Subject
Split personalities in Pale Fire
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I'd like to object to Matthew:
>This makes very little sense to me,
>
> since the most traditional reading of the novel relies on the very
> notion
> that Kinbote is really a delusional V. Botkin. Clearly, Nabokov DID
see
> multiple personalities as a valid plotting device.
There is great difference between using
> multiple personalities as a valid plotting device.
and making ALL central characters parts of one,
to my opinion the novel would collapse if it would be so,
it is just not interesting. It would mean that
all relations between them are just fictional game.
Even more difficult to agree with
>The only alternative
> is
> to actually believe that Kinbote really is the king of Zembla.
It is just a "non sequitur". Why "the only alternative"?
The form of his madness and
the fact that his "Zembla" is derived from rather
naive romantic story of "The prisoner of Zenda"
(see the Boyd/Hornick correspondence - I added in my previous letters
to
the observations of Neil Hornick some additional
details related to Zenda ), his desperate and
miserable love affair with Shade who is polite (nothing more) to him
are interesting when he is a separate character, and make no
sense (or at least are immensely devaluated) if it is a part of split
personality.
I think also that it is part of the "accepted wisdom" of our times
to think that a good poet must have something like
"suppressed homosexuality" complicated by (suppressed) "russianness"
in him to be good. I think that Nabokov might enjoy the
idea that Shade may be a good poet and have very
banal family life.
Best wishes,
Sergei Soloviev
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>This makes very little sense to me,
>
> since the most traditional reading of the novel relies on the very
> notion
> that Kinbote is really a delusional V. Botkin. Clearly, Nabokov DID
see
> multiple personalities as a valid plotting device.
There is great difference between using
> multiple personalities as a valid plotting device.
and making ALL central characters parts of one,
to my opinion the novel would collapse if it would be so,
it is just not interesting. It would mean that
all relations between them are just fictional game.
Even more difficult to agree with
>The only alternative
> is
> to actually believe that Kinbote really is the king of Zembla.
It is just a "non sequitur". Why "the only alternative"?
The form of his madness and
the fact that his "Zembla" is derived from rather
naive romantic story of "The prisoner of Zenda"
(see the Boyd/Hornick correspondence - I added in my previous letters
to
the observations of Neil Hornick some additional
details related to Zenda ), his desperate and
miserable love affair with Shade who is polite (nothing more) to him
are interesting when he is a separate character, and make no
sense (or at least are immensely devaluated) if it is a part of split
personality.
I think also that it is part of the "accepted wisdom" of our times
to think that a good poet must have something like
"suppressed homosexuality" complicated by (suppressed) "russianness"
in him to be good. I think that Nabokov might enjoy the
idea that Shade may be a good poet and have very
banal family life.
Best wishes,
Sergei Soloviev
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