On Aug 6, 2010, at 7:11 PM, Ron Rosenbaum wrote:
Has anyone else noticed the contradictory logic ... in regard to the role of Hazel Shade in <Pale Fire>?
Actually I'm trying simply to grasp what the basic thesis is! (Beyond the simple proposition that Hazel influenced, inspired, parts of the poem).
Specifically which lines or sections of the poem are seen as influenced by Hazel and what the specific support for each such interpretation is.
... I think the problem is that Boyd (and many others) are too eager to offer a "solution" to <Pale Fire> as if it were some crossword puzzle rather than a luminous numinous work of art.
I have no problem with readers looking for solutions to Pale Fire. Why shouldn't they?
Kinbote's tale is so fantastical and his manner delusional that it's hardly strange that the reader might not accept the tale as true; the way one might be expected to accept Shade's poem, as true; and thereby be moved by it. If the reader doesn't believe in Kinbote's Zemblan fantasy then it can hardly seem odd for him to scan it for hidden meanings, interpret it, or ask why the author chose to include such a piece of fantasy along side a prosaic, i.e., believable, albeit oddly told, poem. Indeed it's hard for me not to believe that that is the work's intent.
Besides Nabokov loved puzzles, chess problems, word golf, combinational delight...
So to me there is a problem, but also there is no guaranteed solution.
Possibly the parts are to be seen as simply ironic, perhaps even meaningless, juxtaposition; as in much modern graphic art, or even some modern verse.
The problem with a problem that has no solution though is: how can the reader ever know for sure that there was no solution?
(Perhaps there is a meaning to the epigram: an oracle of Hodge!)
In a system of pure logic, as in math or chess, proving something is impossible is in fact possible, common even.
But in a system of words, gestures, connotations and interpretations, such certainty about the impossible, or non-existent, is probably not attainable.
Nevertheless I believe it is esthetically more pleasing, and gives the author a greater sense of achievement, to device a problem that has a solution; as opposed to one that does not.
Needless to say, any solution, or insight of any kind, ought to be clearly described and supported in order to be worth reading or commenting on.
Logically yours, I hope,
–GSL