Jansy,
After reviewing my long note on these matters, I’ve reviewed the
pertinent episodes of PF and have found some errors on my part, as well
as some points I’ve reconsidered. First, I was mistaken in referring to
Kinbote as ever having been an acolyte. What I was thinking of,
specifically, was Kinbote’s memory of the act of confession. I have
never heard of a Christian denomination in which the confessor stands
holding a taper beside a seated cleric. But this may very well be
Zemblan high church protocol.
It is interesting that Christianity of some type seems to be a point of
contact between the “real world” and Zembla. As for there being “no
place for such a character in Pale Fire.” I should have been more
circumspect and written that although VN did not choose to have a real
world Protestant or Catholic in PF, there would certainly have been “a
place for such a character” if VN had chosen to create one.
I think it’s possible that VN’s Bible reading may have been primarily
to see which versions of the Bible included passages worded in a way
that made them useful to him. Between the King James version, the
Revised Standard version, the American National version, and the
enormous number of versions in different languages, a writer of genius
has access to a wealth of allusions. But I do not know and cannot say
how much Nabokov read the Bible.
I don’t think Shade and Kinbote are the same person. I tend somewhat
toward the Botkin theory, although Botkin would also make a perfect
Nabokovian red herring (see Sybil’s public comments, quoted by Kinbote,
which denounce him as a giant bot-fly (sic). On the other hand I
sometimes wonder if Charles Xavier is a ghost, or a Grim Reaper, who
has come to bring Shade away to the land of Shades.
As for what became of Kinbote (assuming he is not at all as I describe
him above) ... I think he erred in his notion of the Christian
Creator’s attitude toward suicide. Many of Kinbote’s actions are
selfish, egocentric, and unkind. But, it seems that Kinbote also tried
his best to live in the faith of a benevolent power greater than
himself, and tried
to act selflessly, at least in the name of literature, with the aim of
sharing it with others. The deal he offered Sybil in return for being
allowed to edit and commentate Shade’s poem was not a self-aggrandizing
one. I believe the Christian Creator, who I do not see as a
fundamentalist, would admit this troubled soul into paradise. Kinbote’s
behavior is irritating, silly, and sneakily childish, but it is not
malicious, and in some ways he is even noble. I don’t think he merits
either hell or an eternal separation from God.
One thing I would want to make clear, though, is that I do not
believe that Christianity is meant to be a dominating theme in Pale
Fire. It seems to me that airplanes, flight, and parachuting are
referred to at least as much as Christianity, and maybe more.
Andrew