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Re: On symmetry and Kinbote
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Re: [NABOKV-L] On symmetry and KinboteDear Carolyn
Your sentence said that "under "Shade" in this index Shade is sometime "S" and sometimes "he"'; Kinbote is sometimes "K" and sometimes "he." The entries under "Kinbote" don't make this confusion. '
Isn't the "G" absent somehow? ( I didn't check the Index, perhaps it would clarify matters...)
In B.Boyd's book on "Pale Fire" he mentions a conversation with Nabokov and the latter's doubts about who had written the Index ( Kinbote or Shade).
As you poionted out, "Pale Fire" is a novel that boasts an "Index" and that this is something quite unusual for a novel, but it would have been even more unusual for a poem to offer one.
So, if VN hesitated about the authorshipon of the Index it could mean that K and S might have been, as you maintain, the same individual, otherwise Kinbote, as a commentator, should have been its natural organizer ( and its style is entirely Kinbotean).
What disturbs me about your hypothesis concerning Kinbote and Shade as "one" came to my attention only quite recently. If Kinbote is a projection of split off aspects that belong to Shade ( the division could follow other strands, as you also suggested when connecting them with Stevenson's J&H ) then there would have been no Kinbote outside upsetting the lids of trash-cans and rapping against the window. In that case, John Shade would also be the seducing Erlkönig who carried Hazel away to her death ( following the hints in Goethe's poem).
Kinbote would also necessarily represent Shade's repressed homosexuality. Does this appear Nabokovian to you?
Jansy
----- Original Message -----
From: Carolyn Kunin
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Saturday, September 30, 2006 3:08 PM
Subject: Re: [NABOKV-L] On symmetry and Kinbote
> I don't see K. and S. getting confused in the Index entry on Shade. A lot of the pronouns do indeed refer to Kinbote, but they always have an antecedent in an earlier K. I took that as more of his egoism.
>
> Yes, it's interesting that the letter C can sound like both K and S (and it looks like, and is etymologically related to, G). But at that level you can konnekt everything with everything elce.
Dear Jerry,
Since this is the only novel I know that has an index even of any sort, I can't say that you are wrong, but in usual indexes the "he" refers to the person named in the heading. But under "Shade" in this index Shade is sometime "S" and sometimes "he"'; Kinbote is sometimes
"K" and sometimes "he." The entries under "Kinbote" don't make this confusion.
I do wish someone would analyze that Index - - it is quite interesting. For example this is found on the title page: "The capital letters stand for the three main characters G, K. S (which see) in this work."
That "(which see)" is interesting because there are no such headings in the index, whereas the rest of the "qv"s always do take you to other headings, if not always helpfully. So I think "see" might be a pun on "C" just as "capital letters" is a pun on "characters." My attention was drawn to this as a clue because of the odd combination of simplicity and deceit in this apparently innocent statement. I was also struck at the oddity of the ordering of the three "characters" (why not K, S, G or S, K, G?).
I concluded that VN wished to draw the reader's attention to those characters/letters - - but of course I could be wrong as you suggest.
(In your theory, is it egoism if someone fulsomely admires his other personality? Maybe Kinbote suffers from alteregoism.)
Alteregoism? Wonderful! (why didn't I think of that?)
Carolyn
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Your sentence said that "under "Shade" in this index Shade is sometime "S" and sometimes "he"'; Kinbote is sometimes "K" and sometimes "he." The entries under "Kinbote" don't make this confusion. '
Isn't the "G" absent somehow? ( I didn't check the Index, perhaps it would clarify matters...)
In B.Boyd's book on "Pale Fire" he mentions a conversation with Nabokov and the latter's doubts about who had written the Index ( Kinbote or Shade).
As you poionted out, "Pale Fire" is a novel that boasts an "Index" and that this is something quite unusual for a novel, but it would have been even more unusual for a poem to offer one.
So, if VN hesitated about the authorshipon of the Index it could mean that K and S might have been, as you maintain, the same individual, otherwise Kinbote, as a commentator, should have been its natural organizer ( and its style is entirely Kinbotean).
What disturbs me about your hypothesis concerning Kinbote and Shade as "one" came to my attention only quite recently. If Kinbote is a projection of split off aspects that belong to Shade ( the division could follow other strands, as you also suggested when connecting them with Stevenson's J&H ) then there would have been no Kinbote outside upsetting the lids of trash-cans and rapping against the window. In that case, John Shade would also be the seducing Erlkönig who carried Hazel away to her death ( following the hints in Goethe's poem).
Kinbote would also necessarily represent Shade's repressed homosexuality. Does this appear Nabokovian to you?
Jansy
----- Original Message -----
From: Carolyn Kunin
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Saturday, September 30, 2006 3:08 PM
Subject: Re: [NABOKV-L] On symmetry and Kinbote
> I don't see K. and S. getting confused in the Index entry on Shade. A lot of the pronouns do indeed refer to Kinbote, but they always have an antecedent in an earlier K. I took that as more of his egoism.
>
> Yes, it's interesting that the letter C can sound like both K and S (and it looks like, and is etymologically related to, G). But at that level you can konnekt everything with everything elce.
Dear Jerry,
Since this is the only novel I know that has an index even of any sort, I can't say that you are wrong, but in usual indexes the "he" refers to the person named in the heading. But under "Shade" in this index Shade is sometime "S" and sometimes "he"'; Kinbote is sometimes
"K" and sometimes "he." The entries under "Kinbote" don't make this confusion.
I do wish someone would analyze that Index - - it is quite interesting. For example this is found on the title page: "The capital letters stand for the three main characters G, K. S (which see) in this work."
That "(which see)" is interesting because there are no such headings in the index, whereas the rest of the "qv"s always do take you to other headings, if not always helpfully. So I think "see" might be a pun on "C" just as "capital letters" is a pun on "characters." My attention was drawn to this as a clue because of the odd combination of simplicity and deceit in this apparently innocent statement. I was also struck at the oddity of the ordering of the three "characters" (why not K, S, G or S, K, G?).
I concluded that VN wished to draw the reader's attention to those characters/letters - - but of course I could be wrong as you suggest.
(In your theory, is it egoism if someone fulsomely admires his other personality? Maybe Kinbote suffers from alteregoism.)
Alteregoism? Wonderful! (why didn't I think of that?)
Carolyn
Search the Nabokv-L archive at UCSB
Contact the Editors
All private editorial communications, without exception, are read by both co-editors.
Visit Zembla
View Nabokv-L Policies
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm