Carolyn Kunin [to JM's query to CKunin: Do you
think that all the fuss around John Shade's poem "Pale Fire" did Nabokov a
disservice in connection to VN's poetic genius? ]:
"I felt the controversy was the result of mis-reading the novel.
Personally? I adored the Shade poem, therefore I adored Shade. But when I came
to suspect Shade of deception, my understanding of the poem had to expand to
include all the truths about himself that I felt Shade was hiding in it ...[A]t
the point that Shade suffers a cerebral stroke/psychotic break, that the poem
breaks down as well and ceases at that point to be even a fictional work of art.
The way I see it, the poem's integrity depends on its function within the novel.
I continue to feel that Pale Fire is an unsurpassed and probably unsurpassable
work of art..."
Vladimir Mylnikov: "i think 'the fuss' mainly deals with the
reader's approach to the book and its quite logical vivisection - separate prose
and verse (including their functions) - but the fun part of the book is that the
poem, the commentary, and the index are inseparable - it is a linguistic salad
and one ingredient pulled out doesn't taste as good as when it stays in the
dish."
Stan Kelly-Bootle: "I would have thought that a poem must be
judged as-is, not by opinions about the author’s motivations, or...by any
planted messages. PF’s Cantos, ‘tis true, offer a rare special tease, where the
pseudonymous Shade is not a real person whose verse is subject to the
interpretative methods, love, hate or indifference, we devote to real poets.I
still think VN ranks supreme (Nil Plus Ultra) in narrative prose, but a few
notches lower in the grand glory of global poetry (Shakespeare, Keats, Pushkin,
Shelley, Chaucer, ...) Overawed by VN’s parodic genius ... Matching that shown
in Shade’s deliberate doggerel, honed to perfection as the meat in Kinbote’s
sandwich?
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Jansy Mello: According to
Carolyn, Shade's poem breaks down after the poet suffers a psychotic break.
In this sense both she and Vladimir Mylnikov are in agreement when
they consider that Pale Fire, the novel, is mis-read if
the readers separate prose and verse. That was my point exactly when I asked about
"the fuss around Shade's poem" (indicating its recent printing in which
there's no foreword, commentaries and index by Charles Kinbote).
Stan notes that a poem must be
judged "as-is" and, although this assertion sounds simple, it
bears testimony to centuries of combined wisdom in relation to
poetry. This is also a position that Vladimir Nabokov would have embraced
and this is why it's so puzzling to me when, in VN's "Selected Letters
1940-1977", I remember having read V.N trying to get the poem published
separately from his "mad King's" addenda.
I tried to locate the letter using the
Harvest/HBJ Book's Index but. under "Pale Fire."I reached
only the most surprising statements [ "I have decided
to postpone indefinitely the writing of PALE FIRE. The work has not been
advancing and I have come to the conclusion that the very existence of the
contractual obligation has been interfering...I would like to be
released..."], but no letter to the Editor of a magazine that,
as a rule, publishes no poetry (that's all I can
remember!).