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CK replies to her critics
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[EDNOTE. I have consolidated several of Carolyn's posts into one for simplicity's sake. -- SES]
Dear Anthony,
>Kinbote's inner existence is hardly far removed from what I, at any rate, call a joke. If Kinbote and Shade are both aspects of one person, then that person has an inner existence part of which is not far removed from a joke. This contradicts what VN says
This is an easy question to answer. I don't see Kinbote's inner existence as anything less than tragic. The only person he loves in Disa, and he isn't capable of loving her. I think it is as sad as the two mated birds in separate cages with which Chekhov ends his story "The Lady with the Dog" which (to me) is a much sadder fate than that suffered by Romeo and Juliet.
>And I do take seriously, as I believe Brian Boyd does, what VN says about how boring it would be to puzzle readers and play games with them for its own sake, as opposed to inviting them to think hard about complex questions of life and art.
We'll have to agree to disagree on this. Interesting though, where you see a joke I see a tragedy, where I see a joke you see "complex questions of life and art."
>You have ignored the quote I gave you from "Strong Opinions" of VN on Kinbote's suicide.
Oh, sorry. I have in other posts said that I believe Kinbote commits suicide after he finishes the foreword. I'm afraid I must have missed your point. If it's important please send the quote again - - I'm afraid things are getting lost in the flurry.
Carolyn
--------
>[Carolyn] considers that " Sybil, Hazel and Shade are the three main characters" and not Gradus, Kinbote and Shade. And yet, if PF bears any similarity with RLS' J&H, there would be no feminine "main characters" at all, would there?
Dear Jansy,
I have written, but probably not recently, that the literary foreparents (probably there is a better word - - inspirers?) of Pale Fire include, but surely are not limited to: J&H, The Portrait of Dorian Gray, The Three Faces of Eve and the Alice books. And I'm forgetting Poe's "The Purloined Letter" and at least one of the Sherlock Holmes stories (swamp, fluorescent dog) - - so J&H is only one in a small crowd that I've been able to identify and I'm sure there are more that I haven't recognized.
So far as I'm aware the Shade-Sybil-Hazel story is a complete VN invention. Can anyone think of anything similar?
By the way, one of the books that I have wanted to read since reading Pale Fire is The Confessions of a Justified Sinner by the odd James Hogg, whose relationship to the more famous Sir Walter Scott is nearly as odd as that of Kinbote's to Shade. There is definitely a Scottish strain in PF.
Carolyn
----------
Dear Jerry,
So since we're all enjoying, let's continue:
>Is it [Kinbote's noisy attempts to spy on Shade] a metaphor in the usual sense? If you say your love is a red, red rose, you're consciously thinking about the similarities.
I think it is a sort of metaphor, or maybe a kind of pun? in the sense that Kinbote's noisemaking indicates that as his presence is impinging more on the Shades he becomes more of a nuisance.
>Are you envisioning that Kinbote remembers verging towards Shade's consciousness inside him and deliberately decides to portray that as spying on the Shades and banging garbage cans? Or that he unconsciously distorts his memory of one into the other? Either one breaks my WSOD (as the science-fiction fans call it on Usenet).
Sorry - - WSOD? No, I don't envision it this way. Perhaps the best response is to direct you to VN's lecture on J&H, in which he goes into the relationship of the two personalities - - each separate from the other, but also sharing some characteristics of the other. Unfortunately the question of shared memory doesn't arise in J&H, so it will be less helpful there.
>Quite different, in my view, from a sufferer from MPD having an internal conversation. The former happens a lot in reality as well as fiction (smacking oneself on the forehead, "Idiot!"); the latter is unprecedented
Probither history nor law, so you can't hold VN to precedents, can you? He's allowed to invent.
> But in general it seems to me that Kinbote is believable when he talks about Shade and his family (who was born when, what their names are, what they were like, who had an affair with whom)
(WIth the exception of Carolyn Shade's nationality.)
>Yes, but that is because of his own relationship to her, which he is hiding from the reader. Doesn't Shade make some reference to a brother he has to protect? This "brother" would have to be Kinbote, who shares the same parents and probably got Shade into some trouble on occasion..
>But you do absolutely believe some things that he claims he took part in, as that Shade looked like a tipsy witch.
Well, I guess as anyone who has to determine what to believe and what to doubt you look for corroborating evidence. Shade looking like a tipsy witch following all those strokes in Canto IV (not my favorite) add up to something that makes sense to me. That doesn't mean that I can make it add up to something that makes sense to you, of course.
>My pleasure.
The pleasure is mine.
Carolyn
--------------
Dear Charles,
>Alice, in passing through the looking-glass, is the waxwing that flies on.
Yes, that's a wonderful possibility.
>Dualism is therefore a necessary prerequisite for human communication. Monism, in my limited understanding, leads to a Nirvana-like state where everything is nothing, or vice versa; light and dark merge; there is no communication, and the ego melts into the infinite.
I've always thought the "indivisible monist" remark was probably a joke. I recall that Pnin has an attack during which, to his horror, he begins to dissolve into the wall paper. I don't think VN was particularly interested in finding Nirvana.
>A kaleidoscope is an extremely pleasing toy.
Hmm, something to add to the PF toy box.
>I think it is in his Eugen Onegin that VN refers to a ³translator² who is so abominable that he can¹t bring himself to mention the person by name. I have always wanted to believe that this person must be none other than Ezra Pound, whose productions, personality and politics would assuredly be abhorrent to Nabokov. Can anyone offer any support for this assumption?
I have no idea - - but it does remind me that Kinbote cannot bring himself to name the head of the Shadows (my guess is the name is Hades) and although Hazel's "pet name" is referred to - - we don't know what it is. Kitty? Bunny? Puss?
I'm glad you're reading the Alice books, I think I'm going to start in on Hogg's "Confessions."
Carolyn
--------------
>The cerebral sclerotides I looked at often cause motor problems, but it seems hard to believe that if Shade's motor problems were caused by it, a doctor would have overlooked them.
>
> It seems much more likely to me that some form of cerebral sclerosis caused Kinbote's insanity and headaches.
I'm sorry, I seem to have mis-placed the post this came from, but I think it was
Dear Jerry,
Is there a physician, or a neurologist on the List?
Carolyn
-----------
>most notably in inserting the long extract from Franklin Lane's last piece of writing.
More on this please?
Carolyn
---------
Dear Anthony,
My fault, I used the wrong word, although I did also forget these few mentions of Freud. By "references to Freud" I meant and should have said allusions to Freud, as the mention of a trilby hat is an allusion to hypnosis.
So the question should have been: has anyone spotted any allusions to Freud, other than the few mentions of his name that you pointed out?
Carolyn
-----------
>Nabokov would likely have gotten his first non-fiction taste of MPD from William James's Principles of Psychology (1890), which he read at 12 or 13 (Wislon letters?). In that work MPD was called "the phenomenon of alternating personality". Harvard UP, 1981, v. 1, pp 358-371 (followed by "mediumships or possessions"). James includes mostly references to the work of Pierre Janet--whom someone e,
More invaluable information. Especially since William James also was one of the founders of the Psychical Research Society (surely that's not right) in America. I had no idea he was also interested in the alternate personality problem or that Nabokov had read this work, especially at such an age! Fascinating.
Carolyn
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Dear Anthony,
>Kinbote's inner existence is hardly far removed from what I, at any rate, call a joke. If Kinbote and Shade are both aspects of one person, then that person has an inner existence part of which is not far removed from a joke. This contradicts what VN says
This is an easy question to answer. I don't see Kinbote's inner existence as anything less than tragic. The only person he loves in Disa, and he isn't capable of loving her. I think it is as sad as the two mated birds in separate cages with which Chekhov ends his story "The Lady with the Dog" which (to me) is a much sadder fate than that suffered by Romeo and Juliet.
>And I do take seriously, as I believe Brian Boyd does, what VN says about how boring it would be to puzzle readers and play games with them for its own sake, as opposed to inviting them to think hard about complex questions of life and art.
We'll have to agree to disagree on this. Interesting though, where you see a joke I see a tragedy, where I see a joke you see "complex questions of life and art."
>You have ignored the quote I gave you from "Strong Opinions" of VN on Kinbote's suicide.
Oh, sorry. I have in other posts said that I believe Kinbote commits suicide after he finishes the foreword. I'm afraid I must have missed your point. If it's important please send the quote again - - I'm afraid things are getting lost in the flurry.
Carolyn
--------
>[Carolyn] considers that " Sybil, Hazel and Shade are the three main characters" and not Gradus, Kinbote and Shade. And yet, if PF bears any similarity with RLS' J&H, there would be no feminine "main characters" at all, would there?
Dear Jansy,
I have written, but probably not recently, that the literary foreparents (probably there is a better word - - inspirers?) of Pale Fire include, but surely are not limited to: J&H, The Portrait of Dorian Gray, The Three Faces of Eve and the Alice books. And I'm forgetting Poe's "The Purloined Letter" and at least one of the Sherlock Holmes stories (swamp, fluorescent dog) - - so J&H is only one in a small crowd that I've been able to identify and I'm sure there are more that I haven't recognized.
So far as I'm aware the Shade-Sybil-Hazel story is a complete VN invention. Can anyone think of anything similar?
By the way, one of the books that I have wanted to read since reading Pale Fire is The Confessions of a Justified Sinner by the odd James Hogg, whose relationship to the more famous Sir Walter Scott is nearly as odd as that of Kinbote's to Shade. There is definitely a Scottish strain in PF.
Carolyn
----------
Dear Jerry,
So since we're all enjoying, let's continue:
>Is it [Kinbote's noisy attempts to spy on Shade] a metaphor in the usual sense? If you say your love is a red, red rose, you're consciously thinking about the similarities.
I think it is a sort of metaphor, or maybe a kind of pun? in the sense that Kinbote's noisemaking indicates that as his presence is impinging more on the Shades he becomes more of a nuisance.
>Are you envisioning that Kinbote remembers verging towards Shade's consciousness inside him and deliberately decides to portray that as spying on the Shades and banging garbage cans? Or that he unconsciously distorts his memory of one into the other? Either one breaks my WSOD (as the science-fiction fans call it on Usenet).
Sorry - - WSOD? No, I don't envision it this way. Perhaps the best response is to direct you to VN's lecture on J&H, in which he goes into the relationship of the two personalities - - each separate from the other, but also sharing some characteristics of the other. Unfortunately the question of shared memory doesn't arise in J&H, so it will be less helpful there.
>Quite different, in my view, from a sufferer from MPD having an internal conversation. The former happens a lot in reality as well as fiction (smacking oneself on the forehead, "Idiot!"); the latter is unprecedented
Probither history nor law, so you can't hold VN to precedents, can you? He's allowed to invent.
> But in general it seems to me that Kinbote is believable when he talks about Shade and his family (who was born when, what their names are, what they were like, who had an affair with whom)
(WIth the exception of Carolyn Shade's nationality.)
>Yes, but that is because of his own relationship to her, which he is hiding from the reader. Doesn't Shade make some reference to a brother he has to protect? This "brother" would have to be Kinbote, who shares the same parents and probably got Shade into some trouble on occasion..
>But you do absolutely believe some things that he claims he took part in, as that Shade looked like a tipsy witch.
Well, I guess as anyone who has to determine what to believe and what to doubt you look for corroborating evidence. Shade looking like a tipsy witch following all those strokes in Canto IV (not my favorite) add up to something that makes sense to me. That doesn't mean that I can make it add up to something that makes sense to you, of course.
>My pleasure.
The pleasure is mine.
Carolyn
--------------
Dear Charles,
>Alice, in passing through the looking-glass, is the waxwing that flies on.
Yes, that's a wonderful possibility.
>Dualism is therefore a necessary prerequisite for human communication. Monism, in my limited understanding, leads to a Nirvana-like state where everything is nothing, or vice versa; light and dark merge; there is no communication, and the ego melts into the infinite.
I've always thought the "indivisible monist" remark was probably a joke. I recall that Pnin has an attack during which, to his horror, he begins to dissolve into the wall paper. I don't think VN was particularly interested in finding Nirvana.
>A kaleidoscope is an extremely pleasing toy.
Hmm, something to add to the PF toy box.
>I think it is in his Eugen Onegin that VN refers to a ³translator² who is so abominable that he can¹t bring himself to mention the person by name. I have always wanted to believe that this person must be none other than Ezra Pound, whose productions, personality and politics would assuredly be abhorrent to Nabokov. Can anyone offer any support for this assumption?
I have no idea - - but it does remind me that Kinbote cannot bring himself to name the head of the Shadows (my guess is the name is Hades) and although Hazel's "pet name" is referred to - - we don't know what it is. Kitty? Bunny? Puss?
I'm glad you're reading the Alice books, I think I'm going to start in on Hogg's "Confessions."
Carolyn
--------------
>The cerebral sclerotides I looked at often cause motor problems, but it seems hard to believe that if Shade's motor problems were caused by it, a doctor would have overlooked them.
>
> It seems much more likely to me that some form of cerebral sclerosis caused Kinbote's insanity and headaches.
I'm sorry, I seem to have mis-placed the post this came from, but I think it was
Dear Jerry,
Is there a physician, or a neurologist on the List?
Carolyn
-----------
>most notably in inserting the long extract from Franklin Lane's last piece of writing.
Carolyn
---------
Dear Anthony,
My fault, I used the wrong word, although I did also forget these few mentions of Freud. By "references to Freud" I meant and should have said allusions to Freud, as the mention of a trilby hat is an allusion to hypnosis.
So the question should have been: has anyone spotted any allusions to Freud, other than the few mentions of his name that you pointed out?
Carolyn
-----------
>Nabokov would likely have gotten his first non-fiction taste of MPD from William James's Principles of Psychology (1890), which he read at 12 or 13 (Wislon letters?). In that work MPD was called "the phenomenon of alternating personality". Harvard UP, 1981, v. 1, pp 358-371 (followed by "mediumships or possessions"). James includes mostly references to the work of Pierre Janet--whom someone e,
More invaluable information. Especially since William James also was one of the founders of the Psychical Research Society (surely that's not right) in America. I had no idea he was also interested in the alternate personality problem or that Nabokov had read this work, especially at such an age! Fascinating.
Carolyn
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
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