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Fwd: Re: Boyd re the Pale Fire poem
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From: Walter Miale <wm@greenworldcenter.org>
Subject: Boyd re the Pale Fire poem
>Walter Miale seems surprised that a poet should mingle the lofty and
>the low, the high and the homely. But this has been done in poetry
>since before Homer, and for many reasons, according to the local
>context. Why does he assume that Shade is unaware of these clashing
>levels, when there seems little else he is unaware of? Might not the
>interpenetration of the mundane and magisterial be the conscious
>choice of Shade, who happily describes his inspiration while shaving,
>or indeed, paring his nails, and therefore seems to agree with his
>maker that "genuine art mixes categories"?
Can you imagine Nabokov submitting to The New Yorker an
autobiographical poem as intensely personal as Pale Fire not about
and by a fictional author but about himself? When Shade introduces
his child in Canto Two, he tells us little about her except that she
is ugly. Can you imagine an autobiographical poem by Nabokov
containing such lines --written about a (hypothetical) child who came
to such a tragic end as Hazel-- as
"Jim McVey
(The family oculist) will cure that slight
Squint in no time."
?
It is not simply the intrusion of irony here that I take as a clue
that I am reading a kind of parody. I think there is something else
that Shade is unaware of. The subject of the lines quoted above is
not so much Hazel Shade as her father's ongoing trauma about her
physical being. The reader feels --I feel-- that John Shade never
realized that Sybil was perfectly, straightforwardly, right when she
said that he should "rejoice that she is innocent" and not
"overstress the physical."I'll go out on a limb here and say on
behalf of Hazel and plain girls everywhere, "Amen. Give us a break,
John Shade!"
Hazel was the most memorable figure in her class play, but her dad
couldn't accept that she wasn't the ingenue. Could she have failed to
get the message?
Less starch, more fruit!
Of course, originally Sybil (or John) didn't say this for laughs, and
it may hurt when we laugh, but this is a COMIC line and John Shade
wasn't laughing; he is introducing his daughter here, and the tragic
theme of his poem. Unfortunately there is nothing (yes?) to suggest
that John and Hazel enjoyed light-hearted banter, certainly not about
her body or looks. (At least not while she was alive.) Was Hazel born
"difficult and morose," or did her father project disappointment and
sorrow on her? There is at best a troubling ambiguity.
----- End forwarded message -----
Subject: Boyd re the Pale Fire poem
>Walter Miale seems surprised that a poet should mingle the lofty and
>the low, the high and the homely. But this has been done in poetry
>since before Homer, and for many reasons, according to the local
>context. Why does he assume that Shade is unaware of these clashing
>levels, when there seems little else he is unaware of? Might not the
>interpenetration of the mundane and magisterial be the conscious
>choice of Shade, who happily describes his inspiration while shaving,
>or indeed, paring his nails, and therefore seems to agree with his
>maker that "genuine art mixes categories"?
Can you imagine Nabokov submitting to The New Yorker an
autobiographical poem as intensely personal as Pale Fire not about
and by a fictional author but about himself? When Shade introduces
his child in Canto Two, he tells us little about her except that she
is ugly. Can you imagine an autobiographical poem by Nabokov
containing such lines --written about a (hypothetical) child who came
to such a tragic end as Hazel-- as
"Jim McVey
(The family oculist) will cure that slight
Squint in no time."
?
It is not simply the intrusion of irony here that I take as a clue
that I am reading a kind of parody. I think there is something else
that Shade is unaware of. The subject of the lines quoted above is
not so much Hazel Shade as her father's ongoing trauma about her
physical being. The reader feels --I feel-- that John Shade never
realized that Sybil was perfectly, straightforwardly, right when she
said that he should "rejoice that she is innocent" and not
"overstress the physical."I'll go out on a limb here and say on
behalf of Hazel and plain girls everywhere, "Amen. Give us a break,
John Shade!"
Hazel was the most memorable figure in her class play, but her dad
couldn't accept that she wasn't the ingenue. Could she have failed to
get the message?
Less starch, more fruit!
Of course, originally Sybil (or John) didn't say this for laughs, and
it may hurt when we laugh, but this is a COMIC line and John Shade
wasn't laughing; he is introducing his daughter here, and the tragic
theme of his poem. Unfortunately there is nothing (yes?) to suggest
that John and Hazel enjoyed light-hearted banter, certainly not about
her body or looks. (At least not while she was alive.) Was Hazel born
"difficult and morose," or did her father project disappointment and
sorrow on her? There is at best a troubling ambiguity.
----- End forwarded message -----