Jerry Friedman writes:

 

Jim, thanks for the link to the Alexandrov essay.  Before
we decide whether Nabokov's characters can have free will
and what that implies about ethics in hi sbooks, maybe
we'd better settle the definition of free will first.
Alexandrov mentions that the meanings of "awareness" and
"consciousness" are problematic, but not this problem.

 

A striking thing about both Alexandrov's and Don Johnson's
books is that (as I recall) their essays on /Pale Fire/
don't say what their essays on other Nabokov books say:
that it's an example of his otherworlds theme.  Yet I
think it's a remarkable example of regression: Nabokov
created Kinbote, who created Eystein and Hodinski, who
created dubious kinds of art.  In the /Cycnos/ essay,
Alexandrov says in general that the flaunted "madeness"
of Nabokov's novels can be seen as a "model" of the
madeness of our world by God.  I imagine he intends this
to apply to /Pale Fire/ as much as to the others.

 

Your reference to the movie /Pi/ (which I haven't seen)
reminds me of a real sufferer from the same mania--I
forget his name.  When I was in college in the early '80s
I saw a pamphlet he had written about the messages in
stock-market numbers and the like.  He would close his
numerical demonstrations with phrases such as "Q.E.D.,
Q.E.D., proof beyond ultimate proof!"  I feel like
closing my arguments about /Pale Fire/ the same way.

 

Jerry Friedman