Dear Laurence,

I do not know how long you have been a list member or how much outside reading on Pale Fire you have done, but there is an alternate reading of Pale Fire that does not recognize Mr Shade and Dr Kinbote as entirely separate entities. There is some evidence that Charles is a secondary repressed personality, "alter ego" if you will, who has been spying on his "older brother" John since his birth (that subject has been recently discussed I'm sure you noticed). 

But since he has the best seat in the house, so to speak, he sees all and recalls all. What he understands of course is hard to say. But he is the "unreliable narrator" who breaks the rule, at least according to this interpretation of the novel. I personally find him to be much more reliable than his older brother.

Carolyn

From: laurence hochard <laurence.hochard@HOTMAIL.FR>
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Mon, May 13, 2013 5:37:30 PM
Subject: [NABOKV-L] thoughts: 4000 times

I wonder if anybody has ever noticed a slight inconsistency in Kinbote's account of his spying on the Shades.in his note to line 181:
"On another trip to the bathroom one hour and a half later, at sunrise, I found the light transferred to the bedroom, and smiled indulgently, for, according to my deductions, only two nights had passed since the three-thousand-nine-hundred-ninety-ninth time - but no matter."
He alludes to "At least / four thousand times your pillow has been creased / by our two heads (l 275/6)" of course, but at the time of his spying, he couldn't know since he hadn't read the poem  and therefore, he can't have smiled indulgently; he can only do so in retrospect, when writing his commentary.
Could the inconsistecy be deliberate, here as well as about Kinbote's birthdate? Did VN want to discreetly blur the time landmarks so as to maintain ambiguity as to the identity of the characters? Or are they simply mistakes?

(Apologies if the subject has already been discussed on the forum; I searched the archives but didn't find anything)

Laurence Hochard
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Google Search the archive Contact the Editors Visit "Nabokov Online Journal" Visit Zembla View Nabokv-L Policies Manage subscription options Visit AdaOnline View NSJ Ada Annotations Temporary L-Soft Search the archive

All private editorial communications are read by both co-editors.