J.Aisenberg [ to JM: In Kinbote's eyes the
poem is the "I" ("shadow"), Shade and Gradus "the ashen fluff" and Kinbote
"lives on" until he meets another reflection that shall shatter him? Really, why
did Shade write " I was.. I was.. I lived on...I'd let"- using the past
tense? Who is the doomed but still living poet? And...does this confirm
M.R and C.Kunin's idea?] I assumed that all this represented the
mortal contemplation of a man who had suffered a heart attack and come back from
death, rather literally, which he philosophically uses as a springboard to
poetically speculate about what might lay beyond, where hopefully his dead
daughter also awaits. In other words, he hit died of a heart attack, but unlike
the bird whacking itself against a fake reflection of infinite life, he flies
on...for now
JM: So did I, focusing only on "poetical
speculations about what might lay beyond" because I hadn't realized that I
could read the novel using two perspectives: (a) the common reader's ( Pale
Fire with no intervention by Kinbote); (b) Kinbote's theories as we find
in his commentary to lines 131-132.
The tripartite view with
Gradus, Shade and Kinbote already present in the first lines ( as shadow,fluff
and living on) would result from reading PF only through
Kinbote's eyes ("I"s).
I think that we, as readers are
also expected to "split" in two - but I'm not sure, yet.