JA: I just meant that the
Character of V. and Kinbote were miles apart... for V. what's wrong with
Sebastian is that he is so superior to the inferior beings around him (like
Cincinattus?) while Goodman sees him as not being up to the challenges of the
modern world... I never know what to make of these number things, actually...
the characters don't really ask what they would in life...Only Nabokov's forcing
the characters not to talk to each other directly allows things to remain
unnecessarily mysterious...the book's so stylishly written and funny and fresh
that the many moments of doubt about the character's actions that creep in every
time I read the book don't destroy it, but they do add I think a false tint to
the cosmic speculation in it. On the other hand this does make you mistrust the
narrator more.
JM: The more I read
TRLSK, the more I find similarities in spirit between it and Pale
Fire, although it could have been expected since they share the
same author. To the list of small blunders by
V., I add a curious one: V saw a photograph of Sebastian's first love twice
(once, while Sebastian still shared a home with him and next, after
his death, while he examined his drawers.) but, when he finally meets
her, he makes a point of leaving her, visually, a blank.
You put the finger on one of the
great ("unnecessary"?) mysteries in this novel when you said that VN's
characters seldom talk to each other directly. At other times, and
even in other novels, they seem to be in touch but
then we realize that their exchanges are an illusion and their
conversation consists of alternating monologues: they
cannot say that which they most desire to express, their illusiory secret
"kernel" - thus they are condemned to remain as simulacra or
shadows...
Another issue, related to the world
of appearances:
In Pale Fire we have John Shade's lines
(613-14):
...from the
outside, bits of colored light
Reaching his bed like dark hands from the
past
Offering gems; and death is coming fast.
But Kinbote mentions a
substitute draft:
Through slatted blinds the stripes of colored
light
Grope for his bed —
magicians from the past
With philtered
gems — and life is ebbing fast.
The changes are considerable: dark hands of colored light
become stripes of colored light that "grope", death comes fast versus
life ebbs fast. What intrigued me, though, is Kinbote's reference to "philtered
gems", the idea of a magic "philter" produced by the effect of
light. The use of the "ph" in this word smacks of Kinbote, does it
not?