Subject
Re: from Ron Rosenbaum re "Pale Fire" & EDNote
From
Date
Body
On Fri, Aug 6, 2010 at 10:24 AM, Jansy <jansy@aetern.us> wrote:
> *...*
>
> *JM*: ...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").
>
Thanks for the compliments, Jansy. My parenthesis doesn't refer to my ideas
at all. It refers to how some other people read the book, as in this essay
by Jim Twiggs:
http://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0612&L=nabokv-l&T=0&X=2D893A396EB15843A6&Y=jerry_friedman%40yahoo.com&P=21694
For him, Shade's belief that his darling somewhere is alive is comic and
pathetic, not to be taken seriously for a second.
I probably went too far in saying "makes sense", but for me, there's
something that *Pale Fire* does, if we read it as containing non-infernal
shades and ghosts arriving from wherever, for which "makes sense" might not
be a bad figure of speech. But I've said all this before.
http://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0503&L=NABOKV-L&P=R38760&I=-3&X=4AAC873AA0362455BD&Y=jerry_friedman%40yahoo.com
From a different angle:
http://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0904&L=NABOKV-L&P=R2&I=-3&X=6634A329A6C94619BD&Y=jerry_friedman%40yahoo.com
http://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0904&L=NABOKV-L&P=R15112&I=-3&X=6634A329A6C94619BD&Y=jerry_friedman%40yahoo.com
I'm not the first to think this. People who have reached similar
conclusions include Julian Moynahan, Brian Boyd, and Victoria Alexander.
However, I've never convinced anyone. (That's a note to anyone who hasn't
read those posts and wants to read them.)
Jerry Friedman
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/
> *...*
>
> *JM*: ...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").
>
Thanks for the compliments, Jansy. My parenthesis doesn't refer to my ideas
at all. It refers to how some other people read the book, as in this essay
by Jim Twiggs:
http://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0612&L=nabokv-l&T=0&X=2D893A396EB15843A6&Y=jerry_friedman%40yahoo.com&P=21694
For him, Shade's belief that his darling somewhere is alive is comic and
pathetic, not to be taken seriously for a second.
I probably went too far in saying "makes sense", but for me, there's
something that *Pale Fire* does, if we read it as containing non-infernal
shades and ghosts arriving from wherever, for which "makes sense" might not
be a bad figure of speech. But I've said all this before.
http://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0503&L=NABOKV-L&P=R38760&I=-3&X=4AAC873AA0362455BD&Y=jerry_friedman%40yahoo.com
From a different angle:
http://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0904&L=NABOKV-L&P=R2&I=-3&X=6634A329A6C94619BD&Y=jerry_friedman%40yahoo.com
http://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0904&L=NABOKV-L&P=R15112&I=-3&X=6634A329A6C94619BD&Y=jerry_friedman%40yahoo.com
I'm not the first to think this. People who have reached similar
conclusions include Julian Moynahan, Brian Boyd, and Victoria Alexander.
However, I've never convinced anyone. (That's a note to anyone who hasn't
read those posts and wants to read them.)
Jerry Friedman
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/