as is no doubt apparent, I'm an amateur and enthusiast and no scholar.
>
>I like very much Mary Bellino's idea that "what we [anti-Shadeans] are
>expressing is an _aesthetic_ reaction to the idea of Shade as author of the
>commentary and inventor of Kinbote/Botkin. My own view is that the book
>does not work as well artistically under this schema".
>
>The idea of having Shade behind the entire operation, as a master
>puppeteer, I find jarring and unwelcome. Much is said about Shade's
>"homeliness" and there is a kind of contemptuous touch to opinion of the
>poem itself; Brian Boyd quotes the phrases "fireside poet" and "eminently
>Appalachian, rather old-fashioned narrative" - the argument being that VN
>would not have have classed Shade as the "greatest of invented poets" based
>on the 999 lines of the poem "Pale Fire" alone.
>
>Shade is a great invented poet because his poem has lent itself to such
>varied interpretations; from Kinbote's paranoid transferance onto the text
>to our own discussions in this forum. Shade is a great invented poet
>_because he is invented_ and can be viewed so clearly from within the
>sphere of Kinbote's madness. Had the "Pale Fire" come out in our sphere of
>reality as a slim volume with an introduction by the poet or a level-headed
>colleague at a humdrum university, it would have been "homely" and
>"old-fashioned" and the poet behind, always behind, Robert Frost.
>
>Brian Boyd wants the character of Shade to be more deceptive - I think that
>this is true deceit, because it is a deception that goes to the core of the
>nature of Shade's existence. The deceit of which Brian accuses Shade is,
>for my taste - aesthetics again! - too lying, cynical and manipulative.
>
>This position may seem a little Jesuitical, but there is another, simpler
>argument why that there can be no other reason Shade is the greatest
>invented poet. If Shade is a fictional poet whose works unwittingly lends
>itself to paranoid interpretation by Kinbote, then he is brilliant. If he
>wrote the whole book - forward, notes and all - he is no longer an
>invention; he is Nabokov. We *know* who wrote the entire work. Nabokov did.
>There is no space in which to fit a secondary author; there is no universe,
>no layer that exists in between the ultimate writer and his creation. Myles
>na gCopaleen - who knew more about layering reality than anyone bar VN -
>played tricks as devilishly clever, but would never have withheld such a
>vital clue. In "The Third Policeman" we have footnotes to a first-person
>narration of hell, and "At-Swim-Two-Birds" provides us with layers and
>different realities interfering with one another, but there are always
>clues enough to find out where we really are. For all the coincidences and
>wordplay of Brian's argument, we're lacking a single real touchstone to
>ground Shade the poet at a level encompassing both the poem and the
>commentary. Nabokov always left us just enough clues - Brian's own
>wonderful treatment resolution of the ownership of the "faded blue eyes and
>long lip" in "Bend Sinister" shows this.
>
>I think the coincidences of which Brian makes much are just that. The
>sharing of birthdays is a red herring - the chances of two individuals
>sharing a birthday are far from astronomical, and VN the scientist knew
>that. Gradus, being a Kinbote invention, will of course share that birthday
>also. It is almost Jesuitical again, but the other coincidences and plays
>on words could be marks left by the creator. It is because VN has created
>the entire universe inhabited by Shade & Kinbote that those things exist -
>he has left his unmistakable stamp on the entire work.
>
>So, for all that, I end up agreeing wholeheartedly with Galya Diment's
>elegant summary of the anti-Shadean position:
>
>"An insane college professor moves next door to the object of his
>obsession, formulates a complex world involving a self-fulfilling
>assassination prophesy, as schizophrenics are wont to do, and afterwards
>publishes his apology."
>
>Of course, there is more than one way to skin a cat. If VN has invented a
>world, the dinosaur bones can be either the remains of long-extinct beasts
>or toys he buried as a diversion. Likewise, when looking to the title, I
>tend to think not of Timon of Athens, but, bearing in mind Brian's thoughts
>re. larvae and flies:
>
>Fare thee well at once!
>The glow-worm shows the matin to be near,
>And 'gins to pale his uneffectual fire:
>Adieu, adieu! Hamlet, remember me.
>
>The prince, of course, wished to effect his quietus with a bare bodkin.
>There's much confusion about who should have been dead and who shouldn't at
>the end of Hamlet, too.
>
>ben
>
>