That's fair enough--and I am going to dip into the archives at some point (keeping up with the present itself takes some doing), but by your own reasoning, shouldn't It be Dr. Shade and Mr. Kinbote if the situation were really to mirror J&H as you suggest--And I take it you either do believe that Hyde's assaults and crimes are equivalent to Kinbote's rude an unethical behavior, or you believe that Nabokov thought so. If he did then it seems to me that, far more than the logical problems this parallel foists on the story, would be the "fatal flaw", since there's no equivalent between the two. Though of course N was a homophobe, still, he did distinguish between the "evils" of Charles Dodgson's "alleged" predilections and Oscar Wilde's; Pale Fire would flatten these kinds of distinctions
out--all Kinbote does is spy, act rude, think big of himself, have a few messy relationships with boys and steal a manuscript at an opportune moment--not nice, maybe but not a criminal maniac. I am reminded of N's lecture on Crime And Punishment, whose "fatal flaw" he discerned in the book's final image of the whore and murderer bent together over a bible in prayer, as if the bathos and pathos of the girl's desperate situation was somehow morally comparable to Raskolnikov's insane crimes. I'm here leaving asside the theoretical nature of Kinbote's activities as you understand them, versus the Hyde persona's actual activities and am simply weighing them abstractly against one another.
--- On Sun, 3/8/09, Carolyn Kunin <chaiselongue@EARTHLINK.NET> wrote:
From: Carolyn Kunin <chaiselongue@EARTHLINK.NET>
Subject: [NABOKV-L] Kunin replies to Aisenberg
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Date: Sunday, March 8, 2009, 8:41 AM
On Mar 7, 2009, at 8:17 PM, joseph Aisenberg wrote:
| I'll guess you'll have to forgive me, I haven't gone back into the archives to explore your arguments. |
Dear Mr Aisenberg,
Of course I forgive you, but our editor will not forgive me if I re-hash too many of my old arguments. In my response to Jansy I gave a simplified "in a nutshell" kind of re-phrasing of my interpretation of Pale Fire. If that stimulates your interest I really can only suggest a trip to the archives. I'm willing to attempt to clarify any particular question and to rebut any misunderstandings and will answer all complaints, but short of writing a thesis I don't think I can satisfy your too general dissatisfaction. If I'm too old to contemplate marriage with Mr Kelly-Bootle I'm certainly too old to contemplate thesis-writing for your benefit or even my own. I am a happily retired fat little old lady in Pasadena and wish to remain so.
But since you did bring up Hyde's "assaulting and crushing bones with apish glee" I will tell you that the name Kinbote refers to Mr Hyde's first crime and its consequence to Dr Jekyll. Another tidbit you can easily check yourself in Pale Fire is that although Shade is as educated as Kinbote, Shade is always "Mr Shade" and Kinbote always "Dr Kinbote."
I know I sound a bit churlish - - of course I'm glad that my thoughts on Pale Fire are getting another airing on the List, so I do most sincerely thank you for your interest,
Carolyn
All private editorial communications, without exception, are read by both co-editors. |