Sergei,
Excuse my intrusion, but I wanted to thank you for this excellent post, particularly:
"The difference between Shade and Kinbote lies not in the dimension of psychology and personality but in
the style and cultural references (Shade representing, to my opinion, one of most sympathetic types of American spirituality, nothing
to do with Kinbote -also to some extent spiritual in his own mad ways). The whole life span is needed to acquire this, and no psychotic split can provide a convincing substitute."
... as well as your summation.
Reading your comments made me think of one of my favorite authors, the British novelist Martin Amis. I have always been struck with how humorous and insightful he can be when he places one of his British characters in an American setting, usually New York City or L.A., which both present extremes of condensed and superheated American life. When Amis uses a character such as John Self in “Money” or Richard Tull in “The Information” to view the American scene and to attempt interpretations of American speech styles, he’s always successful.
A much less successful novel was “Night Train,” in which Amis attempted a narration by a middle-aged American woman police detective. I don’t blame him for making the attempt — an artist has to attempt as much as he can — but to succeed at convincingly creating the first-person speech of an American woman in the specialized field of police work in the city of Chicago would take a very long period of either living in Chicago or being a women, or being a cop. A long period as at least two of the three would be a safer bet.
“Pnin” has always been one of my favorites among VN’s novels for the reasons you describe. In fact, it is in his portrayals of American speech that Nabokov is unusually humble. In the joke Shade makes at Kinbote’s expense -- “Foreigners should stay away from old saws.” -- the Russian Nabokov attributes behavior to the Russian Botkin to which he must have been especially sensitive.
Andrew Brown
On 10/11/06 2:56 PM, "NABOKV-L" <NABOKV-L@HOLYCROSS.EDU> wrote:
> Dear Matthew,
>
> I am also late to this list (I participate just several days).
> To develop my argumentation, I need to make many semi-personal
> and subjective remarks concerning myself, and speak not only about
> Pale Fire.
>
> I am russian from St. Petersburg, but I am living and working abroad
> since
> ~ 1992, though I still visit relatively regularly my country.
> I knew Nabokov's English novels already when I've been in
> Soviet Union, but only when I moved to the West I truly felt
> the layer concerning the emigrant life, which is, I assure
> you, very important. I've been to the US, but mostly I live in
> Europe - in fact, I've been for some years in Denmark, in the UK,
> and since 1998 I am settled in France. I know very well
> the academic life, and since I am employed as a mathematician,
> I can afford to look from some distance at the life
> of humanities departments. Maybe his enthomology gave Nabokov
> similar feeling of detachment.
>
> When I moved to the West I started to understand how precise
> is Nabokov in his descriptions of various aspects of emigrant
> life and of possible situations (in most concentrated form
> in "Pnin" maybe). Also how good he is in playing with different
> viewpoints. You may notice that in "Pnin" there is no
> description, no slightest hint concerning the inner spiritual
> life of american colleagues of Pnin, but how they may have
> seen Pnin is presented fairly well.
>
> In "Pale Fire" this, I would say, artistic understanding of
> the american life, including to some extent its spiritual
> side, is advanced in comparison with "Pnin", but even a genius
> cannot develop this understanding instantaneously, and
> Nabokov is very cautious not to replace his acquired vision
> by myopic approximations (not to say about wild fantasies).
>
> There are hints concerning the spiritual life of Shade, but
> very cautious and indirect - actually, via the narration
> of Kinbote AND the text of the poem. It is Kinbote in his own remarks
> who is
> quite brisk and arrogant, a trait quite common among russian
> emigrants speaking about their respective adopted countries.
>
> To me, the fact that the point of view in PF remains always
> exterior to Shade, and his character is shown in very cautious
> way, is one of important arguments in favor of that Nabokov intended
> to show him as an american in his "americanishness" different
> from Kinbote with his russian roots. The possibility of
> some russian roots in Shade's past does not to my opinion
> contradict that he is essentially "american" - the difference
> between the first, second etc generations of emigrants
> is very well known (cf., by the way, the meeting of Pnin
> and his son in "Pnin").
>
> I think that for Nabokov (in spite of his own personality,
> far from ordinary) this was an important problem, and he
> was very carefully experimenting with his understanding
> of american life, also, spiritual life,
> as a "side" or a "facet" of universal spiritual
> principle (whatever it could mean for him - say, in
> its purest and most abstract form it is presented
> in "Priglashenie na kazn" (Invitation to a beheading) -
> and its russian facet can be found in "The Gift" and "The Luzhin
> Defence". While, as my american friends assure, there is
> no discernible mistakes or misinterpretations of
> american ways of life in his writing, he takes care
> not to go to the areas he doesn't understand well enough.
>
> All strong opinions are expressed by "marginal" narrators
> (with respect to "americanishness"),
> like Humbert or Kinbote.
>
> The difference between Shade and Kinbote lies
> not in the dimension of psychology and personality but in
> the style and cultural references (Shade representing, to my opnion, one
> of
> most sympathetic types of american spirituality, nothing
> to do with Kinbote -also to some extent spiritual in his own mad ways).
> The
> whole life span is needed to acquire this,
> and no psychotic split can provide a convincing substitute.
>
> By the way, I knew personally an old professor in Chicago
> who (for me) is an example of a type similar to Shade.
>
> When I read "Zenda" (after "Pale Fire") I had immediately the
> feeling that it is one of the main sources of "Zembla" story,
> I started to look in the Internet and discovered the Boyd/Hornick
> correspondence, which contains very convincing arguments
> that some parts of his story are borrowed by Kinbote from
> there (it is accessible in this list archive). Since
> my own attention was already turned to this connection,
> I found some other elements of the story borrowed from
> "The prisoner of Zenda". Moreover, these parts were,
> so to say, developed by Kinbote (the relation of the king
> of Zembla and his queen looks as a logical development
> of the relations of the king of Zenda and his fiancee
> after the dynastic marriage - in Zenda story, she loves
> another person, and the king may be homesexual, nothing
> contradicts this; he uses the same play on the theme
> of growing/shaving beard in the scene with german lecturer
> who almost recognizes Kinbote as the king of Zembla).
> It means that it is one of his principal cultural references -
> at the same level with Shakespeare, the chaos very alien
> (not "suppressed") to Shade.
>
> I've seen russian emigrants slowly going crazy, I've known
> a couple of old homosexuals (not russians), one was very
> refined and another looked much like Shade, still it was
> possible that the first
> was obviously in love with the second - and I know how
> he would suffer if the second would NOT be a homsexual
> and behave like Shade.
>
> So, to summarize, essentially my argument is that
> the conjecture of the unique split personality doesn't
> fit with the process of artistic discovery of America by
> Nabokov, which, to my opinion, can be seen in the
> sequence of his novels, and if that conjecture
> would be true, most of the colours and
> shades that make so beautiful this novel
> would annihilate each other.
>
> As an afterthought, I would mention also the Nabokov's
> passion for chess problems. In a good problem, there
> must be a lot of promising ideas, that should trap and
> lure somebody trying to solve it. They should
> look very convincingly, before you try to check
> the details, and then something doesn't work.
> I think the conjecture of Shade's split personality
> it is just such a trap - you need very artificial
> interpretations (bad blood circulation in
> a limb - quite natural at 61 - to be interpreted as
> a stroke) to push it through. There should be some
> details that almost work - only in this case it is a
> good trap - but not quite. We should remember
> also that it is all Kinbote's narration - even the
> name Shade may be invented. Kinbote, maybe, would
> like the idea that he is just a part of Shade.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Sergei Soloviev
>
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