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Teaching Pale Fire -- Impersonating Kinbote
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[EDNOTE. Thanks to Eric Naiman for this delightful post. Would anyone else like to take a turn at playing Kinbote? -- SES]
The following is an end-of-semester offering to readers of Nabokv-L, and especially to those who include works by Nabokov in their courses.
I’ve often wondered how to teach Pale Fire. In particular, how to finish teaching it. An insufficiently preposterous teacher, I’ve always followed chronology in my Nabokov course. Pale Fire comes at the end, there is never time to cover it adequately (and there never could be); the last class has always been particularly disappointing. Occasionally, I have handed out student evaluation forms on that day * to give the commentators the last word * but that is rather anticlimactic.
This year I decided to give the students the last word after a different fashion. I chose the start of the fourth canto (lines 835-860) and asked them to write a commentary as if they were Kinbote. (It might be interesting to do a special analysis of the lines in PF on which Kinbote does not comment, with an eye towards seeing which themes do not interest him or are somehow sacred, but that is another topic.....). The students could hand their comments in under their
own name, anonymously, or under a pseudonym. The results were interesting. Of the fifty students in the class, about ten wrote nothing * perhaps because they felt at a loss, were behind in their reading or did not produce in the ten minutes allotted anything they wanted to share. Apparently misunderstanding the assignment, or * more likely -- disdaining to imitate a lunatic, one student attempted a serious, critical reading of the lines. The remaining members of the class entered into the spirit of the game and wrote Kinbotean comments, some of which I include below. Although
many had written very good papers, I was unprepared for the vitality, insight and demonstration of comprehension displayed by their comments. My assumption had always been that Pale Fire is a somewhat incapacitating text * so rich and so perverse that it discourages interpretation by first or tenth time readers. Kinbote is something of a scare figure for critics, as many who have written on PF have suggested. But Kinbote is so whacky, so compellingly off-base, that he can also be extremely empowering for readers when they are asked to speak with his voice. If nothing
else, this in-class assignment showed the students how much fun Nabokov had writing Pale Fire. (From the rest of the course, I hope they took a sense of how much fun Nabokov had being Vladimir Nabokov). For all those who teach Pale Fire, I recommend trying this exercise on the last day of class.
Below are the relevant lines of Pale Fire, followed by the comments Kinbote forgot to write but which several Berkeley readers of Nabokov have kindly supplied.
Now I shall spy on beauty as none has
Spied on it yet. Now I shall cry out as
None has cried out. Now I shall try what none
Has tried. Now I shall do what none has done.
And speaking of this wonderful machine:
I’m puzzled by the difference between
Two methods of composing: A, the kind
Which goes on solely in the poet’s mind,
A testing of performing words, while he
Is soaping a third time one leg, and B,
The other kind, much more decorous, when
He’s in his study writing with a pen.
In method B the hand supports the thought,
The abstract battle is concretely fought.
The pen stops in mid-air, then swoops to bar
A canceled sunset or restore a star,
And thus it physically guides the phrase
Toward faint daylight thorough the inky maze.
But method A is agony! The brain
Is soon enclosed in a steel cap of pain.
A muse in overalls directs the drill
Which grinds and which no effort of the will
Can interrupt, while the automaton
Is taking off what he has just put on
Or walking briskly to the corner store
To buy the paper he has read before.
line 835: Now I shall spy...
These lines make me wonder if my peeking into Shade’s windows had, after all, been discovered. (I have glossed these activities previously in lines 47-48) It seems that Shade knew all along but allowed me to continue, even taking pleasure in my voyeuristic exploits. And here he effectively channels my voice, I being the one to spy on the beauty of his creation. Of course, no one but myself could have understood the secret of these lines. Shade meant these words for me, really.
line 835: “spy on beauty as none has spied on it yet”
And indeed, no one will ever spy on my poor Shade’s beauty ever again. He lives on only in this poem and in my commentary, which grants him a little immortality, as well as a nostalgic window to my beloved Zembla.
line 835 “Now I shall spy on beauty as none has”
It is little known that Shade had several windows in the upper story of his house from which he preferred to gaze. Once, while asking Sybil to find a book for me, I crept upstairs and peered from these windows, as if I myself were John Shade! One windy afternoon, while I paused at my own trembling windowsill to gaze at the Shadean world, I say Sybil washing the windows, destroying those leaf-like fingerprints I had left: the sweet remembrance of that day murdered.
lines 835-58 spy..spied. .. wonderful machine...steel cap of pain.
Once, in his youth, Gradus, young spy that he was, was commissioned to a very private interrogation of one of my more charming young pages * captured on a nightly stroll. The interrogation, peaceful at first, grew by slight gradations more and more violent as the investigation revealed less and less. “The wonderful machine” * wonderful from the spy’s perspective, was a series of electrical fixings of which the steel cap of pain was the culmination. The boy, bless him, knew nothing * as there was nothing to know * and said nothing.
lines 838-839 Now I shall try what none
Has Tried. Not I shall do what None has Done
I, too, for instance, have tried many things and done just as many things as I have tried. When I crawled through the foothills of the Zemblan lowlands, trying desperately to recreate the experience of a caterpillar and then soared through the pale blue heavens in a parachute one could say that I did (or tried to, what is the difference you say?) recreate the fleeting experience of the local butterfly Lumosvinos Zembeliosa. I have also tried to wear women’s stockings in public
to demonstrate the essential need to restrict one’s leg muscles with a veil of fishing nets, but that is another note. (Jenness Hartley)
line 838 Now I shall do what none has done
I had a quite raucous argument with my poet over this line; over the obvious pun on “none” as “nun,” and the image of a nun spying on the beauty in the heavens. To our versifier, to learn of true divine beauty could only be a sort of voyeurism, a perverted perception, a crass corruption of the source material given to him by the commentator: the memory of a young Prince of Zembla spying through the stained glass of a small church in Ohava at a lusty young alter boy being kindly tutored by a white-bearded priest.
The allusion to “none” as “nothing,” to a set of disgusting imageries, is not intended.
line 842 Which goes on solely in the poet’s mind
Obviously my beloved Zembla was ever present in the poet’s mind. Unfortunately, our dear poet must have only reached the first stage of composing, foolishly deciding to end the composition there, rather than move on to the next method and bless the page with the sweet rhythm of Zembla. Alas, my sweet Zembla is doomed to dwell there for eternity in the closed mind of the poet.
line 844 soaping a third time one leg
It is obvious that Shade was infected by my love of order. In order for the perfect cleanliness, you must soap each limb no less than five times.
line 844 soaping a third time one leg
An obvious reference to masturbation * the soaping of the third leg, which mimics the process of poetic creation * a single-handed, partnerless act of giving birth
Line 850 a cancelled sunset or restore a star
This brief homage to destruction is Shade’s apology to the censorship so keen on removing my influence from the poem. But clever Shade! Only he remembers the sun and stars can never truly be defeated!
line 854: “steel cap of pain”
Ah! A brief reference to a distasteful yet necessary piece of Zemblan history. The “steel cap of pain” was a popular torture device used on prisoners of war in Zembla’s early history. It soon faded out of use, though I cannot say whether the new regime has reinstated this barbarous custom.
line 856 a muse in overalls directs the drill
Shade here wishes that his wife, overseeing his work, could be replaced with his real
inspirations. Sybil makes a terrible muse, whereas if Shade were able to get away from the home (that is keeping him like coveralls) he would be able to find a more fashionable and freer friend.
line 856 * a muse in overalls
Though I am not accustomed to wearing overalls, I am nevertheless grateful that Shade acknowledges his muse “which no effort of will” (i.e. that of Sybil and other censors of Shade) “can interrupt.” Here Shade clearly shows that the fearless King of Zembla, his most faithful muse, “directs the drill” that cannot be stopped. No matter what my detractors may say about me, it is I, and only I, who understands the machinery of Shade’s poem and can thus elucidate the true
meaning of the poem, the dying wail of a noble king. (Divya Gowri)
line 857: “automaton”
Gradus creeps ever closer!
Did he know the very motions his killer was taking as he penned these lines? Did he somehow intuit the inevitability of it all, “which no effort of the will” could interrupt?
line 860 the paper he has read before
I have a massive collection of old periodicals, which I frequently read through in order to decode secret messages left for me by Shade, or any number of others who would have me hear them.
(In addition to the passages signed by Divya Gowri and Jenesss Hartley, I have included unedited comments written by Sasha Wolfe and eight other members of the class). Many thanks to all who participated.
Eric Naiman
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
The following is an end-of-semester offering to readers of Nabokv-L, and especially to those who include works by Nabokov in their courses.
I’ve often wondered how to teach Pale Fire. In particular, how to finish teaching it. An insufficiently preposterous teacher, I’ve always followed chronology in my Nabokov course. Pale Fire comes at the end, there is never time to cover it adequately (and there never could be); the last class has always been particularly disappointing. Occasionally, I have handed out student evaluation forms on that day * to give the commentators the last word * but that is rather anticlimactic.
This year I decided to give the students the last word after a different fashion. I chose the start of the fourth canto (lines 835-860) and asked them to write a commentary as if they were Kinbote. (It might be interesting to do a special analysis of the lines in PF on which Kinbote does not comment, with an eye towards seeing which themes do not interest him or are somehow sacred, but that is another topic.....). The students could hand their comments in under their
own name, anonymously, or under a pseudonym. The results were interesting. Of the fifty students in the class, about ten wrote nothing * perhaps because they felt at a loss, were behind in their reading or did not produce in the ten minutes allotted anything they wanted to share. Apparently misunderstanding the assignment, or * more likely -- disdaining to imitate a lunatic, one student attempted a serious, critical reading of the lines. The remaining members of the class entered into the spirit of the game and wrote Kinbotean comments, some of which I include below. Although
many had written very good papers, I was unprepared for the vitality, insight and demonstration of comprehension displayed by their comments. My assumption had always been that Pale Fire is a somewhat incapacitating text * so rich and so perverse that it discourages interpretation by first or tenth time readers. Kinbote is something of a scare figure for critics, as many who have written on PF have suggested. But Kinbote is so whacky, so compellingly off-base, that he can also be extremely empowering for readers when they are asked to speak with his voice. If nothing
else, this in-class assignment showed the students how much fun Nabokov had writing Pale Fire. (From the rest of the course, I hope they took a sense of how much fun Nabokov had being Vladimir Nabokov). For all those who teach Pale Fire, I recommend trying this exercise on the last day of class.
Below are the relevant lines of Pale Fire, followed by the comments Kinbote forgot to write but which several Berkeley readers of Nabokov have kindly supplied.
Now I shall spy on beauty as none has
Spied on it yet. Now I shall cry out as
None has cried out. Now I shall try what none
Has tried. Now I shall do what none has done.
And speaking of this wonderful machine:
I’m puzzled by the difference between
Two methods of composing: A, the kind
Which goes on solely in the poet’s mind,
A testing of performing words, while he
Is soaping a third time one leg, and B,
The other kind, much more decorous, when
He’s in his study writing with a pen.
In method B the hand supports the thought,
The abstract battle is concretely fought.
The pen stops in mid-air, then swoops to bar
A canceled sunset or restore a star,
And thus it physically guides the phrase
Toward faint daylight thorough the inky maze.
But method A is agony! The brain
Is soon enclosed in a steel cap of pain.
A muse in overalls directs the drill
Which grinds and which no effort of the will
Can interrupt, while the automaton
Is taking off what he has just put on
Or walking briskly to the corner store
To buy the paper he has read before.
line 835: Now I shall spy...
These lines make me wonder if my peeking into Shade’s windows had, after all, been discovered. (I have glossed these activities previously in lines 47-48) It seems that Shade knew all along but allowed me to continue, even taking pleasure in my voyeuristic exploits. And here he effectively channels my voice, I being the one to spy on the beauty of his creation. Of course, no one but myself could have understood the secret of these lines. Shade meant these words for me, really.
line 835: “spy on beauty as none has spied on it yet”
And indeed, no one will ever spy on my poor Shade’s beauty ever again. He lives on only in this poem and in my commentary, which grants him a little immortality, as well as a nostalgic window to my beloved Zembla.
line 835 “Now I shall spy on beauty as none has”
It is little known that Shade had several windows in the upper story of his house from which he preferred to gaze. Once, while asking Sybil to find a book for me, I crept upstairs and peered from these windows, as if I myself were John Shade! One windy afternoon, while I paused at my own trembling windowsill to gaze at the Shadean world, I say Sybil washing the windows, destroying those leaf-like fingerprints I had left: the sweet remembrance of that day murdered.
lines 835-58 spy..spied. .. wonderful machine...steel cap of pain.
Once, in his youth, Gradus, young spy that he was, was commissioned to a very private interrogation of one of my more charming young pages * captured on a nightly stroll. The interrogation, peaceful at first, grew by slight gradations more and more violent as the investigation revealed less and less. “The wonderful machine” * wonderful from the spy’s perspective, was a series of electrical fixings of which the steel cap of pain was the culmination. The boy, bless him, knew nothing * as there was nothing to know * and said nothing.
lines 838-839 Now I shall try what none
Has Tried. Not I shall do what None has Done
I, too, for instance, have tried many things and done just as many things as I have tried. When I crawled through the foothills of the Zemblan lowlands, trying desperately to recreate the experience of a caterpillar and then soared through the pale blue heavens in a parachute one could say that I did (or tried to, what is the difference you say?) recreate the fleeting experience of the local butterfly Lumosvinos Zembeliosa. I have also tried to wear women’s stockings in public
to demonstrate the essential need to restrict one’s leg muscles with a veil of fishing nets, but that is another note. (Jenness Hartley)
line 838 Now I shall do what none has done
I had a quite raucous argument with my poet over this line; over the obvious pun on “none” as “nun,” and the image of a nun spying on the beauty in the heavens. To our versifier, to learn of true divine beauty could only be a sort of voyeurism, a perverted perception, a crass corruption of the source material given to him by the commentator: the memory of a young Prince of Zembla spying through the stained glass of a small church in Ohava at a lusty young alter boy being kindly tutored by a white-bearded priest.
The allusion to “none” as “nothing,” to a set of disgusting imageries, is not intended.
line 842 Which goes on solely in the poet’s mind
Obviously my beloved Zembla was ever present in the poet’s mind. Unfortunately, our dear poet must have only reached the first stage of composing, foolishly deciding to end the composition there, rather than move on to the next method and bless the page with the sweet rhythm of Zembla. Alas, my sweet Zembla is doomed to dwell there for eternity in the closed mind of the poet.
line 844 soaping a third time one leg
It is obvious that Shade was infected by my love of order. In order for the perfect cleanliness, you must soap each limb no less than five times.
line 844 soaping a third time one leg
An obvious reference to masturbation * the soaping of the third leg, which mimics the process of poetic creation * a single-handed, partnerless act of giving birth
Line 850 a cancelled sunset or restore a star
This brief homage to destruction is Shade’s apology to the censorship so keen on removing my influence from the poem. But clever Shade! Only he remembers the sun and stars can never truly be defeated!
line 854: “steel cap of pain”
Ah! A brief reference to a distasteful yet necessary piece of Zemblan history. The “steel cap of pain” was a popular torture device used on prisoners of war in Zembla’s early history. It soon faded out of use, though I cannot say whether the new regime has reinstated this barbarous custom.
line 856 a muse in overalls directs the drill
Shade here wishes that his wife, overseeing his work, could be replaced with his real
inspirations. Sybil makes a terrible muse, whereas if Shade were able to get away from the home (that is keeping him like coveralls) he would be able to find a more fashionable and freer friend.
line 856 * a muse in overalls
Though I am not accustomed to wearing overalls, I am nevertheless grateful that Shade acknowledges his muse “which no effort of will” (i.e. that of Sybil and other censors of Shade) “can interrupt.” Here Shade clearly shows that the fearless King of Zembla, his most faithful muse, “directs the drill” that cannot be stopped. No matter what my detractors may say about me, it is I, and only I, who understands the machinery of Shade’s poem and can thus elucidate the true
meaning of the poem, the dying wail of a noble king. (Divya Gowri)
line 857: “automaton”
Gradus creeps ever closer!
Did he know the very motions his killer was taking as he penned these lines? Did he somehow intuit the inevitability of it all, “which no effort of the will” could interrupt?
line 860 the paper he has read before
I have a massive collection of old periodicals, which I frequently read through in order to decode secret messages left for me by Shade, or any number of others who would have me hear them.
(In addition to the passages signed by Divya Gowri and Jenesss Hartley, I have included unedited comments written by Sasha Wolfe and eight other members of the class). Many thanks to all who participated.
Eric Naiman
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