Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0020647, Wed, 1 Sep 2010 15:31:30 -0400

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Re: [Fwd: Re: Botkin]
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On Sep 1, 2010, at 6:12 AM, Nabokv-L wrote:

> If Kinbote knows that he is a delusion... then he is not a delusion
> at all... Botkin, who may be strange, but is not insane. For in
> order to be considered an alternate personality, the personality
> must believe in its own reality....

Good point but you are conflating the term insane with delusional and/
or dissociated identity.
I.e., Kinbote may be a madman, if you can accept this term as meaning
odd or strange, for wanting to assume another identity and to be
addressed as such, without necessarily being delusional about his
identity; a little like a male transvestite who still knows that he is
male.
Shade, if quoted accurately by Kinbote, says as much in the commentary
to line 629(The fate of beasts):

"That is the wrong word," he said. "One should not apply it to a
person who deliberately peels off a drab and unhappy past and replaces
it with a brilliant invention. That's merely turning a new leaf with
the left hand."

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