pynchon-l-digest Monday, August 25
2003 Volume 02 : Number 3504
on 23/8/03 4:56 AM, Jasper Fidget wrote:
> "I have no desire to twist and batter an unambiguous /apparatus
criticus/
> into the monstrous semblance of a novel."
>
>
apparatus criticus: "A collection of material, as variant readings and
other
> palaeographical and critical matter, for the textual study of a
document."
> (OED)
>
> VN seems to be commenting on his
current project itself through the irony of
> Kinbote's assertion.
I agree. And the bit just before this is interesting too, Kinbote noting
how
Shade "did not bring up ... ridiculous stories about the terrifying
shadows
that Judge Goldsworth's gown threw across the underworld, or about
this or
that beast lying in prison and positively dying of *raghdirst*
(thirst for
revenge) -- crass banalities circulated by the scurrilous and the
heartless
- -- by all those for whom romance, remoteness, sealskin-lined
scarlet skies,
the darkening dunes of a fabulous kingdom, simply do not
exist."
Kinbote here seems to be responding to the suggestion that it was Jack
Grey
seeking revenge on Judge Goldsmith who was Shade's slayer, suggestions
which
would refute his own tale of Jakob Gradus, would-be assassin tracking
down
the Zemblan king. While it demonstrates an awareness on Kinbote's part
of
alternative explanations to the one he's pitching in the Commentary (and
the
fact that these explanations have been made), and a defensive
attitude
towards same, it also reveals Kinbote's absolute self-centredness.
He
displays no concern for the fact that Shade was murdered (by whoever),
only
that Shade ("my sweet old friend") was being thoughtful towards
him,
Kinbote, in never mentioning the stories about those criminals who had
been
sentenced by Judge Goldsworth, such as Jack Grey, who were out for
revenge.
But there's also a flaw in Kinbote's logic, because Shade not
bringing up
those particular stories couldn't have been out of consideration
for
Kinbote, because the plot to kill someone (whether it was Grey's
or
Gradus's) was not revealed until *after* Shade was shot.
There is, I think, also a touch of Nabokov the imaginative artist,
Nabokov
the exile from pre-Revolutionary Russia, in this wistful prИcis of
"a
fabulous kingdom" lost.
best
------------------------------
End of pynchon-l-digest V2 #3504
********************************