MR: I am curious how others
comprehend the poltergeist events in Kinbote's note to line 230, supposedly
related to him (in astonishing detail) by Jane Provost[...]It seems to me that
we have a few choices to make [...]1. We can accept that it all happened as
reported. In this case, we have to accept a fictional world in which there exist
real poltergeists ... that John & Sybil witnessed these events 2. We can
(along with Kinbote, I think) believe that John & Sybil were tricked by
Hazel...3. We can believe that Kinbote made the whole thing up. But why? Any
other options? I most often find myself voting for a combination of 2 &
3.
JM: Matt mentioned Jane Provost acting as
Shade's secretary. Kinbote described her as a young girl and we must remember
that she was linked to Hazel's death (after mentioning his book on Pope,
Shade adds: " Jane Dean, my typist, offered her one
day/ To meet Pete Dean, a
cousin"). There is a famous poltergeist case in Europe that involves a young
secretary*.
Why is it difficult to
suppose that VN ambiguously inserted "real poltergeists" in his fictional
world? These events are well documented...
And yet, VN not only placed together "Provost and
"Dean", but set both names close to "Pope", perhaps shifting the
emphasis from the academic area into the religious. I once studied a book written by Bishop
Pike (it was before he turned into "The Other Side"** and researched
poltergeist phenomena.) Pike was very much in the media at the time
VN was writing Pale Fire.
Although wikipedia information doesn't include it,
I heard that Bishop Pike, like Kinbote, had his name sometimes
associated to homosexuality.
Nabokov would not have been the only novelist to
mention Pike *** (should the poltergeist episodes, Pope/Provost/Dean and
"secretaries", Kinbote's religious problems be in any way connected to
him)
..................................................................................
* (internet) "Perhaps one of the best known cases of
poltergeist activity took place in a lawyer's office in Rosenheim,
Germany...After investigation by electricians,
engineers, police officers,
journalists, and finally some experienced poltergeist investigators (all in all,
nearly forty first-hand witnesses were involved in the case), it was discovered
that the activity seemed to center around an eighteen-year-old secretary
employed at the office named Annemarie....Parapsychologists maintain that the
poltergeist agent (though not always an adolescent) is somehow producing the
phenomena unconsciously through psychokinesis (PK), thus the use of the term
recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis, or RSPK phenomena. Basically poltergeist
phenomena are "external manifestations of repressed anger and hostility,"
typically from adolescents. The poltergeist effects help the agent to release
the feelings of stress, and often once the stress factor is removed, the
phenomena
ceases."
** - In 1966, Pike's son
Jim took his life in a New York city hotel room [...]. Shortly after his son's
death Pike began to experience poltergeist phenomena. Books seemed to vanish and
reappear... Half of the clothes in a closet were found disarranged and heaped up
[...]Pike led a public (and for the church, embarrassing) pursuit of various
spiritualist and clairvoyant methods of contacting his deceased son in order to
reconcile. In September 1967, Pike participated in a televised séance with his
dead son through the medium, Arthur Ford, who served at the time as a Disciples
of Christ minister. Pike detailed these experiences in his book The Other
Side.
Additional data: His
theology was profoundly challenging to the Church, as Pike wrote questioning a
number of widely regarded
theological stances, including the virginity of
Mary, the Mother of Jesus, and the doctrine of Hell and the Trinity. He famously
called for "fewer beliefs, more belief." [...] he was ultimately censured for
this in 1966 by his brother bishops, and resigned his position shortly
thereafter.In his personal life, Pike was a chain-smoker, an alcoholic, craved
attention, and was likely addicted in some way to romance and relationships.His
charismatic personality drew many people to him,
including his secretary,
with whom he developed a romantic relationship that cost him his marriage to his
second wife in 1969.
*** - James Pike was a
loose inspiration for the character of Timothy Archer in Philip K. Dick's book,
The Transmigration of Timothy Archer. Pike and Philip
K.Dick were friends
and Pike officiated at Dick's wedding to Nancy Hackett in 1966. Joan Didion
wrote about Pike and the building of the Grace Cathedral in her collection of
essays, The White Album (1979). E. L. Doctorow includes Pike as a fictionlised
character in his novel, City of God.