Subject
brain, sex, death in Pale Fire
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Dear Jerry,
You ask about the brain and death and posit a materialist argument by
Kinbote. But Kinbote is a religious zealot! On the other hand you are right
that Shade seems to have a spiritual experience during his fits. I seem to
recall something similar in Pnin.
Only death however completely stops the brain and the attacks that Shade
suffers do not kill him - - he even survives the last one for a while and
only at some later point (when he is "shot") does Kinbote become the lone
survivor once Gradus is safely locked up in jail. And only sometime on or
after October 19 when the preface is signed by Kinbote does death by suicide
come in a strange motel room - - beyond the novel itself although foreseen
by both Kinbote and Shade.
If Zembla is a brain, it is the brain of a repressed homoerotic - - that
could explain its shape (recall that Shade is himself misshapen) and
asymmetry. Both Shade and Kinbote do marry after all, and even Kinbote
unwillingly admits that the only person he really loved is Disa. So the
homosexual and heterosexual aspects of both exist, but never in balance.
And the fountain wasn't linked with Maud that I can recall, but with Shade
and a "Mrs Z." I think.
By the way Maud and the Countess de Fyler both die shattered in 1950 and the
Countess's "Charles take take flower flower flower" message seems to be an
echo of Maud's posthumous rant, perhaps from the time that Shade says "she
still could speak"?
Carolyn
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You ask about the brain and death and posit a materialist argument by
Kinbote. But Kinbote is a religious zealot! On the other hand you are right
that Shade seems to have a spiritual experience during his fits. I seem to
recall something similar in Pnin.
Only death however completely stops the brain and the attacks that Shade
suffers do not kill him - - he even survives the last one for a while and
only at some later point (when he is "shot") does Kinbote become the lone
survivor once Gradus is safely locked up in jail. And only sometime on or
after October 19 when the preface is signed by Kinbote does death by suicide
come in a strange motel room - - beyond the novel itself although foreseen
by both Kinbote and Shade.
If Zembla is a brain, it is the brain of a repressed homoerotic - - that
could explain its shape (recall that Shade is himself misshapen) and
asymmetry. Both Shade and Kinbote do marry after all, and even Kinbote
unwillingly admits that the only person he really loved is Disa. So the
homosexual and heterosexual aspects of both exist, but never in balance.
And the fountain wasn't linked with Maud that I can recall, but with Shade
and a "Mrs Z." I think.
By the way Maud and the Countess de Fyler both die shattered in 1950 and the
Countess's "Charles take take flower flower flower" message seems to be an
echo of Maud's posthumous rant, perhaps from the time that Shade says "she
still could speak"?
Carolyn
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
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