Two items:
1. Note about former posting on
Slezak and "Laughter in the Dark": returning to the issue about "fiction
and reality" and "metafiction"
CK: Jansy told me how funny she
found Nabokov's joke about missing the swan...But that's not Nabokov's joke, it
is a famous anecdote from the career ... and VN's text: in a
new good-natured manner launched into a funny story about some friend of
his, an opera singer who once...
In an informal exchange I spoke about VN's joke,
but we can see that the joke has been recounted by
VN ( he quoted an "an opera singer
friend") , although it remained a fully fledged joke that
remains part of the novel .
MR: a long poem of four cantos in heroic couplets by
Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802)called "Loves of the Plants: A Poem with
Philosophical Notes." The poem references
Zembla in one passage is filled
with nymphs and crystal and several plants that appear in Pale Fire...
JM: Now, more than ever before,
I'm certain that "Pale Fire" was a satirical poem in its own right and not
only the novel, thanks to Kinbote and his
commentary.