Stan K-B wrote:
John Morris:
I appreciate your opposing views expressed with such elegant
tolerance.
Thanks for the
"elegant," Stan, and as for the tolerance, I only hope all forums everywhere
exhibit the same courtesy and respect that ours does.
A tricky
what-if...
Now that's a truly
interesting thought experiment. I think your fantasy sounds pretty
accurate!
I'd love to
know if VN included this stanza in his recital.
He did indeed.
His thick Russian accent can sound unintentionally ironic, of course, but I
hear him reading the entire death-of- Hazel section with pathos and
compassion. Does anyone know if these readings are in fact available
digitally? If they're not, and if there's no copyright issue, I'd be glad
to digitize them and upload them someplace.
A final
thought: Ever since I first read "Pale Fire" the novel, and began
discussing it with other readers, I've been fascinated to realize that there is
immense disagreement about the merits of "Pale Fire" the poem. I can
only say that the stanza Stan quotes seems pretty darn good to me. Does
the melodrama seem overdone, Stan, or perhaps the cadence of the words
themselves doesn't make music for you? I've heard both these criticisms
leveled, not unreasonably, at the poem, but . . . works for
me!