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Re: from Ron Rosenbaum re "Pale Fire" & EDNote
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In response to John Morris' answer Ron Rosenbaum's question, "Does anyone else believe Hazel Shade's ghost somehow dictated 'Pale Fire'?":
[ JMo: Brian Boyd never made such a silly claim. If you'll reread his "Nabokov's 'Pale Fire'," you'll see that he makes an ingenious case, well supported by textual evidence, that Hazel Shade's shade influences Kinbote's commentary in a number of complex and significant areas...Perhaps the best way to put it is to employ Boyd's phrase (on p. 168) -- Hazel "helps Kinbote dream" his dream of Zembla......There is never any suggestion that Hazel has dictated anything. Boyd's argument, page after page, is always for influence and pattern-making, never ghostwriting. Do I believe in this interpretation? I certainly do. Anyone who doubts it needs to counter Boyd's textual points, case by case; he is not offering a hunch, but rather a sustained argument.] Jerry Friedman writes:
"...that Kinbote had told Shade at least some of what becomes the Zemblan parts of his commentary, which influenced the poem...Boyd makes two main arguments. The first is that Kinbote's supposedly homosexual fantasy of Zembla spends much less time on homosexuality ...than on "women spurned"...Hazel was fatally spurned... Maybe the passages about Disa in "reality" are based on his continued rejection of his wife or female lover...Boyd's other argument is based on "uncanny coincidences between poem and commentary"...he suggests Kinbote inspired Shade; for instance, Kinbote's story of his father's death would have reminded Shade of those waxwings, which give him the most widely quoted part of his poem. This is how Hazel indirectly inspired the poem...The flaw is that Boyd tacitly assumes that Kinbote's Zemblan stories have remained constant, even to details...We know, though, that Kinbote can change his story in far less time than that. He changes Gordon Krummholz's article of clothing four times as he imagines Gordon talking with Gradus...Of course, Kinbote is one of the most unreliable narrators in literature, and I'd hardly count on his ever having said anything about Zembla to Shade or anyone. Finally, Boyd argues that survival after death, namely Hazel's and Shade's, makes sense of the book. I agree (against those who think it would ruin part of the humor). But we already have evidence for it in the will-o-the-wisp's message, and I agree with Boyd that the red admiral at the end is a hint in the same direction. And that's plenty.
JM: Beautiful argumentation, well fundamented by examples and a close-reading. I truly admired your observation, and illustrations, on the lack of constancy in Kinbote's stories. One sentence struck me in particular ( related to Boyd's argument about Hazel's and Shade's survival after death which then "makes sense of the book", due to what you encapuslated in parenthesis: "...it would ruin part of the humor").
Would you consider that Pale Fire is, mainly, "a comedy,"then? And you agree, with Boyd, that Pale Fire "makes sense" because of its subject concerning infernal shades and recurrent ghosts arriving from some kind of "future" (as in the word "hereafter").
A funny insight reached me, quite belatedly: Hazel Shade can never function as an inspiring Muse...She is condemned, at most, to function as kindly and unsexed ghost acting over crazed Kinbote. Muses are something altogether distinct (Shade's is "the versipel", his "odd muse" who is with him everywhere...! The other, is "a muse in overalls" when he exercises method A...)
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[ JMo: Brian Boyd never made such a silly claim. If you'll reread his "Nabokov's 'Pale Fire'," you'll see that he makes an ingenious case, well supported by textual evidence, that Hazel Shade's shade influences Kinbote's commentary in a number of complex and significant areas...Perhaps the best way to put it is to employ Boyd's phrase (on p. 168) -- Hazel "helps Kinbote dream" his dream of Zembla......There is never any suggestion that Hazel has dictated anything. Boyd's argument, page after page, is always for influence and pattern-making, never ghostwriting. Do I believe in this interpretation? I certainly do. Anyone who doubts it needs to counter Boyd's textual points, case by case; he is not offering a hunch, but rather a sustained argument.] Jerry Friedman writes:
"...that Kinbote had told Shade at least some of what becomes the Zemblan parts of his commentary, which influenced the poem...Boyd makes two main arguments. The first is that Kinbote's supposedly homosexual fantasy of Zembla spends much less time on homosexuality ...than on "women spurned"...Hazel was fatally spurned... Maybe the passages about Disa in "reality" are based on his continued rejection of his wife or female lover...Boyd's other argument is based on "uncanny coincidences between poem and commentary"...he suggests Kinbote inspired Shade; for instance, Kinbote's story of his father's death would have reminded Shade of those waxwings, which give him the most widely quoted part of his poem. This is how Hazel indirectly inspired the poem...The flaw is that Boyd tacitly assumes that Kinbote's Zemblan stories have remained constant, even to details...We know, though, that Kinbote can change his story in far less time than that. He changes Gordon Krummholz's article of clothing four times as he imagines Gordon talking with Gradus...Of course, Kinbote is one of the most unreliable narrators in literature, and I'd hardly count on his ever having said anything about Zembla to Shade or anyone. Finally, Boyd argues that survival after death, namely Hazel's and Shade's, makes sense of the book. I agree (against those who think it would ruin part of the humor). But we already have evidence for it in the will-o-the-wisp's message, and I agree with Boyd that the red admiral at the end is a hint in the same direction. And that's plenty.
JM: Beautiful argumentation, well fundamented by examples and a close-reading. I truly admired your observation, and illustrations, on the lack of constancy in Kinbote's stories. One sentence struck me in particular ( related to Boyd's argument about Hazel's and Shade's survival after death which then "makes sense of the book", due to what you encapuslated in parenthesis: "...it would ruin part of the humor").
Would you consider that Pale Fire is, mainly, "a comedy,"then? And you agree, with Boyd, that Pale Fire "makes sense" because of its subject concerning infernal shades and recurrent ghosts arriving from some kind of "future" (as in the word "hereafter").
A funny insight reached me, quite belatedly: Hazel Shade can never function as an inspiring Muse...She is condemned, at most, to function as kindly and unsexed ghost acting over crazed Kinbote. Muses are something altogether distinct (Shade's is "the versipel", his "odd muse" who is with him everywhere...! The other, is "a muse in overalls" when he exercises method A...)
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/