From The New York Review (April 23,1992), in Brian
Boyd's reply to Robert Adams(The Wizard of Lake Cayuga, January
30, 1992), we find: "I am amused to find him
instructing me that Clare Quilty is primarily a phantom of Humbert Humbert's
imagination, but not allowing me to suggest that Charles Kinbote might be a
phantom of John Shade's. Does he not find it odd to decree that an American
playwright in an American novel must be imaginary and a next-door neighbor who
happens to be a Zemblan madman (or perhaps an ex-King) must be solidly
real?".
JM: Now that we've been
matter-of-factedly referring to Botkin's 'solidly real' presence in
Wordsmith, it seems that Boyd's arguments have lost some of their
original cutting edge. Nevertheless, it's still possible to admit
that Shade enjoyed his neighbor's company and, also, that
he invented a character, named Kinbote, inspired by his experiences
with a "real" Botkin's inenubilable tales.
The problem is that the blending of Shade's
seizures with Kinbote's madness, as several readers find in "Pale
Fire," because it has this "real" model moving somewhere in
the life of the novel, now appears as being a deliberate move on
the part of an author. The events in the novel cannot be the
product or consequence of mere "phantoms" imagined by Shade and/or Kinbote.
Afterthoughts:
In his reply to R.Adams Boyd quotes the lines I had
been searching for (Man’s life as commentary to abstruse /
Unfinished poem). I was
newly intrigued by them, after I'd compared the two incidences of the word
"hope" in Shade's poem. Taking "hope" in isolation we are led
to suppose that Hazel, like any normal young girl,
still hopes to be loved and to find a partner, or that Shade is convinced
that there's a reson to "hope" in relation to the hereafter. In the vicinity of
his other verses, though, such a "hope" appears to be
indicating something else, perhaps that "Art", by
imperfectly mimicking the divine artistic design over human
life will establish a moment of being that may become eternally
present."#
My impression was enhanced by a whiff
of Omar Khayyám's verses* in Shade's lines ("playing a game of worlds, promoting
pawns/ To ivory unicorns and ebon
fauns;/ Kindling a long life here,
extinguishing/ A short one there;" ).
It gained a special poignancy after I saw a minor movie, in
which an eleven-year old chess-genius admits his own unimportance as a pawn
in a bigger game**.
There's no hope in Khayyám, nor in the
little boy's conclusion: We are God's playthings. There may not even
exist an otherwordly intelligence that cares
enough to arrange events and move humans like chess-pieces, an
unearthly intentionality to promote
beauty or cause coincidences to surprise mankind. In that
case we'd be simply the victims of blind forces, like those that rule
a game of chess or that lurk behind the hazards of our world's economy
and history.
And here enters "hope":
Nabokov/Shade seems to be
initially hinting at such dismal perspective and negating an
"overall design," as having any influence over his life. But he also
endeavours to get a ride together with these
godlike forces, through Art***. As an author, he can behave
almost like them when he ordains his characters, promotes beauty,
cancels stars and devises a set of traps. However, he still entertains
a glimmer of hope (that there is a meaning and a design over his life, even if
he cannot understand it). If the names Schmit/Schmidt are badly spelt, or
Mountain/Fountain are confused, the coincidence is still valid. The fault
lies in our human incapacity to register unearthly voices
and this is why they sound like Aunt Maud's blubbering efforts to
speak..
# (a) "...Nobody cared); the point is that the
three/ Chambers, then bound by you and her and
me,/ Now form a tryptich or a three-act
play/ In which portrayed events forever
stay/ I think she always nursed a small mad
hope."
(b) "... I have returned
convinced that I can grope/ My way to some — to some — "Yes, dear?" Faint hope."
* This is the only truth: we are pawns
in that mysterius
chessgame, played by Allah.
He moves us or makes us stay where we are, moves
us
again, to finally throw us, one by one,
into the box of
nothingness.
Omar Khayyám
** In a chessgame the player must be ready to sacrifice
his pawns and it is meaningless to pity or to grow any attachment to
them. It's the game that must be kept alive, not its component parts (my
paraphrase). Cf. 2005, "Entrusted", with Brandauer, Thomas Sangster,
Giovanna Mezzogiorno.
*** I'll use someone else's words on Nabokov:
"Maar sets the "shimmer", a view of the world shot through with mysterious
presences and coincidences, manifestations of light and shade, colour and
shape.The shimmer suggested at best a distant happiness and at worst a joyous
self-deceit. Nabokov's preoccupation with the other world was imaginative, not
religious. Maar shows the affinities with gnosticism - a dark world permeated by
sparks of light - and with Schopenhauer, who thought that art gave glimpses of
goodness and release from human evil. " (Lesley
Chamberlain )