EDNote: in an earlier post that was being revised but may have been
dropped, SKB pointed out that using caps for certain words is not
shouting; it is merely a convention for emphasis in the absence of html
formatting.
~SB
-------- Original Message --------
CK: I don't REJECT your theory. If you re-read me as carefully as
you re-read PF, you'll see I have an open mind re-your and other
offered "solutions." Like James Twigg, I see the merits and enjoy
exploring your and rival theories. I even BOUGHT Brian's &
Priscilla's
books! Like James, I don't think you have PROVED your claims
SO FAR. E.g, see my recent request for how all the other characters
fit in your theory.
Having proved your theory, you would next need to ask if it is
UNIQUE. Do you believe that parallel theories might be viable?
If NOT, you have further work ahead, namely proving UNIQUENESS.
There MAY be a way of proving uniqueness without having to
DISPROVE the rivals. But that would demand more precision than we've
seen so far. Your suggestion that VN deliberately made PF
particularly HARD(er) for
100% "Nabokov-Worshippers" as opposed to "ordinary" readers, is quite
difficult to accept. I know many in both categories, plus others
who have various reservations about "VN infallibity," who are
happy to read and REVERE PF in a straight(ish) way: Shade is the
poet Shade, shot in error; Kinbote is his strange/weird/mad
colleague/annotator, who survives on to edit Shade's final opus.
In particular, the Cantos reveal Shade as a
not-that-great-poet, with his own sad quirks and hang-ups. Further,
Kinbote is a WARNING against the dangers of MIS-reading texts!
PF is a NOVEL. We can consistently accept the "fictional reality" of
New Wye _and_ Zembla. Can you _fault_ that reading? I repeat: having
Shade survive as Kinbote MAY provide a consistent, parallel
_alternative_. That does not vitiate the "normal" reading but
MIGHT provide a typically Nabokovian enhancement. What we await is
a coherent Kinbote-as-Shade account with the same kind of
_consistency_ as the "straight" version. Each of your emails adds
interesting (honest!) bits supporting your theory. I'm certainly not
an academic Nabokovian in thrall to some Saint Vladimir. My
background is linguistics and mathematics (go on, google me! I've
googled you! It's quite legal!), ever open to both formal and
informal logics.
PS: "Picadillos" could also be an L Carroll 'blend,' meaning TINY sins
(Greek pic[o] - replacing pec-?)
skb