Subject
PALE FIRE & HYPERTEXT
Date
Body
EDITOR's NOTE. Poet Tom Bolt will soon re-publish his long poem DARK ICE
on ZEMBLA. The poem is a stunning blend of recent Russian history and
Nabokovian allusions and devices. It also (indirectly) raises some
intriguing aesthetic questions about how the work might be perceived by
the Nabokov aficionado and (lesser) mortals. Both might be delighted but
they will clearly be having quite different experiences.
The PALE FIRE hypertext matter Tom Bolt poses below is indeed
interesting. Any heavy-duty Nabokovian must have read PF in more or less
of a hypertext fashion. Brian Walter in an appendix to his dissertation
has "diagrammed" and discussed the "links," but does not, so far as I
recall, set his discussion within the framework of hypertextuality (Brian,
correct me if I am mis-remembering. James(?) English gave an MLA talk at
my VN panel a couple of years ago discussing PF in the context of the
hypertext novel. Whether this was published, I don't know.
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From: Thomas Bolt <bolt@spacelab.net>
In spite of the medium in which we're discussing Nabokov's textual
leaps, no one has yet mentioned that PALE FIRE is hypertext. Someone
with a moderate knowledge of computers, a scanner, and (if it were to be
distributed) the permission of the Nabokov Estate could produce a
beautiful, fully linked HTML edition of PALE FIRE in a couple of weeks.
Readers could instantly skip from note to note along any path, and leap
back to the mainstream of the text at any time without having to sprout
(like the state of mind in LOLITA) a third hand, or foot.
As a reader who had at one time planned to buy two copies (as Kinbote
suggests), slice them up, and paste the text into a scrapbook in the
order(s) of suggested reading, I'd love to see a hypertext PALE FIRE. As
much as I dislike the idea of reading a book on a computer screen, that
one might be fun.
on ZEMBLA. The poem is a stunning blend of recent Russian history and
Nabokovian allusions and devices. It also (indirectly) raises some
intriguing aesthetic questions about how the work might be perceived by
the Nabokov aficionado and (lesser) mortals. Both might be delighted but
they will clearly be having quite different experiences.
The PALE FIRE hypertext matter Tom Bolt poses below is indeed
interesting. Any heavy-duty Nabokovian must have read PF in more or less
of a hypertext fashion. Brian Walter in an appendix to his dissertation
has "diagrammed" and discussed the "links," but does not, so far as I
recall, set his discussion within the framework of hypertextuality (Brian,
correct me if I am mis-remembering. James(?) English gave an MLA talk at
my VN panel a couple of years ago discussing PF in the context of the
hypertext novel. Whether this was published, I don't know.
--------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------
From: Thomas Bolt <bolt@spacelab.net>
In spite of the medium in which we're discussing Nabokov's textual
leaps, no one has yet mentioned that PALE FIRE is hypertext. Someone
with a moderate knowledge of computers, a scanner, and (if it were to be
distributed) the permission of the Nabokov Estate could produce a
beautiful, fully linked HTML edition of PALE FIRE in a couple of weeks.
Readers could instantly skip from note to note along any path, and leap
back to the mainstream of the text at any time without having to sprout
(like the state of mind in LOLITA) a third hand, or foot.
As a reader who had at one time planned to buy two copies (as Kinbote
suggests), slice them up, and paste the text into a scrapbook in the
order(s) of suggested reading, I'd love to see a hypertext PALE FIRE. As
much as I dislike the idea of reading a book on a computer screen, that
one might be fun.