Bravissimo, Tom. Power to your pen.
Pale Fire is a damn fine read and finer re-read. Who could ask for anything more? © Ira Gershwin
Love the Higgs Boson quip, although, having studied the quirks of Quantum Mechanics (at Dirac’s alma mater), there are ineffable differences in finding the origins of mass, and determining if Pale Fire reveals anything we didn’t know about the After Life or the perils of poor parenting and pedantic Literary Criticism.
I’ve always thought it risky (but worthwhile) for authors to include a MAD character in their narratives. Whether the mad person is truly insane or just playing daft, the normal ‘contract’ between writer and reader is disturbed. I mean, the writer is free to invent abnormal utterances and actions, forcing us to suspend the judgments we apply to rational actors. We can’t tell if CK is delusional all or some of the time, or lying with sane motives (also known as CODDOLOGY; note spelling). Recall Polonius on Hamlet:
Though this be madness, yet there is method in't.
Stan Kelly-Bootle
http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=1864510
On 07/10/2010 03:47, "NABOKV-L" <NABOKV-L@HOLYCROSS.EDU> wrote:
Tom Rymour writes:
Dear All,
Re the hunt for codology in Pale Fire(AKA the Higgs boson of Nabokov
studies) I recall a conversation with an academic in 1998. She was one of
the three judges who had just seen fit to give me a literary award for a
work of satirical fantasy. I asked her if she ever dabbled in fiction, and
she said: "Good heavens, no! there are only two kinds of people -- those
who write and those who write about them. You're one and I'm the other.
And if it wasn't for chaps like you, we'd have nothing to do!"
It strikes me that Old McNab has given an awful lot of people a great deal
to be getting on with. Personally, I'm content to look at the Taj Mahal by
moonlight, rather than pore over architectural drawings of it.
Hugs and kisses...
Tom (Rymour)