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BIB/ TRANS: Ferreira on PF as detective story
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Jansy Mello has kindly translated a few paragraphs from Ermelinda
Ferreira's essay "O leitor no texto," recently mentioned in a post, into
English. Here is Ferreira's discussion of *Pale Fire* as a self-reflexive
or "metaphysical" detective story. Her essay can be found in the original
Portuguese online
here<http://www.plataforma.paraapoesia.nom.br/ermelinda_ensaios.htm>.
Excerpt from "The Reader in the Text" by Ermelinda Ferreira (2005)
[. . .] The same resource is used by Vladimir Nabokov in *Pale Fire* (1962)
and by Italo Calvino in *If On a Winter Night a Traveller* (1979), when
they discuss the status of the novel genre in the light of modern
aesthetics and reception. Inserting into the form of the detective novel a
discussion with a theoretical and critical basis--concerning the destinies
of authors and fictional narratives, in a universe loaded with
deconstructionists and constructivists who make the text a victim of its
own plot--they transform the argument into a parody of contemporary
attitudes toward reading and literary criticism.
In the first instance, with a great sense of humor, Nabokov, under the
guise of a visiting lecturer at an American university, satirically
disrobes the trappings of academia, producing a critical edition of a poem
by a recently deceased poet, professor, and celebrated writer. The
"criticism," which actually takes the form of a detective story--here under
the guise, pretext, and appearance of a conventional literary study--is
simultaneously hilarious as a parody and effective as a narrative.
Nabokov, in this critical dimension, achieves exactly what the most radical
theories of reading propose to do: he over-interprets the poem (simulating
an analysis of a formalist-biographical type) to the point of fatally
dismembering it and dissolving it in sulfuric acid, so that after his
murderous study no real clue about the cadaver remains. Not even the ashes
from the poem, strangely named "Pale Fire," are left, and not even a shadow
of its author, curiously called John Shade, but only the enthusiastic
fulminations of an envious critic, a king in disguise, who wishes to become
an author himself. [. . .]
What is interesting to emphasize at this point is Calvino's and Nabokov's
insistence on using the model of the novel as raw material for their
stories, revitalizing it under different shapes, dissolving various styles,
and mixing together all kinds of elements involved in the complex "system
of literature." [. . .]
Ironically or not, in truth, their writings not only designate themselves
as "novels" but they also present themselves as literary works. [. . .] In
this way they offer a gift to the partisans of literary homicide by
offering a body to modern critics, since "there is no crime in the absence
of the body." Cruel or kind-hearted, Little Jack Horner won't be able to
pursue his pranks when there is no pie in front of him to provoke his
instincts. This is why Charles Kinbote, in Nabokov's novel, insistently
prompts the poet John Shade to have him write the text that will become the
object of his analysis. [. . .] Such analysis is carried out by Kinbote
himself, expressing, like Borges, the strict opposite of what he intends to
do: "I have no desire to twist and batter an unambiguous *apparatus
criticus* into the monstrous semblance of a novel." Ironically, this is
exactly what the reader can obtain from his reading, probably one of the
most radical examples of the consequences of the practice of
constructivism. After all, as foreseen by Shade, in his verses:
But all at once it dawned on me that *this*
Was the real point, the contrapuntal theme;
Just this: not text, but texture; not the dream
But topsy-turvical coincidence,
Not flimsy nonsense, but a web of sense.
Yes! It sufficed that I in life could find
Some kind of link-and-bobolink, some kind
Of correlated pattern in the game,
Plexed artistry, and something of the same
Pleasure in it as they who played it found.
In this way Kinbote, as a critic, takes possession of Shade's poem in order
to use the poet's fame to promote his own writings: the story of "Zembla,"
his homeland, and the history of Charles the Beloved, a Zemblan king
anonymously exiled in the United States who is actually Kinbote. The
sincerity with which he "constructs" his reading as independent of the
original poem is only comparable to the cynicism with which he insists in
using his text as itself the origin of his own "reading."
--
Susan Elizabeth Sweeney
Co-Editor, NABOKV-L
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Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
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Ferreira's essay "O leitor no texto," recently mentioned in a post, into
English. Here is Ferreira's discussion of *Pale Fire* as a self-reflexive
or "metaphysical" detective story. Her essay can be found in the original
Portuguese online
here<http://www.plataforma.paraapoesia.nom.br/ermelinda_ensaios.htm>.
Excerpt from "The Reader in the Text" by Ermelinda Ferreira (2005)
[. . .] The same resource is used by Vladimir Nabokov in *Pale Fire* (1962)
and by Italo Calvino in *If On a Winter Night a Traveller* (1979), when
they discuss the status of the novel genre in the light of modern
aesthetics and reception. Inserting into the form of the detective novel a
discussion with a theoretical and critical basis--concerning the destinies
of authors and fictional narratives, in a universe loaded with
deconstructionists and constructivists who make the text a victim of its
own plot--they transform the argument into a parody of contemporary
attitudes toward reading and literary criticism.
In the first instance, with a great sense of humor, Nabokov, under the
guise of a visiting lecturer at an American university, satirically
disrobes the trappings of academia, producing a critical edition of a poem
by a recently deceased poet, professor, and celebrated writer. The
"criticism," which actually takes the form of a detective story--here under
the guise, pretext, and appearance of a conventional literary study--is
simultaneously hilarious as a parody and effective as a narrative.
Nabokov, in this critical dimension, achieves exactly what the most radical
theories of reading propose to do: he over-interprets the poem (simulating
an analysis of a formalist-biographical type) to the point of fatally
dismembering it and dissolving it in sulfuric acid, so that after his
murderous study no real clue about the cadaver remains. Not even the ashes
from the poem, strangely named "Pale Fire," are left, and not even a shadow
of its author, curiously called John Shade, but only the enthusiastic
fulminations of an envious critic, a king in disguise, who wishes to become
an author himself. [. . .]
What is interesting to emphasize at this point is Calvino's and Nabokov's
insistence on using the model of the novel as raw material for their
stories, revitalizing it under different shapes, dissolving various styles,
and mixing together all kinds of elements involved in the complex "system
of literature." [. . .]
Ironically or not, in truth, their writings not only designate themselves
as "novels" but they also present themselves as literary works. [. . .] In
this way they offer a gift to the partisans of literary homicide by
offering a body to modern critics, since "there is no crime in the absence
of the body." Cruel or kind-hearted, Little Jack Horner won't be able to
pursue his pranks when there is no pie in front of him to provoke his
instincts. This is why Charles Kinbote, in Nabokov's novel, insistently
prompts the poet John Shade to have him write the text that will become the
object of his analysis. [. . .] Such analysis is carried out by Kinbote
himself, expressing, like Borges, the strict opposite of what he intends to
do: "I have no desire to twist and batter an unambiguous *apparatus
criticus* into the monstrous semblance of a novel." Ironically, this is
exactly what the reader can obtain from his reading, probably one of the
most radical examples of the consequences of the practice of
constructivism. After all, as foreseen by Shade, in his verses:
But all at once it dawned on me that *this*
Was the real point, the contrapuntal theme;
Just this: not text, but texture; not the dream
But topsy-turvical coincidence,
Not flimsy nonsense, but a web of sense.
Yes! It sufficed that I in life could find
Some kind of link-and-bobolink, some kind
Of correlated pattern in the game,
Plexed artistry, and something of the same
Pleasure in it as they who played it found.
In this way Kinbote, as a critic, takes possession of Shade's poem in order
to use the poet's fame to promote his own writings: the story of "Zembla,"
his homeland, and the history of Charles the Beloved, a Zemblan king
anonymously exiled in the United States who is actually Kinbote. The
sincerity with which he "constructs" his reading as independent of the
original poem is only comparable to the cynicism with which he insists in
using his text as itself the origin of his own "reading."
--
Susan Elizabeth Sweeney
Co-Editor, NABOKV-L
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
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
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/