Hen Hanna, I read your post about Shade's fountain image in my email, but was not able to respond directly as the body copy and the send message buttons were missing on the list-serve (a problem I've been encountering quite a bit)

A system of cells interlinked within
Cells interlinked within cells interlinked
Within one stem.

As usual, there are layers of meaning. As mentioned in the foreword, the system of cells within one stem suggests also the structure of the novel – all the disparate pieces fitting into the whole.

I believe this to be the nervous SYSTEM in the one STEM of the spinal cord. Nabokov often spoke of the "tingle in the spine" which accompanies the creation or apprehension of true art. It is a spiritual state.

Although Nabokov has stated that he didn't care for anything "oriental", this is a clear description of kundalini, the energy that flows up the spine in spiritual awakening, often described as a white fountain, or “waterfall flowing upwards”.

Fountains are found as arcane images in alchemy. Jung describes the philosophical fountain, the fountain of Life, thusly:

“In the first of the sequence, the fountain pours forth the three substances that supposedly flow from the centre of the soul. These are ‘Lac Virginis’ (the Virgin’s milk), ‘Acetum fontis’ (the spring of vinegar) and ‘Aqua Vitae’ (the water of life). The latter represents the force within man, that which originally exists. The other two represent, once again, a contribution from both the feminine, receptive, lunar forces, and those of the penetrating, sharp, solar male. These mingle and mix in the lower part of the soul – the fountain’s basin – and the substance created is known as the water of Mercury. The latter stages of the alchemical process take place in these waters.”

Note the “water of Mercury”. Mercury is central to alchemy, and we will see later how important it is to understanding the alchemical thread in Pale Fire. Mercury is associated with the caduceus, which is actually a symbol of kundalini, with the serpent energy that rises up the spine.

Mystical states tend to be infused with a conviction of Knowing. Shade goes on to describe here the sort of typical ineffable sense of a mystical experience – incommunicable to those who have not experienced it, and too intimate and vulnerable to be shared. Asked if he believed in God, Nabokov replied ineffably:

“I know more than I can express in words, and the little I can express would not have been expressed, had I not known more.” (VN Strong Opinions p45)

The doctor has the usual, unbelieving, rationalization to Shade’s experience. One has to wonder, did Nabokov have a similar experience? Writing in Speak Memory of seeing the larva of a goat moth “naked as a worm” cross his path searching for a place to pupate:

“…the awful pressure of metamorphosis, the aura of a disgraceful fit in a public place. (SM132)

The doctor has the usual, unbelieving, rationalization to Shade’s experience. One has to wonder, did Nabokov have a similar experience? Writing in Speak Memory of seeing the larva of a goat moth “naked as a worm” cross his path searching for a place to pupate:

“…the awful pressure of metamorphosis, the aura of a disgraceful fit in a public place. (SM132)

The image and feeling of the fountain remains with Shade, even through his every day outer life, as something somehow foundational to his reality.

Shade’s disappointing trip to the dense Mrs. Z: She doesn’t want to talk about fountains, but she’s happy to talk about Mt. Blanc and the Matterhorn! “Affinity, a sacramental bond”: Here we have a direct inference of alchemy. Alchemy sought the “union of opposites”, the “coniunctio” or “sacred marriage”. The elements of the coniunctio, the masculine and the feminine, were called either the “King and Queen”, or “Brother and Sister”.

“The alchemical operation consisted essentially in separating the prima material, the so-called chaos, into the active principle, the soul, and the passive principle, the body, which were then reunited in personified form in the coniunctio or “chymical marriage’ In other words, the coniuntio was allegorized as the heierosgammos, the ritual cohabitation of Sol and Luna. From this union spring the filius sapientiae or filius philosophorum, the transformed Mercurius, who was thought of as hermaphroditic in token of his rounded perfection.” (Jung, Alchemical Studies, P. 123)
*
“Jim Coates”, the author of the Mrs. Z article would be Mr. James Coates, an author on spiritualism and a member of the Society for Psychical Research around the turn of the 20th Century.
*
It turns out it was a misprint: mountain, not fountain, and Shade is about to give up hope. Somehow, musing on his failure, he has an epiphany; it is not exactly clear whether it was from just the act of giving up (which frequently does lead to spiritual realization), or whether it was that mountain/fountain were connected in the contrapuntal web of sense. Both are important spiritual symbols; the mountain as ascent, power, deity etc., and the fountain as the Fountain of Life, the mercurial kundalini life force that rises up through the spine to higher consciousness. Even though he doesn’t care who is behind all of it, he is solaced by the awareness that there is a Grand Design, a something or somebodies, orchestrating minutely to the personal.

It is the texture, the surface and the underside of the weave and their correlated patterns; it is a game to be played. This basically, is Nabokov’s manifesto and it is the structure of the whole novel – plexed artistry. The story doesn’t matter so much as the level of artistry and engagement.

Nabokov iterates this synchronistic concept a number of times in Speak Memory:

“…trillions of other trifles occur-all forming an instantaneous and transparent organism of events, of which the poet (sitting in a lawn chair, at Ithaca NY) is the nucleus.”

This is the essence of Jung’s theory of synchronicity.

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