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I agree with Joseph Aisenberg that even if HH had kept CQ's name
unchanged out of vindictiveness, JRay would have suppressed it, so that
the pun on my cue/ my Q remains unexplained, or was never intended.
But as I see it, the contradiction this pun would seem to reveal
needn't be solved since John Ray is but a ghost who rapidly fizzles out.
The whole foreword is clearly a parody of an hackneyed literary
convention and a satire of some of the "tricks of the literary trade"
(TRLOSK) ; from the very start, JR's reliability is undermined: first
the
ludicrous title of the so-called memoir; then the comedy of the humble
author of the foreword smuggling in his "modest work", the hilarious
title of this "modest work" (Do the Senses make Sense?); further on,
the "two hypnotic eyes" through the mask hiding HH's identity strike a
stange note, out of place in an editorial presentation (in the same
vein
as Kinbote's asides in his foreword to PF); and finally, JR, after
invoking taste and compassion, ends up betraying HH's anonymity!!
But this parody isn't just a gratuitous literary game. From "For
the benefit of old-fashioned readers..."on, there's a subtle
interweaving
of VN's and JR's voices , the latter serving as a grotesque background
that enhances the seriousness of VN's defence of his novel against
expected attacks and enables him to provide its reader with some clues
as
to how to read it while leaving the ponderous lecture (or homily, as A
Appel puts it) to J Ray.
This use of the grotesque as a frame, or a background to highlight
serious emotion (through the contrast of colours) is a constant feature
of
VN's work and is summmarized in V's description of Sebastian Knight's
(VN's literary alter ego) style: "As often was the way with Sebastian
Knight, he used parody as a kind of springboard for leaping into the
highest region of serious emotion"
Like "a clown developing wings", John Ray's foreword "soars
skyward": From "Mr Clark's choice may have been influenced by the fact
that the editor of his choice had just been awarded the Poling Prize*
for
a modest work (Do the Senses make Sense?)..." to "But how magically his
singing violin can conjure up a trendresse, a compassion for Lolita..."
Laurence Hochard
*Why this choice of "Poling Prize"? does anyone have any idea?