Subject
Fwd: Re: RE poem "Pale Fire"
From
Date
Body
The way I have always seen it is that it is neither Kinbote OR
Shade who "succeed" but rather Nabokov who has created the
characters and art works of both of them and positioned these in
such a way that each of their glories and imperfections recursively
reflect to create the great masterpiece Pale Fire.
---Suellen
--On Friday, December 09, 2005 11:45 AM -0800 "Donald B. Johnson"
<chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu> wrote:
>
>
> ----- Forwarded message from michael.glynn@btinternet.com -----
> Date: Fri, 9 Dec 2005 18:39:30 -0000
> From: michael glynn <michael.glynn@btinternet.com>
> Reply-To: michael glynn <michael.glynn@btinternet.com>
> Subject: Re: Pale Fire
> To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
>
> Dear Sir - re Shade's poem and its alleged greatness. Could i
> offer a few thoughts extracted from Vladimir Nabokov and the
> Problem of Seeing? Many Thanks, Michael Glynn
>
>
>
> When Kinbote finally learns that Shade's poem is wholly
> oblivious to his Zemblan idyll, Kinbote's assessment of the great
> man's work is trenchant and pointedly Nabokovian. To Kinbote,
> Shade's poem is simply "an autobiographical, eminently
> Appalachian, rather old-fashioned narrative in a neo-Popian
> prosodic style." I would suggest that Kinbote's verdict is
> intended to command the assent of the reader, and that Nabokov's
> treatment of Shade and his poem is in fact ironic. This is a
> notion that would discomfit some critics: Herbert Grabes holds
> the poem to be "an extremely elaborate work of art, typical of
> the later phases of some literary epoch," and Andrew Field sees
> it as an important work, one worthy of critical study in
> isolation from the rest of the text. Brian Boyd, a staunch
> champion of Shade as presiding genius in the novel, hails the
> poem somewhat hyperbolically as a "masterpiece" and "a deliberate
> challenge to both Pound's Cantos and Eliot's Four Quartets." G.M.
> Hyde argues that Shade's poem reveals a serious and deep kinship
> with the work of Frost in that it manifests the latter's
> characteristic stoicism in the face of "terrible and
> incomprehensible things." Others have, however, expressed
> reservations about Shade's poetic offering. Douglas Fowler finds
> the poem's heroic couplet form to be limiting whilst Alvin B.
> Kernan argues that the poem should be read as "an extended and
> amusing spoof." In my view, the challenge Nabokov set himself in
> writing "Shade's" poem was to produce a highly competent but
> highly conventional piece of work, one which would ultimately be
> deemed an artistic failure. Nabokov appears deliberately to
> over-egg the pudding, having Shade present us with a daughter who
> is not only plump and plain but also unpopular, squinty-eyed,
> clumsy, swollen-footed, psoriatic and, perhaps not surprisingly
> in view of her multiple afflictions, deeply mentally troubled.
> Furthermore, it appears to have gone generally unremarked that
> this central conceit of the plain teenager rejected by her peers
> is a suspiciously mawkish one, the stuff of adolescent fiction or
> any number of late twentieth century pop songs. A brief
> comparative exercise will, I believe, throw into relief Nabokov's
> slyly ironic intent. Consider the following three extracts:
>
>
>
> 1) It must have broke your poor little heart
>
> When the boys used to say to you looked better in the dark
>
> .................................................................
> .....
>
> The teacher would ask a question
>
> And you would always raise your hand
> But somehow you never got your turn
>
> My eyes would fill with water, inside I'd burn, oh yes I did
>
>
>
> 2) At Christmas parties, games were rough, no doubt,
>
> And one shy little guest might be left out;
>
> But let's be fair: while children of her age
>
> Were cast as elves and fairies on the stage
>
> That she'd helped paint for the school pantomime,
>
> My gentle girl appeared as Mother Time,
>
> A bent charwoman with slop pail and broom,
>
> And like a fool I sobbed in the men's room.
>
>
>
> 3) I learned the truth at seventeen
>
> That love was meant for beauty queens
>
> And high school girls with clear skinned smiles
>
> Who married young and then retired.
>
> The valentines I never knew
>
> The Friday night charades of youth
>
> Were spent on one more beautiful
>
> At seventeen I learned the truth
>
>
>
> And those of us with ravaged faces
>
> Lacking in the social graces
> Desperately remained at home
>
> Inventing lovers on the phone
>
> Who called to say - Come dance with me
>
>
>
> As will be readily appreciated, the first and third extracts,
> song lyrics from The Chi-Lites' Homely Girl and Janis Ian's At
> Seventeen respectively, are characterised by a degree of
> triteness. However, the second extract, from Shade's poem, is
> almost identical in terms of subject matter and tone. Nabokov
> was too much the literary sophisticate unconsciously to produce
> such lachrymose and hackneyed work. If, as I maintain, Shade's
> poem is in part mawkish and conventional, it is because Nabokov
> intends it to be so. Nabokov is suggesting that Shade's attempt
> artistically to confront the loss of his daughter fails where
> Kinbote's distorted and distorting exploration of loss succeeds.
> As I have already suggested, Shade was instinctively Symbolist,
> concerned ultimately with there rather than here. However, when
> he addresses the tragic situation of his daughter he attempts to
> do so in a direct, immediate and sincere way, thereby hoping to
> give the reader an unmediated slice of reality. I believe that
> Nabokov wishes us to see this as a doomed attempt. Not for
> nothing is Shade so called. The poet's effort is eclipsed by the
> madman's commentary. When Shade attempts to evoke his daughter's
> tragic situation in conventional, heartfelt verse, he is
> betrayed into triteness. It is Kinbote's estranging method that
> can capture the essence of a tragic reality. In order to evoke
> the twin pains of exile and unhappy marriage, Kinbote, via
> oblique means, triumphantly transcends what Shklovsky termed "the
> sphere of automatised perception."
>
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> ---------------
>
> ----- End forwarded message -----
---------------------------------------
Suellen Stringer-Hye
Vanderbilt University
Website:http://staffweb.library.vanderbilt.edu/libtech/stringer/
Email: suellen.stringer-hye@Vanderbilt.Edu
----- End forwarded message -----
Shade who "succeed" but rather Nabokov who has created the
characters and art works of both of them and positioned these in
such a way that each of their glories and imperfections recursively
reflect to create the great masterpiece Pale Fire.
---Suellen
--On Friday, December 09, 2005 11:45 AM -0800 "Donald B. Johnson"
<chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu> wrote:
>
>
> ----- Forwarded message from michael.glynn@btinternet.com -----
> Date: Fri, 9 Dec 2005 18:39:30 -0000
> From: michael glynn <michael.glynn@btinternet.com>
> Reply-To: michael glynn <michael.glynn@btinternet.com>
> Subject: Re: Pale Fire
> To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
>
> Dear Sir - re Shade's poem and its alleged greatness. Could i
> offer a few thoughts extracted from Vladimir Nabokov and the
> Problem of Seeing? Many Thanks, Michael Glynn
>
>
>
> When Kinbote finally learns that Shade's poem is wholly
> oblivious to his Zemblan idyll, Kinbote's assessment of the great
> man's work is trenchant and pointedly Nabokovian. To Kinbote,
> Shade's poem is simply "an autobiographical, eminently
> Appalachian, rather old-fashioned narrative in a neo-Popian
> prosodic style." I would suggest that Kinbote's verdict is
> intended to command the assent of the reader, and that Nabokov's
> treatment of Shade and his poem is in fact ironic. This is a
> notion that would discomfit some critics: Herbert Grabes holds
> the poem to be "an extremely elaborate work of art, typical of
> the later phases of some literary epoch," and Andrew Field sees
> it as an important work, one worthy of critical study in
> isolation from the rest of the text. Brian Boyd, a staunch
> champion of Shade as presiding genius in the novel, hails the
> poem somewhat hyperbolically as a "masterpiece" and "a deliberate
> challenge to both Pound's Cantos and Eliot's Four Quartets." G.M.
> Hyde argues that Shade's poem reveals a serious and deep kinship
> with the work of Frost in that it manifests the latter's
> characteristic stoicism in the face of "terrible and
> incomprehensible things." Others have, however, expressed
> reservations about Shade's poetic offering. Douglas Fowler finds
> the poem's heroic couplet form to be limiting whilst Alvin B.
> Kernan argues that the poem should be read as "an extended and
> amusing spoof." In my view, the challenge Nabokov set himself in
> writing "Shade's" poem was to produce a highly competent but
> highly conventional piece of work, one which would ultimately be
> deemed an artistic failure. Nabokov appears deliberately to
> over-egg the pudding, having Shade present us with a daughter who
> is not only plump and plain but also unpopular, squinty-eyed,
> clumsy, swollen-footed, psoriatic and, perhaps not surprisingly
> in view of her multiple afflictions, deeply mentally troubled.
> Furthermore, it appears to have gone generally unremarked that
> this central conceit of the plain teenager rejected by her peers
> is a suspiciously mawkish one, the stuff of adolescent fiction or
> any number of late twentieth century pop songs. A brief
> comparative exercise will, I believe, throw into relief Nabokov's
> slyly ironic intent. Consider the following three extracts:
>
>
>
> 1) It must have broke your poor little heart
>
> When the boys used to say to you looked better in the dark
>
> .................................................................
> .....
>
> The teacher would ask a question
>
> And you would always raise your hand
> But somehow you never got your turn
>
> My eyes would fill with water, inside I'd burn, oh yes I did
>
>
>
> 2) At Christmas parties, games were rough, no doubt,
>
> And one shy little guest might be left out;
>
> But let's be fair: while children of her age
>
> Were cast as elves and fairies on the stage
>
> That she'd helped paint for the school pantomime,
>
> My gentle girl appeared as Mother Time,
>
> A bent charwoman with slop pail and broom,
>
> And like a fool I sobbed in the men's room.
>
>
>
> 3) I learned the truth at seventeen
>
> That love was meant for beauty queens
>
> And high school girls with clear skinned smiles
>
> Who married young and then retired.
>
> The valentines I never knew
>
> The Friday night charades of youth
>
> Were spent on one more beautiful
>
> At seventeen I learned the truth
>
>
>
> And those of us with ravaged faces
>
> Lacking in the social graces
> Desperately remained at home
>
> Inventing lovers on the phone
>
> Who called to say - Come dance with me
>
>
>
> As will be readily appreciated, the first and third extracts,
> song lyrics from The Chi-Lites' Homely Girl and Janis Ian's At
> Seventeen respectively, are characterised by a degree of
> triteness. However, the second extract, from Shade's poem, is
> almost identical in terms of subject matter and tone. Nabokov
> was too much the literary sophisticate unconsciously to produce
> such lachrymose and hackneyed work. If, as I maintain, Shade's
> poem is in part mawkish and conventional, it is because Nabokov
> intends it to be so. Nabokov is suggesting that Shade's attempt
> artistically to confront the loss of his daughter fails where
> Kinbote's distorted and distorting exploration of loss succeeds.
> As I have already suggested, Shade was instinctively Symbolist,
> concerned ultimately with there rather than here. However, when
> he addresses the tragic situation of his daughter he attempts to
> do so in a direct, immediate and sincere way, thereby hoping to
> give the reader an unmediated slice of reality. I believe that
> Nabokov wishes us to see this as a doomed attempt. Not for
> nothing is Shade so called. The poet's effort is eclipsed by the
> madman's commentary. When Shade attempts to evoke his daughter's
> tragic situation in conventional, heartfelt verse, he is
> betrayed into triteness. It is Kinbote's estranging method that
> can capture the essence of a tragic reality. In order to evoke
> the twin pains of exile and unhappy marriage, Kinbote, via
> oblique means, triumphantly transcends what Shklovsky termed "the
> sphere of automatised perception."
>
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> ---------------
>
> ----- End forwarded message -----
---------------------------------------
Suellen Stringer-Hye
Vanderbilt University
Website:http://staffweb.library.vanderbilt.edu/libtech/stringer/
Email: suellen.stringer-hye@Vanderbilt.Edu
----- End forwarded message -----