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Re: THOUGHTS: VN's Self-Reference in Pale Fire
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Simon,
I gave a lot of attention to this theory during my third reading of PF and
ended up writing a paper investigating Nabokov's actual (duh) and inset
(ahh) authorship. My initial rationale was that between the veiled but
literal V. Botkin explanation, the ghostwriting Shadean & Kinbotean
explanations, and even the ghostly Hazel explanation, we as readers could
zoom out a meta-level and enjoy the question of authorship itself as a
pluralistic authorship rather than a competition between individual
explanations. The pluralstic view has one unified perspective, Nabokov's. On
the surface this observation seems trivial (i.e. Nabokov is the author of PF
so of course he has ultimate authorship, hence the aforementioned 'duh'),
but Nabokov makes deliberate gestures that give this some weight.
The baldheaded suntanned professor in a Hawaiian shirt works particularly
well as far as an explicit inclusion. I also had Hurricane Lolita and "a
nymphet pirouetted" Here are some additional nuggets I cite in support of
this view:
Nabokov's unabashed "Russianness"
- Russian “was the fashionable language *par excellence*, much more so
than French, among the nobles of Zembla at least, and at its court” (p. 286,
l. 894).
- “Charles the Beloved[,] could boast some Russian blood (p. 245 l. 681).
- An old world Russia “that hated tyrants and Philistines, injustice and
cruelty, the Russia of ladies and gentlemen and liberal aspirations” (p. 245
l. 681).
- “Charles Xavier Vseslav,…, surnamed The Beloved” (p. 306), Charles'
surname calls out "slav."
- “Botkin, V., American scholar of Russian descent: (p. 306). Considering
the former bullet point, a likely choice is "Vseslav," but the
initialization allows for a nice insertion of "Vladimir."
Inclusions of Pnin
“’You do know Russian, though?’ said Pardon. ‘I think I heard you, the other
> day, talking to - what's his name - oh, my goodness’ [laboriously composing
> his lips].
Shade: ‘Sir, we all find it difficult to attack that name’ [laughing].
Professor Hurley: ‘Think of the French word for “tire”: punoo.’
Shade: ‘Why, Sir, I am afraid you have only punctured the difficulty’
[laughing uproariously].” (p. 268 l. 894)
- Pardon calls out Kinbote speaking with Pnin.
- Shade's use of "attack" is an ironic reference to how Nabokov as
narrator in *Pnin*, attacks Professor Pnin. It is also an acknowledgment
of the difficulty a lot of readers had with pronouncing "Pnin" when the book
was released. Both jokes are unique to Nabokov's perspective. Note that
Prof. Hurley pronounces it incorrectly as well.
End of the Commentary
“I may assume other disguises, other forms, but I shall try to exist. I may
> turn up yet, on another campus, as an old, happy, healthy, heterosexual
> Russian, a writer in exile, sans fame, sans future, sans audience, sans
> anything but his art. I may join forces with Odon in a new motion picture:
> Escape from Zembla (ball in the palace, bomb in the palace square). I may
> pander to the simple tastes of theatrical critics and cook up a stage play,
> an old-fashioned melodrama… History permitting, I may sail back to my
> recovered kingdom, and with a great sob greet the gray coastline and the
> gleam of a roof in the rain.” (p. 300-301 l. 1000)
- "[A]n old, happy, healthy, heterosexual Russian, a writer in exile,
sans fame, sans future, sans audience, sans anything but his art" is the
Nabokov we know.
- "I may join forces with Odon in a new motion picture: *Escape from
Zembla[.]" *A potential reference to his Lolita screenplay.
- "History permitting, I may sail back to my recovered kingdom, and with
a great sob greet the gray coastline and the gleam of a roof in the rain."
Nabokov forecasting his eventual relocation to Montreux?
I'd be curious if anybody else has notes on this topic. Thanks for reading
my patchwork commentary.
-Nick
P.S. Dowling on *Pale Fire*, great!
On Wed, Apr 21, 2010 at 5:48 PM, NABOKV-L <NABOKV-L@holycross.edu> wrote:
> Simon Rowberry writes:
>
>
> Dear List,
>
> I know there have been various arguments put forth for both Shade and
> Kinbote having written the commentary to the poem 'Pale Fire', but has much
> thought been put into the place of Nabokov in this fictional narrative?
>
> Firstly, there is a precedent for this discussion given Nabokov's insertion
> of 'Vivian Darkbloom', an anagram of Vladimir Nabokov and pseudonym used by
> Nabokov on several occasions, as the biographer of Dolores Haze in John Ray
> Jr.'s foreword to Lolita.
>
> I believe that Nabokov has done a similar thing in Pale Fire, and even gone
> as far as to imply that he may be the final editor of the edition of the
> poem/commentary. This is partially due to the intertextual nods to his
> older
> novels including Pnin in the notes to line 172 and 579, Lolita in the note
> to line 680 (the reference to a 1958 hurricane perhaps being a response to
> the reception to the publication of the novel in America that year) and the
> variant to line 413 (if one considers a reference to a 'nymphet' as an
> allusion to Lolita, since I believe he coined the term); and Kinbote's
> suggestion of Solus Rex for the title of the poem, alluding to the title of
> an unfinished Russian novel which formed the basis of Pale Fire. Are there
> any more references to other novels/poems by Nabokov that present the
> possibility that Nabokov is part of his own fictional world?
>
> These allusions are complemented by two descriptions of a character who
> might be Nabokov. Near the end of the novel, in the note to line 949, there
> is a description of 'a baldheaded suntanned professor in a Hawaiian shirt
> sat at a round table reading with an ironic expression on his face a
> Russian
> book'. How accurate is this portrait to Nabokov around the time of the
> novel's development. Perhaps more tellingly, is the reference in the
> foreword, which states 'Professor So-and-so [one of the members of the
> Shade
> committee] has consented to act as our adviser in editing the stuff'. Most
> of the other professors in the novel are given at least initials but this
> one remains anonymous. Perhaps Professor So-and-so got hold of Kinbote's
> notes post-suicide, if one subscribes to this school of thought, and added
> a
> few flourishes of his own. Kinbote admits in the index that he knows little
> about lepidoptera, something Nabokov was also keen to emphasize about
> Humbert Humbert, that he is the expert and not the character.
>
> Thus, assuming the validity of the thesis that Shade wrote the poem, and
> Kinbote/Botkin wrote a commentary thereof, it is perhaps Nabokov who has
> the
> last word as editor? I believe it was mentioned on here previously that
> bodkin can also mean 'a person wedged in between two others where there is
> proper room for two only' (OED). Here, it is Nabokov who is squeezing in
> between Shade and Kinbote in a final layer of Nabokovian deception.
>
> Best,
> Simon Rowberry
> Search the archive<http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en> Contact
> the Editors <nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu> Visit "Nabokov
> Online Journal" <http://www.nabokovonline.com> Visit Zembla<http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm> View
> Nabokv-L Policies <http://web.utk.edu/%7Esblackwe/EDNote.htm> Manage
> subscription options <http://listserv.ucsb.edu/>
>
> All private editorial communications, without exception, are read by both
> co-editors.
>
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Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/
I gave a lot of attention to this theory during my third reading of PF and
ended up writing a paper investigating Nabokov's actual (duh) and inset
(ahh) authorship. My initial rationale was that between the veiled but
literal V. Botkin explanation, the ghostwriting Shadean & Kinbotean
explanations, and even the ghostly Hazel explanation, we as readers could
zoom out a meta-level and enjoy the question of authorship itself as a
pluralistic authorship rather than a competition between individual
explanations. The pluralstic view has one unified perspective, Nabokov's. On
the surface this observation seems trivial (i.e. Nabokov is the author of PF
so of course he has ultimate authorship, hence the aforementioned 'duh'),
but Nabokov makes deliberate gestures that give this some weight.
The baldheaded suntanned professor in a Hawaiian shirt works particularly
well as far as an explicit inclusion. I also had Hurricane Lolita and "a
nymphet pirouetted" Here are some additional nuggets I cite in support of
this view:
Nabokov's unabashed "Russianness"
- Russian “was the fashionable language *par excellence*, much more so
than French, among the nobles of Zembla at least, and at its court” (p. 286,
l. 894).
- “Charles the Beloved[,] could boast some Russian blood (p. 245 l. 681).
- An old world Russia “that hated tyrants and Philistines, injustice and
cruelty, the Russia of ladies and gentlemen and liberal aspirations” (p. 245
l. 681).
- “Charles Xavier Vseslav,…, surnamed The Beloved” (p. 306), Charles'
surname calls out "slav."
- “Botkin, V., American scholar of Russian descent: (p. 306). Considering
the former bullet point, a likely choice is "Vseslav," but the
initialization allows for a nice insertion of "Vladimir."
Inclusions of Pnin
“’You do know Russian, though?’ said Pardon. ‘I think I heard you, the other
> day, talking to - what's his name - oh, my goodness’ [laboriously composing
> his lips].
Shade: ‘Sir, we all find it difficult to attack that name’ [laughing].
Professor Hurley: ‘Think of the French word for “tire”: punoo.’
Shade: ‘Why, Sir, I am afraid you have only punctured the difficulty’
[laughing uproariously].” (p. 268 l. 894)
- Pardon calls out Kinbote speaking with Pnin.
- Shade's use of "attack" is an ironic reference to how Nabokov as
narrator in *Pnin*, attacks Professor Pnin. It is also an acknowledgment
of the difficulty a lot of readers had with pronouncing "Pnin" when the book
was released. Both jokes are unique to Nabokov's perspective. Note that
Prof. Hurley pronounces it incorrectly as well.
End of the Commentary
“I may assume other disguises, other forms, but I shall try to exist. I may
> turn up yet, on another campus, as an old, happy, healthy, heterosexual
> Russian, a writer in exile, sans fame, sans future, sans audience, sans
> anything but his art. I may join forces with Odon in a new motion picture:
> Escape from Zembla (ball in the palace, bomb in the palace square). I may
> pander to the simple tastes of theatrical critics and cook up a stage play,
> an old-fashioned melodrama… History permitting, I may sail back to my
> recovered kingdom, and with a great sob greet the gray coastline and the
> gleam of a roof in the rain.” (p. 300-301 l. 1000)
- "[A]n old, happy, healthy, heterosexual Russian, a writer in exile,
sans fame, sans future, sans audience, sans anything but his art" is the
Nabokov we know.
- "I may join forces with Odon in a new motion picture: *Escape from
Zembla[.]" *A potential reference to his Lolita screenplay.
- "History permitting, I may sail back to my recovered kingdom, and with
a great sob greet the gray coastline and the gleam of a roof in the rain."
Nabokov forecasting his eventual relocation to Montreux?
I'd be curious if anybody else has notes on this topic. Thanks for reading
my patchwork commentary.
-Nick
P.S. Dowling on *Pale Fire*, great!
On Wed, Apr 21, 2010 at 5:48 PM, NABOKV-L <NABOKV-L@holycross.edu> wrote:
> Simon Rowberry writes:
>
>
> Dear List,
>
> I know there have been various arguments put forth for both Shade and
> Kinbote having written the commentary to the poem 'Pale Fire', but has much
> thought been put into the place of Nabokov in this fictional narrative?
>
> Firstly, there is a precedent for this discussion given Nabokov's insertion
> of 'Vivian Darkbloom', an anagram of Vladimir Nabokov and pseudonym used by
> Nabokov on several occasions, as the biographer of Dolores Haze in John Ray
> Jr.'s foreword to Lolita.
>
> I believe that Nabokov has done a similar thing in Pale Fire, and even gone
> as far as to imply that he may be the final editor of the edition of the
> poem/commentary. This is partially due to the intertextual nods to his
> older
> novels including Pnin in the notes to line 172 and 579, Lolita in the note
> to line 680 (the reference to a 1958 hurricane perhaps being a response to
> the reception to the publication of the novel in America that year) and the
> variant to line 413 (if one considers a reference to a 'nymphet' as an
> allusion to Lolita, since I believe he coined the term); and Kinbote's
> suggestion of Solus Rex for the title of the poem, alluding to the title of
> an unfinished Russian novel which formed the basis of Pale Fire. Are there
> any more references to other novels/poems by Nabokov that present the
> possibility that Nabokov is part of his own fictional world?
>
> These allusions are complemented by two descriptions of a character who
> might be Nabokov. Near the end of the novel, in the note to line 949, there
> is a description of 'a baldheaded suntanned professor in a Hawaiian shirt
> sat at a round table reading with an ironic expression on his face a
> Russian
> book'. How accurate is this portrait to Nabokov around the time of the
> novel's development. Perhaps more tellingly, is the reference in the
> foreword, which states 'Professor So-and-so [one of the members of the
> Shade
> committee] has consented to act as our adviser in editing the stuff'. Most
> of the other professors in the novel are given at least initials but this
> one remains anonymous. Perhaps Professor So-and-so got hold of Kinbote's
> notes post-suicide, if one subscribes to this school of thought, and added
> a
> few flourishes of his own. Kinbote admits in the index that he knows little
> about lepidoptera, something Nabokov was also keen to emphasize about
> Humbert Humbert, that he is the expert and not the character.
>
> Thus, assuming the validity of the thesis that Shade wrote the poem, and
> Kinbote/Botkin wrote a commentary thereof, it is perhaps Nabokov who has
> the
> last word as editor? I believe it was mentioned on here previously that
> bodkin can also mean 'a person wedged in between two others where there is
> proper room for two only' (OED). Here, it is Nabokov who is squeezing in
> between Shade and Kinbote in a final layer of Nabokovian deception.
>
> Best,
> Simon Rowberry
> Search the archive<http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en> Contact
> the Editors <nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu> Visit "Nabokov
> Online Journal" <http://www.nabokovonline.com> Visit Zembla<http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm> View
> Nabokv-L Policies <http://web.utk.edu/%7Esblackwe/EDNote.htm> Manage
> subscription options <http://listserv.ucsb.edu/>
>
> All private editorial communications, without exception, are read by both
> co-editors.
>
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/