-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [NABOKV-L] Who is Elsie?
Date: Sat, 14 Mar 2009 19:15:07 +0000
From: skb@bootle.biz
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
References: <49B964E7.9070202@utk.edu> <755C686B-63A3-4138-A8B7-C7383A332775@earthlink.net>


CK: Just to clarify what must have been obvious to most readers,
including our moderators: immediately after typing "with" I
emailed an oops, correcting the senseless "with" to WITHOUT
(with reinforced caps). My correction was appended to the original,
so fast was my follow-up!

Sorry you found this "incomprehensible." I find your
answer all-too-comprehensible. It's what I and others are calling
"cherry-picking" the evidence.

When Kinbote writes "YOUR favorite," you are convinced
that he is addressing Sybil. We keep an open mind* since YOUR has
so many idiomatic uses you seem determined to discount When Kinbote
starts referring directly to Sybil by name or as SHE

(esp., in the scene where "SHE said 'Since my husband does not believe
in introducing people, let us do it ourselves: You are Dr Kinbote,
aren't you? And I am Sybil Shade.' Then SHE addressed her husband,
saying..."),

we must acknowledge a change of _audience_ IF the earlier YOUR
indeed addressed your choice of Sybil.

Likewise, we can at least wondeer why Kinbote didn't write "YOUR
favorite, my dear Sybil" just as he qualifies "YOUR snicker, my dear
Mrs C, ..."

Your "simple" answer (i) drags us back to J&H, which I thought had been
quietly swept under the carpet as raising more problems than solutions
in exploring a Shade/Kinbote one-off "split-personality." (ii) by positing
_arbitrary_ residuals of Shade in Kinbote, coupled with Kinbote's
own doubtful veracity/state-of-mind, you allow a self-fulfilling
interpretation of the text-we-have. How much of Kinbote and how much
of Shade were "active" when the Cantos were being edited for
publication? Can we trust the Cantos as fully Shadean in view of
Kinbote's devious agenda.

You have what we Popperians
dub an _unfalsifiable_ hypothesis. That doesn't make it false.
I'm simply doubting the plausibility
of your theory, as _argued_ to date. To restore _my_ sanity, I'm
looking for a coherent summary of your many posted, oft cryptic,
"snippets." We have such publications from other theorists. I'm
interested in the role of Gradus (that G, I recall, "equates"
him to Shade/Kinbote in your C=S=G lemma). In fact, we need a proper
dramatist personae, indicating who's "real-as-is,"
"real-but-a-transform-of-
X," "unreal-figment-of-Y's-imagination." et al!

You accuse me of "an awful low [?] of nonsense ..."
We call this "proof by assertion!" Details, please. Self-memo:
I must learn to avoid phonetician's jargon.

* Carl Sagan, I think it was, warned against "minds so open that your
brains can fall out!"


skb


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