Subject
Re: Pale Fire & homophobia (fwd)
Date
Body
IS PALE FIRE "HOMOPHOBIC"?
So far, the tone and approach of the arguments on
this subject have been not far above the level of
"Nabokov must have been a pedophile, or else
he wouldn't have written LOLITA."
Maybe because we have yet to hear a serious argument.
FOR EXAMPLE
Galya Diment refers to "VN's original intent".
(Please let us in on what you know about this,
how you found it out, and what on earth it means to
us now! Is this merely an unfortunate phrase, or
is what we have, in fact, only or primarily the book ?)
Michael Suh (referring at the start of this thread
to Brian Boyd's interest in Nabokov's "otherworldliness
and generosity") calls it "a critical dead end,"
whatever that means, but doesn't bother to say
why, how, or what. This amounts to a kind of
sophisticated name-calling.
Robert Myers refers to "something at the heart of
PALE FIRE...the homophobia inherent in the
work." Doesn't cite examples. Is it really a
given? Or just a feeling? A suspicion?
Aldo Alvarez says, in his more interesting ramble
around the topic:
There IS something to questioning Nabokov's representation of queers,
but it's not a question of it being Bad or Good Art or having it fit
into a Politically Correct canon. It's a question of trying to
understand something about this particular text's relationship to the
subject.
However--What subject, good lord? Is Aldo Alvarez
saying that "the subject" of PALE FIRE is homosexuality?
This assertion also needs an argument. Also--are we really
to understand that Vladimir Nabokov needed Firbank, Benson,
and camp to get to frivolity, irony, and indeterminacy?
Or that the other characters in PALE FIRE are "normal"?
YOU HAVE H---------, CHUM
We have to be careful not merely to indulge our own
prejudices -- that's real smugness. If we do live in a
vastly more enlightened time than poor old VN, and I
devoutly hope we do, by all means let's
revel in it--but should we really be talking about
such a highly organized and complex book in such a
sloppy, simple way? Shouldn't a charge as serious
homophobia have a serious basis?
I would challenge anyone who thinks PALE FIRE
is homophobic to come up with some specific examples
from the book and support them with a focused, logical
argument rather than sweeping statements, nonsense
terms like "cultural project", and out-of-context,
ahistorical, glib, or casual references to too-easily
shared assumptions. And let's also have the juicy
counter-examples, the smugness of the "grinning
old males" and "rubicund convives" who blandly
dominate the academic world of the book -- who
but Kinbote could show them from such an acute
and peculiar angle?
PALE FIRE is a demanding book: it tests our intellects,
our emotions, and even our prejudices. It calls for
an approach, an engagement by us as readers, that
can begin to meet its challenges. But isn't that also
the fun of it?
Tom Bolt
<bolt@tbolt.com>
So far, the tone and approach of the arguments on
this subject have been not far above the level of
"Nabokov must have been a pedophile, or else
he wouldn't have written LOLITA."
Maybe because we have yet to hear a serious argument.
FOR EXAMPLE
Galya Diment refers to "VN's original intent".
(Please let us in on what you know about this,
how you found it out, and what on earth it means to
us now! Is this merely an unfortunate phrase, or
is what we have, in fact, only or primarily the book ?)
Michael Suh (referring at the start of this thread
to Brian Boyd's interest in Nabokov's "otherworldliness
and generosity") calls it "a critical dead end,"
whatever that means, but doesn't bother to say
why, how, or what. This amounts to a kind of
sophisticated name-calling.
Robert Myers refers to "something at the heart of
PALE FIRE...the homophobia inherent in the
work." Doesn't cite examples. Is it really a
given? Or just a feeling? A suspicion?
Aldo Alvarez says, in his more interesting ramble
around the topic:
There IS something to questioning Nabokov's representation of queers,
but it's not a question of it being Bad or Good Art or having it fit
into a Politically Correct canon. It's a question of trying to
understand something about this particular text's relationship to the
subject.
However--What subject, good lord? Is Aldo Alvarez
saying that "the subject" of PALE FIRE is homosexuality?
This assertion also needs an argument. Also--are we really
to understand that Vladimir Nabokov needed Firbank, Benson,
and camp to get to frivolity, irony, and indeterminacy?
Or that the other characters in PALE FIRE are "normal"?
YOU HAVE H---------, CHUM
We have to be careful not merely to indulge our own
prejudices -- that's real smugness. If we do live in a
vastly more enlightened time than poor old VN, and I
devoutly hope we do, by all means let's
revel in it--but should we really be talking about
such a highly organized and complex book in such a
sloppy, simple way? Shouldn't a charge as serious
homophobia have a serious basis?
I would challenge anyone who thinks PALE FIRE
is homophobic to come up with some specific examples
from the book and support them with a focused, logical
argument rather than sweeping statements, nonsense
terms like "cultural project", and out-of-context,
ahistorical, glib, or casual references to too-easily
shared assumptions. And let's also have the juicy
counter-examples, the smugness of the "grinning
old males" and "rubicund convives" who blandly
dominate the academic world of the book -- who
but Kinbote could show them from such an acute
and peculiar angle?
PALE FIRE is a demanding book: it tests our intellects,
our emotions, and even our prejudices. It calls for
an approach, an engagement by us as readers, that
can begin to meet its challenges. But isn't that also
the fun of it?
Tom Bolt
<bolt@tbolt.com>