Stan Kelly-Bootle: Is the mooted
terminological inexactitude distracting us from yet another example of
Shade as indifferent, plodding Poet?
"The iridule — when, beautiful and strange, / In
a bright sky above a mountain range/ One opal cloudlet in an oval form/
Reflects the rainbow of a thunderstorm/ Which in a distant valley has
been staged ..." ...Is VN, indifferent to reader praise and
criticism, trying to test us for misplaced obsequious flattery or
hoping for shocked chuckles of disbelief?
Jansy Mello:William Boyd, 2004, "Fascination"
...Cf. "Adult Video", first story, fourth page, chapter "Fast Forward
>>"
Jerry Friedman: And I don't see why the
peaceful scenery, not the thunderstorm, is a deceit.
JM: Stan asks if VN is indifferent to reader
praise and criticism...From what I've been gleaning here and there (
the yawning "fast forward" quote*, the Fulmerford issue, Samuel
Johnson's power), I suggest that VN was only dismissive of XXth Century
pundits. Perhaps he set his wager on a (properly instructed) "new
reader."
JF, you are right to question my pessimistic
interpretation. John Shade was quite content in his American Arcady, so
distant storms must have seemed unreal to him.
The iridulent matter is intriguing. I just came across Nabokov's
diminutive play with "criticule" ("every
worthwhile author has quite a few clowns and criticules- wonderful
word: criti-cules, or criticasters- around him..."*) However, he was quite serious about his neologism when
he complained about the 1970 edition of Webster's Collegiate
Dictionary: "none of my own coinages or reapplication appears
in this lexicon—neither 'iridule' (a mother-of-pearl cloudlet in "Pale
Fire," nor 'nymphet' (a 'perverse young girl,' according to another
edition), nor 'racemosa' (a kind of bird cherry), nor several other
prosodic terms such as 'scud' and 'tilt.' "
He even dismissed
Shade's definition (iridule/reflected rainbow) to adhere to Kinbote's
"muderperlwelk".
...................................................
* - Nabokov's words in the September 1965 interview: "Well, when I think about critics in general, I divide
the family of critics into three subfamilies. First, professional
reviewers, mainly hacks or hicks, regularly filling up their allotted
space in the cemeteries of Sunday papers. Secondly, more ambitious
critics \vho every other year collect their magazine articles into
volumes with allusive scholarly titles- The Undiscovered Country, that
kind of thing. And thirdly, my fellow writers, who review a book they
like or loathe. Many bright blurbs and dark feuds have been engendered
that way. When an author whose work I admire praises my work, I cannot
help experiencing, besides a ripple of almost human warmth, a sense of
harmony and satisfied logic. But I have also the idiotic feeling that
he or she will very soon cool down and vaguely turn away if I do not do
something at once, but I don't know what to do, and I never do
anything, and next morning cold clouds
conceal the bright mountains. In all other cases, I must confess, I
yawn and forget. Of course, every worthwhile author has quite
a few clowns and criticules- wonderful word: criti-cules, or
criticasters- around him, demolishing one another rather than him with
their slapsticks. Then, also, my various disgusts which I like to voice
now and then seem to irritate people. I happen to find second-rate and
ephemeral the works of a number of puffed- up writers... for this, of
course, I'm automatically disliked by their camp-followers,
kitsch-followers, fashion-followers, and all kinds of automatons.
Generally speaking, I'm supremely indifferent to adverse criticism in
regard to my fiction. But on the other hand, I enjoy retaliating when
some pompous dunce finds fault with my translations..".