Subject
Hazel's unattractiveness
From
Date
Body
Elspeth: A most stimulating observation that takes us into the fashionably
unfathomable depths of literary 'morality' and authorial 'intention' and
'duty.' 'Good characters behaving Badly!' 'Good Authors Condoning Evil?'
'Plotting Flaws or Super-Clever-Deliberate-Mullholland-Drives?' 'What does
"literally" mean literally?' 'Should libraries have more graded sections
between Fiction, Non-Fiction, and Don'tCare?'
Pecking tentatively at this fertile tundra, I suggest that it's unhelpful
(but inevitable?) to ask why some fictional characters do not conform with
certain stereotypes held by some readers, or, indeed, why some characters
break the Laws of Physics! In fact, a common complaint against some novels
is that their characters are far too predictable (cookie-cut from
cardboard?) whence 'stereotypical' and _potentionally_ 'boring.' The author,
of course, is free to create characters that behave inconsistently (nice and
naughty), unconventionally, irrationally, magically, with or without bouts
of the 'real' and 'ordinary.' Examples of each category abound in the works
of our favourite writer. VN can make even the most mundane character
interesting.
In the case of Pale Fire, I offer the following random, unpolished reactions
to your query:
Clearly, the Shades happen NOT to fit the stereotype of 'normal loving'
parents apparently blind to their children's shortcomings, however obvious
to all around. (Elsewhere in literature we meet many diverse
counter-examples: the Ugly-Duckling syndrome and Lear rejecting Cordelia his
only faithful daughter. Dawkins could present a Darwinian [selfish-Jean?]
case for killing off the runts in a litter *). As you say, Elspeth, the
Shades veer to the extreme of deliberate cruelty (or, at the least, culpable
indifference), made all the more tragic by JS's (guilty?) remorse after
Hazel's suicide, expressed, some claim, in rather poor, far-from-heroic
[sic] verse! Note: my current spin (open to disproof) is that JS's
PF-the-poem wonderfully wobbles twixt Popeian (not Papal or Papist!),
Word-smithyan faux-grandeur and faux-doggerel. It's a sublime VN parody of
parody itself -- and we are never sure which lines might be the result of
Kinbote's cunning, madly-methodical [© Polonius] edits. CK openly reveals
his dishonesty! What should we make of the lines that CK claims were erased
by JS? Super cunning to hide CK's covert amemdments? Shade burns the worse
of his verse, which we might assume to have been presque McGona-galling?
From Pale Fire to Failed Pyre? The artist-as-poor-parent is a more
sustainable stereotype than the ever-doting guys with honest, steady jobs!
Off hand, Dmitri, your Dad (and maybe Verdi, judging from his
father-loves-daughter operas) are the only shining exceptions that springs
to mind. One readily thinks of Joyce, Waugh, Hughes ... who stretch the
meaning of 'natural' father. Turgenev wrote wisely of father-son splits
(Ottsy I Deti) but favouring the son's perspective -- he never married and I
don't believe he can be rated as a good father to his 'illegitimate'
serf-daughter! (Corrections invited) literature reflects this cruel reality
(the Ugly-Duckling syndrome; Lear and daughters).
* I've almost finished Dawkins's 'The GOD Delusion' and vice-versa.
Certainly worth a read for those debating VN's views on evolution by natural
selection. As a devout atheist, I can agree with Dawkins's general
conclusions -- YET one longs for a less SHRILL voice. He will lose many
sincere truth-seeking readers with some of his knee-jerk anti-Yanquisms,
e.g., the phrase "American Talleban." We do know of the verbal excesses of
our Bible-Belt fundamentalists, but they get lumped in with physical nasties
of Waco, Oklahoma, and the very rare Anti-abortion arseny (the one murder
gains many pages). YET little of American democracy, state-church separation
-- balance, dear Richard.
Having JS cast as poor-poetaster-as-a-pathological-parent seems to me to be
less of a puzzle than the other teasing gauntlets VN has flung our way.
ended to my
Penguin PF edition) which is BOTH sobering AND intoxicating -- Brian Boyd's
reaction cannot be too often re-cited [sic] : "
"McCarthy felt and conveyed the excitement of discovery Nabokov can
generate, but became OVERintoxicated ** in tracking down the novel's
literary allusions, and introduced a great many irrelevant ingenuities of
her own."
** My CAPS. Does BB have a literary breath-a-lyzer? Blow into this bag,
Mary. I said into the BAG, bitch! I'm afraid you are over the limit for
controlling a dangerous vehicle, to wit, an essay persuing the illusions of
allusions.
BB then adds (parenthetically!) VN's verdict:
'Nabokov noted that "90% of her symbols were not fathered by me."'
(I recall a similar disclaimer in a letter to the author of Annotated
Lollita. VN was quite sympathetic about the many links that he himself was
'unaware' of! Did VN ever see or comment on the comprehensive Ada
annotations?)
I read this as another Nabokovian tease (my definition of which includes the
notion of a rare, refined capacity for both self-referential mockery _and_
boasting). Even if the only 'true' allusions were those consciously intended
by VN (which is hard to accept for one so polymythic), his warning should
not deter the sheer FUN of driving DRUNK or SOBER! A good reason for my
conclusion: VN did NOT (to the best of my knowledge) list the 10% of PF
allusions to which he claimed PATERNITY. Absent such precious data, the HUNT
must continue!
Stan Kelly-Bootle
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
unfathomable depths of literary 'morality' and authorial 'intention' and
'duty.' 'Good characters behaving Badly!' 'Good Authors Condoning Evil?'
'Plotting Flaws or Super-Clever-Deliberate-Mullholland-Drives?' 'What does
"literally" mean literally?' 'Should libraries have more graded sections
between Fiction, Non-Fiction, and Don'tCare?'
Pecking tentatively at this fertile tundra, I suggest that it's unhelpful
(but inevitable?) to ask why some fictional characters do not conform with
certain stereotypes held by some readers, or, indeed, why some characters
break the Laws of Physics! In fact, a common complaint against some novels
is that their characters are far too predictable (cookie-cut from
cardboard?) whence 'stereotypical' and _potentionally_ 'boring.' The author,
of course, is free to create characters that behave inconsistently (nice and
naughty), unconventionally, irrationally, magically, with or without bouts
of the 'real' and 'ordinary.' Examples of each category abound in the works
of our favourite writer. VN can make even the most mundane character
interesting.
In the case of Pale Fire, I offer the following random, unpolished reactions
to your query:
Clearly, the Shades happen NOT to fit the stereotype of 'normal loving'
parents apparently blind to their children's shortcomings, however obvious
to all around. (Elsewhere in literature we meet many diverse
counter-examples: the Ugly-Duckling syndrome and Lear rejecting Cordelia his
only faithful daughter. Dawkins could present a Darwinian [selfish-Jean?]
case for killing off the runts in a litter *). As you say, Elspeth, the
Shades veer to the extreme of deliberate cruelty (or, at the least, culpable
indifference), made all the more tragic by JS's (guilty?) remorse after
Hazel's suicide, expressed, some claim, in rather poor, far-from-heroic
[sic] verse! Note: my current spin (open to disproof) is that JS's
PF-the-poem wonderfully wobbles twixt Popeian (not Papal or Papist!),
Word-smithyan faux-grandeur and faux-doggerel. It's a sublime VN parody of
parody itself -- and we are never sure which lines might be the result of
Kinbote's cunning, madly-methodical [© Polonius] edits. CK openly reveals
his dishonesty! What should we make of the lines that CK claims were erased
by JS? Super cunning to hide CK's covert amemdments? Shade burns the worse
of his verse, which we might assume to have been presque McGona-galling?
From Pale Fire to Failed Pyre? The artist-as-poor-parent is a more
sustainable stereotype than the ever-doting guys with honest, steady jobs!
Off hand, Dmitri, your Dad (and maybe Verdi, judging from his
father-loves-daughter operas) are the only shining exceptions that springs
to mind. One readily thinks of Joyce, Waugh, Hughes ... who stretch the
meaning of 'natural' father. Turgenev wrote wisely of father-son splits
(Ottsy I Deti) but favouring the son's perspective -- he never married and I
don't believe he can be rated as a good father to his 'illegitimate'
serf-daughter! (Corrections invited) literature reflects this cruel reality
(the Ugly-Duckling syndrome; Lear and daughters).
* I've almost finished Dawkins's 'The GOD Delusion' and vice-versa.
Certainly worth a read for those debating VN's views on evolution by natural
selection. As a devout atheist, I can agree with Dawkins's general
conclusions -- YET one longs for a less SHRILL voice. He will lose many
sincere truth-seeking readers with some of his knee-jerk anti-Yanquisms,
e.g., the phrase "American Talleban." We do know of the verbal excesses of
our Bible-Belt fundamentalists, but they get lumped in with physical nasties
of Waco, Oklahoma, and the very rare Anti-abortion arseny (the one murder
gains many pages). YET little of American democracy, state-church separation
-- balance, dear Richard.
Having JS cast as poor-poetaster-as-a-pathological-parent seems to me to be
less of a puzzle than the other teasing gauntlets VN has flung our way.
ended to my
Penguin PF edition) which is BOTH sobering AND intoxicating -- Brian Boyd's
reaction cannot be too often re-cited [sic] : "
"McCarthy felt and conveyed the excitement of discovery Nabokov can
generate, but became OVERintoxicated ** in tracking down the novel's
literary allusions, and introduced a great many irrelevant ingenuities of
her own."
** My CAPS. Does BB have a literary breath-a-lyzer? Blow into this bag,
Mary. I said into the BAG, bitch! I'm afraid you are over the limit for
controlling a dangerous vehicle, to wit, an essay persuing the illusions of
allusions.
BB then adds (parenthetically!) VN's verdict:
'Nabokov noted that "90% of her symbols were not fathered by me."'
(I recall a similar disclaimer in a letter to the author of Annotated
Lollita. VN was quite sympathetic about the many links that he himself was
'unaware' of! Did VN ever see or comment on the comprehensive Ada
annotations?)
I read this as another Nabokovian tease (my definition of which includes the
notion of a rare, refined capacity for both self-referential mockery _and_
boasting). Even if the only 'true' allusions were those consciously intended
by VN (which is hard to accept for one so polymythic), his warning should
not deter the sheer FUN of driving DRUNK or SOBER! A good reason for my
conclusion: VN did NOT (to the best of my knowledge) list the 10% of PF
allusions to which he claimed PATERNITY. Absent such precious data, the HUNT
must continue!
Stan Kelly-Bootle
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