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Re: Pale Fire & homophobia (fwd)
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From: Wayne Daniels <wdaniels@tpl.toronto.on.ca>
To: NABOKV-L@UCSBVM.UCSB.EDU
Subject: Re: Pale Fire & homophobia (fwd)
Christopher Berg wrote:
> This, in fact, seems to be what some list members are doing to me! (Joke.) To
> rephrase, once again, my question: if Nabokov had constructed a fiction that
> featured a character of African or Jewish extraction doing the things Kinbote
> does in relation to Shade (I leave out of this equation sexual orientation),
> might we not consider such fiction an example of dubious ethical merit.
Weighing "ethical merit" in the work of a writer who had so little interest in such matters (so far as literature was concerned, at any rate) is perhaps too easy to do. If N. had any particular animus towards homosexualists (to use Gore Vidal's nice term), it does not seem very obvious to me. Kinbote is unpleasant, yes, but then so are any number of his characters. Neither is Kinbote unpleasant *because* of his tastes, at least not in a general sense, though of course they become mixed up in the things that *do* make him so. How could it be otherwise? I don't see one can infer N. disliked gays anymore than chess prodigies, though he created a sufficiently charmless example of one.
Cheers,
Wayne Daniels
To: NABOKV-L@UCSBVM.UCSB.EDU
Subject: Re: Pale Fire & homophobia (fwd)
Christopher Berg wrote:
> This, in fact, seems to be what some list members are doing to me! (Joke.) To
> rephrase, once again, my question: if Nabokov had constructed a fiction that
> featured a character of African or Jewish extraction doing the things Kinbote
> does in relation to Shade (I leave out of this equation sexual orientation),
> might we not consider such fiction an example of dubious ethical merit.
Weighing "ethical merit" in the work of a writer who had so little interest in such matters (so far as literature was concerned, at any rate) is perhaps too easy to do. If N. had any particular animus towards homosexualists (to use Gore Vidal's nice term), it does not seem very obvious to me. Kinbote is unpleasant, yes, but then so are any number of his characters. Neither is Kinbote unpleasant *because* of his tastes, at least not in a general sense, though of course they become mixed up in the things that *do* make him so. How could it be otherwise? I don't see one can infer N. disliked gays anymore than chess prodigies, though he created a sufficiently charmless example of one.
Cheers,
Wayne Daniels