No, Shade did not attempt to burn the index cards that make up PF - what you are remembering is this passage from Kinbote's Foreword: "As a rule, Shade destroyed drafts the moment he ceased to need them: well do I recall seeing him from my porch, on a brilliant morning, burning a whole stack of them in the pale fire of the incinerator before which he stood with bent head like an official mourner among the wind-borne black butterflies of that backyard auto-da-fe." But VN did attempt to burn Lolita, before Vera intervened.

Pale Fire is so convolute that one hesitates to reject out of hand almost any interpretation, but I can see no evidence that PF is Shade's sexual confession (what, pray, is he confessing?), much less Nabokov's.

Earl Sampson

On Aug 7, 2012, at 9:53 PM, Carolyn Kunin wrote:

Just letting the old gray cells roam about ad lib -- an interesting supra-textual reVersal between RLS's Jekyll & Hyde and VN's Pale Fire:

The story of Jekyll and Hyde was engendered by a dream. We know that Fanny, Mrs RLS, read the story and destroyed it and then asked RLS to re-write it in a more socially acceptable (i.e. sexually less explicit) Ver-sion. Which RLS did and thus we have the text of that most interesting of Scottish novels*. 

But that is by the by -- what I am getting at is that there is some reference to Shade (do I have it right?) attempting to burn the index cards that make up PF; but am I dreaming? or did VN also attempt to burn - which one? Lolita? -- and Vera saved "her" from VN's attempted auto da fe.

Why auto da fe (act of faith), by the way? I have a suggestion. I believe that Pale Fire is not just Shade's but also Nabokov's sexual confession. And now that I recall the attempted auto da fe of Lolita, I suspect VN & Humbert have more in common than one could dare to suggest while Dmitri was alive. 
Carolyn

*Speaking of Scottish novels and Pale Fire, The Confessions of a Justified Sinner by Hogg is another which plays a role in VN's PF. And all those Campbells and hoot man, who were the other Scots playing boring board games? By the way I am to host a direct descendant of the great Sir Walter himself next week in my home. Her husband and I met at the convention surrounding the landing of Curiosity (great name) on Mars that was held in Pasadena on Saturday and Sunday. He told me he is convinced of the mental superiority of women in general to men in general and of wives to husbands in particular -- a man after my own heart, clearly.

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all true science. 

-- Albert Einstein

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