There are in Pale Fire at least three
direct allusions to Dostoevsky and his ouevre:
1. Fra
Karamazov, mumbling his inept
All is allowed, into
some classes krept (Canto Two, ll. 641-2)
2. According to Kinbote (note to Line 172), Shade
once told him: 'How odd that Russian intellectuals should
lack all sense of humor when they have such marvelous humorists as Gogol,
Dostoevski, Chekhov, Zoshchenko, and those joint authors of genius Ilf and
Petrov.'
3. Dr Oscar Nattochdag, head of the department to
which Kinbote is attached, in known on the campus as Netochka (after Netochka
Nezvanov, the eponymous heroine/narrator of Dostoevsky's unfinished novella,
1849).
It is not quite clear what those allusions
are for? Gradus has nothing in common with Smerdyakov (the
murderer in The Brothers Karamazov) or Raskolnikov (the murderer in
Crime and Punishment), nor does Hazel Shade resemble Sonya
Marmeladov or any of Dostoevskian young girls. But since allusions are
seldom pointless in VN's novels, Dostoevsky must be important in Pale
Fire. I notice that Jacob Gradus is a namesake of Yakov Petrovich
Golyadkin, the hero of Dostoevsky's novella "The Double: A Petersburg Poem"
(1846) who goes mad, obsessed by the idea that a fellow clerk has usurped
his identity. In his Lectures on Russian Literature VN calls "The
Double" (that he believed to be Dostoevsky's best book) a parody of Gogol's
"The Overcoat" (note the mention of Dostoevsky next to Gogol by
Shade).
Like Kinbote, Yakov Golyadkin is mad, but,
unlike his namesake Gradus, he is not a killer. Interestingly, in
Dostoevsky's "Letters from the House of the Dead" (1862) there is a murderer,
who exchanges names and sentences with a fellow convict (who committed a less
serious crime and has to pay a lass harsh penalty). For a red shirt and a
silver rouble Mikhailov becomes Sushilov and Sushilov, Mikhailov. In order
to gain poor Sushilov's confidence, Mikhailov treats him to liquor. Note that
Gradus's whole clan was in the liquor business and he himself first comes to
Zembla as a brandy salesman.
I am note sure I am on the right track but can not
come up with anything better at the moment.
Alexey Sklyarenko