Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0008961, Tue, 25 Nov 2003 05:42:29 -0800

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Fw: pynchon-l-digest V2 #3664 The END
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----- Original Message -----
From: "pynchon-l-digest" <owner-pynchon-l-digest@waste.org>
To: <pynchon-l-digest@waste.org>
Sent: Tuesday, November 25, 2003 12:00 AM
Subject: pynchon-l-digest V2 #3664


>
> pynchon-l-digest Tuesday, November 25 2003 Volume 02 : Number
3664
>
>
>
> Date: Mon, 24 Nov 2003 13:03:55 +0100
> From: "Otto" <ottosell@yahoo.de>
> Subject: Re: NPPF - All Done?
>
> - ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Jasper Fidget" <fakename@verizon.net>
> To: <pynchon-l@waste.org>
> Sent: Saturday, November 22, 2003 5:50 PM
> Subject: NPPF - All Done?
>
>
> > I guess we're more or less done with Pale Fire now? I've been unable to
> > participate much in recent weeks due to an overburdening of other work,
> but
> > it looks as if the traffic has trickled and the scheduled has ceased.
> >
> > I think we did a fairly decent job for a bunch of non-experts dealing
with
> a
> > difficult text. Thanks to all who participated; you've increased my
> > appreciation and understanding of a great book and the myriad topics it
> > touches upon. Perhaps the nay-sayers were right and most of the Pynchon
> > connections were tenuous if not absent, but I think it was a worthwhile
> > experiment anyway.
> >
> > Now who's ready for Moby Dick?
> >
> > Jasper Fidget
> >
>
> First, I think, VLVL should get the chance of our undivided attention.
Look
> at the great job Tim, Dave and others are doing.
>
> Second, there are still parts of the Commentary that are worth a little
> discussion. Further I miss a more general conversation about the threefold
> structure of PF.
>
> There's the binary opposition between modernist Shade and pre-modernist
> Kinbote. Shade using the poem-form to express his attitude towards the
world
> and a possible afterlife, Kinbote spinning a kind of mock hero-tale of a
> king that never has existed, and expecting an ode to this king from Shade.
> He is disappointed by Shade's poem but in the end the sees clearly what he
> himself has done:
>
> "I may pander to the simple tastes of theatrical critics and cook up a
stage
> play, an old-fashioned melodrama with three principles: a lunatic who
> intends to kill an imaginary king, another lunatic who imagines to be that
> king, and a distinguished old poet who stumbles by chance into the line of
> fire, and perishes in the clash between the two figments."
>
> The last point I think which is very interesting is the question about
> Nakokov's own "view" of the world and life after death. I tend to believe
> that by letting down Shade in his belief the real author expresses that he
> doesn't share this belief:
>
> "I'm reasonably sure that we survive
> And that my darling somewhere is alive,
> As I am reasonably sure that I
> Shall wake at six tomorrow, on July
> The twenty-second, nineteen fifty-nine,
> And that the day will probably be fine;"
> (977-80)
>
> I'm a little bit disappointed that Brian Boyd is silent about this
passage,
> that Shade's convinction is broken so harshly by the course of the novel.
>
> I would reverse Shade's logic here and conclude that Nabokov is telling us
> that he's an atheist, that tales of an afterlife is what they are: tales,
> thus fiction.
>
> Otto
>
> ------------------------------
>
>