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Re: Query: parenting and PF (Hazel's unattractiveness)
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Elspeth,
You strike exactly at the novel's weakest point. No matter how
sympathetically John Shade is presented to us, the fact of his being
absolutely distraught that his daughter is not Miss America shows him to be
shallow indeed. And, surprisingly, to me, shallow in the sense that VN would
consider a man not merely shallow, but vulgar nature to boot.
His anxiety that Hazel has inherited his looks rather than her mother's
shows a degree of self-loathing that cannot be disguised as mere modesty or
humble acceptance of his own appearance. And if he really is as strange
looking as we are led to believe, in the poem, than he must have had
something awfully potent to enable him to keep Sybil at his side. Why could
he not assume that his daughter would have similar gifts, far greater than
the looks of TV ad models, that would gain her what she ultimately wanted?
When the writer of the poem Pale Fire depicts Hazel stepping off the bus to
go and drown herself, we have reason to be suspicious. Many young people go
through periods of deep concern about their appearance, but (until this age
of anorexia) they rarely kill themselves for this reason. Hazel was an
intelligent, forceful, independent young woman. Such woman have gone far
without worrying too much about how others perceived them. That Hazel would
drown herself because a blind dated turned out to be a disaster just seems
unlikely. This is such a weak point in the poem and in the book that I
can¹t help thinking it is a hinge Nabokov contrived to draw the right
readers closer and leave the wrong readers in the dust.
Another point: Just what exactly did John Shade have in mind that he and a
supermodel daughter would do that he couldn¹t do with the strong, smart,
independent daughter that he and his wife were fortunate enough to have?
Andrew Brown
On 11/6/06 10:35 PM, "NABOKV-L" <NABOKV-L@HOLYCROSS.EDU> wrote:
> I'm new to the list and looking for some ideas on an aspect of Pale Fire
> which I find problematic (I'm teaching the book for the first time next
> semester). I've tried searching the archive for existing remarks on this
> problem, and although I found an intelligent email on a related topic
> (does Hazel commit suicide because she can't get a date, or, more
> likely, does she happen to kill herself after a failed date?), I can't
> find anything on this. I'd be grateful for either ideas from list users
> or some suggesgtions for reading.
>
> This is the problem. Why does it bother the Shades so much that their
> daughter is unattractive? The cliche 'a face only a mother could love'
> is based, like many cliches, on an accurate observation - that normal,
> loving parents delight in the faces of their children, even though those
> faces are not delightful to most casual passers by. Instead of sobbing
> in the men's room when Hazel plays Old Mother Time (I think; don't have
> my copy on me), why isn't John Shade simply bursting with pride that his
> daughter has such a major role, and thinking to himself with delight
> that your insipid, conventional beauties might be all right for the
> boring heroine, but it takes talent to play a character role. Hazel is,
> it seems, intelligent, quirky, independent-minded - why on earth are
> they so miserable about her? And why are they so sure she'll never marry
> or have children? Of course it's easier for attractive people to find
> dates than unattractive people. But the Shades must know as well as
> we the readers do that plenty of extremely unattractive people, or even
> people who've suffered the kinds of injuries which have a terrible
> impact on appearance, have long happy marriages, while plenty of
> beauties do not.
>
> This matters to me, because it seems to upset the whole moral balance of
> the book. In other respects the Shades are sane where Kinbote is insane,
> both in mental health (eg delusions, paranoia) and in their values in
> life. Yet in this respect they seem to be really terrible parents, the
> kind of parents who take a child with a problem and make it ten times
> worse by their visible disappointment in the child for having the
> problem at all. Indeed if the Boyd hypothesis is correct, this odd moral
> weakness for physical beauty is built into the fabric of ghostly
> tenderness in the book, since Hazel's 'reward' for enduring ugliness in
> her human life is to become a beauty as a butterfly. Is it just me, or
> is this unpleasant and shallow?
>
> Thanks for your time, and apologies if this is an old chestnut for
> Nabokovians.
>
> Elspeth Jajdelska
>
> 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
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
You strike exactly at the novel's weakest point. No matter how
sympathetically John Shade is presented to us, the fact of his being
absolutely distraught that his daughter is not Miss America shows him to be
shallow indeed. And, surprisingly, to me, shallow in the sense that VN would
consider a man not merely shallow, but vulgar nature to boot.
His anxiety that Hazel has inherited his looks rather than her mother's
shows a degree of self-loathing that cannot be disguised as mere modesty or
humble acceptance of his own appearance. And if he really is as strange
looking as we are led to believe, in the poem, than he must have had
something awfully potent to enable him to keep Sybil at his side. Why could
he not assume that his daughter would have similar gifts, far greater than
the looks of TV ad models, that would gain her what she ultimately wanted?
When the writer of the poem Pale Fire depicts Hazel stepping off the bus to
go and drown herself, we have reason to be suspicious. Many young people go
through periods of deep concern about their appearance, but (until this age
of anorexia) they rarely kill themselves for this reason. Hazel was an
intelligent, forceful, independent young woman. Such woman have gone far
without worrying too much about how others perceived them. That Hazel would
drown herself because a blind dated turned out to be a disaster just seems
unlikely. This is such a weak point in the poem and in the book that I
can¹t help thinking it is a hinge Nabokov contrived to draw the right
readers closer and leave the wrong readers in the dust.
Another point: Just what exactly did John Shade have in mind that he and a
supermodel daughter would do that he couldn¹t do with the strong, smart,
independent daughter that he and his wife were fortunate enough to have?
Andrew Brown
On 11/6/06 10:35 PM, "NABOKV-L" <NABOKV-L@HOLYCROSS.EDU> wrote:
> I'm new to the list and looking for some ideas on an aspect of Pale Fire
> which I find problematic (I'm teaching the book for the first time next
> semester). I've tried searching the archive for existing remarks on this
> problem, and although I found an intelligent email on a related topic
> (does Hazel commit suicide because she can't get a date, or, more
> likely, does she happen to kill herself after a failed date?), I can't
> find anything on this. I'd be grateful for either ideas from list users
> or some suggesgtions for reading.
>
> This is the problem. Why does it bother the Shades so much that their
> daughter is unattractive? The cliche 'a face only a mother could love'
> is based, like many cliches, on an accurate observation - that normal,
> loving parents delight in the faces of their children, even though those
> faces are not delightful to most casual passers by. Instead of sobbing
> in the men's room when Hazel plays Old Mother Time (I think; don't have
> my copy on me), why isn't John Shade simply bursting with pride that his
> daughter has such a major role, and thinking to himself with delight
> that your insipid, conventional beauties might be all right for the
> boring heroine, but it takes talent to play a character role. Hazel is,
> it seems, intelligent, quirky, independent-minded - why on earth are
> they so miserable about her? And why are they so sure she'll never marry
> or have children? Of course it's easier for attractive people to find
> dates than unattractive people. But the Shades must know as well as
> we the readers do that plenty of extremely unattractive people, or even
> people who've suffered the kinds of injuries which have a terrible
> impact on appearance, have long happy marriages, while plenty of
> beauties do not.
>
> This matters to me, because it seems to upset the whole moral balance of
> the book. In other respects the Shades are sane where Kinbote is insane,
> both in mental health (eg delusions, paranoia) and in their values in
> life. Yet in this respect they seem to be really terrible parents, the
> kind of parents who take a child with a problem and make it ten times
> worse by their visible disappointment in the child for having the
> problem at all. Indeed if the Boyd hypothesis is correct, this odd moral
> weakness for physical beauty is built into the fabric of ghostly
> tenderness in the book, since Hazel's 'reward' for enduring ugliness in
> her human life is to become a beauty as a butterfly. Is it just me, or
> is this unpleasant and shallow?
>
> Thanks for your time, and apologies if this is an old chestnut for
> Nabokovians.
>
> Elspeth Jajdelska
>
> 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
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