John Mella: "re the literal-minded posting
which makes Aunt Maud equivalent with the "wench" at the end of Canto One.
pudenda and all. That linkage is offensive, not at all in the spirit of the poem
(and the book) and, finally, simply unfounded...Once this type of literal
equivalency begins, there's no stopping. Bring your own hobby-horses. Ride to
perdition."
Jansy Mello: Although I cannot
but agree with RSGwynn and J.Mella concerning poetry, metaphor versus
literal-minds, there is a point in C.Kunin's observation: why spare Shade from
the kind of investigation ( already outlined by VN himself, through
Kinbote) Nabokov's other works stimulate commentators to dwell
on?
The problem with Twigg's linkage is not that "it is
offensive, not at all in the spirit of the poem", but that it is "simply
unfounded" ( as it seems, I did entertain his hypothesis before I felt I was
able to reject it)
Should I remind you that Shade mentions Flemish hells,
Brueghel's paintings, the Apocalypse...that he includes references
to Rabelais and Swift? There is ugliness,
deformity, excess, perversion, cruelty. ( including Shade's after-life
mountain-fountain Kitsch.) Shade is definitely not a very nice guy ( his
description of his sick daughter in not charitable at all, mainly
selfishly cruel).