Dear A.Brown, Carolyn, List (and EDs)
I also agree that we'll be wise to
pursue the religious thread that goes from "fundamentalist
Christianity" to the spiritualist world of ghosts in afterlife.
What surprised me ( I've already
mentioned it in the List) was how many serious traditional arguments
were voiced by Kinbote and not by Shade. Even the priest in his
sexual ecstasy might also have experienced a spiritual illumination:
why exclude sex from spirit?
Even Shade's reference to "pity" (
which I believe was taken up either by A.Appel or by R.Rorty in their
own forewords, was taken as a quality greatly valued by VN himself
) sounds displaced since real charity seems to be absent in the
reproaches and in the self-centered world of our poet JS in his quest
for eternal life side by side his leotardclad blonde ( I'm sure Carolyn
would agree with the inclusion of the student's name in Shade's
heaven).
If Kinbote were indeed Shade gone mad,
in my eyes it would be an improvement. Unfortunately Kinbote cannot
write in heroic couplets...
Jansy