Pale Fire Peoples!
Welcome to Week 3. It’s very special week for me, because this is the first week when I’m officially a little bit behind, which means we’re really rollin’ now. I’ve been savouring it a bit too much methinks.
But enough about me — how are you doing out there? And more to the point, have you checked out the Palefire Deathmarch Wiki yet, for the demystification of tricky vocab? (Created some say by “Cort,” others say by “DavidG.” But in such murky matters can the truth ere truly be known?)
Speaking of “Cort,” don’t miss his exhortation to write frothy heroic bather-verse (wiki-style, no less) at the tail end of the thread for Week 2. I could be wrong here, but I think he’s talking to you.
Next week: Let’s meet back up just past “the adjacent position of these rhymes,” which is to say, right after the commentary on Lines 367-370, also known as page 149 in the Everyman’s Library.
As I started into the notes, I assumed all potential gamesmanship in the poem was intentional on Nabokov’s part. I wondered how much Shade and Kinbote would be credited with, however. The fram house between Goldsworth and Wordsmith seemed a likely point to check on. What Kinbote describes as “a witty exchange of syllables invoking the two masters of the heroic couplet,” suggests he gets the joke of Oliver Goldsmith (She Stoops to Conquer & Vicar of Wakefield fame) and William Wordsworth. Of course, he never lets on the New Wye reference could be Wordsworthian as well (as “Tintern Abbey’s” full title tells us the poet is above the Wye Valley).
Kinbote is a master of seeing himself in whatever he reads. He seems to miss the joke in the note to line 130, however, when he tells us “that ‘reality’ is neither the subject nor the object of true art.” He is intent that “Pale Fire” is true art, and his reality of it be seen in our readings. He’s the perfect deconstructionist without even knowing it.
THe shifts in mood are amazing. The Foreword was a little cute, the poem was tragic and moving, and the commentary is schizophrenic [not making any kind of rigid psychiatric diagnosis here]. I’m anxious to finish the book, so that I can read some critical essays about it.
stellasauce suggested that shade’s ugly child is the stand-in for our creative productions (especially our fears about them). that’s so perfect that it opens up a whole new view for me–seeing this work as observations on writing, writers, and audiences. when kinbote talks about shade, when nabokov references Frost and others, i’m now wondering about the many levels of influence others have on our own work–when is it inspiring (of joy, of creativity, of envy), intimidating, an education? if we express that influence, is it an homage, a development, a theft? and as audience, do we feel a closeness with the artist whose work we admire because the artist has made a genuine connection with us, because they say something we want to say better than we think we could, or are we seeing only those parts we think reflect our own image? and where would we be, as writers or as audiences, without voyeurism? kinbote says, “windows, as well known, have been the solace of first-person literature throughout the ages.” feels like nabokov is watching us watching him watching kinbote watching shade.
e., to riff on that layers-of-meta feeling you mention, i recall from a book of interviews with nabokov that i really enjoyed he was once asked to define consciousness as he understood it and his definition has always stayed with both for its perception and for its elegant economy of expression. He defined consciousness as “being aware of being aware of being.”
re schizophrenia, it might be worth noting that VN was a huge detractor of Freud and an opponent of psychological interpretations of fiction:
“Let the credulous and the vulgar continue to believe that all mental woes can be cured by a daily application of old Greek myths to their private parts.”
and, cecil, as my father likes to say (endlessly, i mean he really really likes to say it): It’s better to be a little behind than a big ass.
Speaking of riffing, Layers of Meta would make a great band name…
Seriously though, since they started working on that building they’ve done nothing but make it worse. What were once friendly-looking trees are now triangular piles of dirt with garbage on top. It is upsetting the feng shui of the whole neighborhood and interfering with my ability to read properly.
So-Called Bill wrote:
“It is upsetting the feng shui of the whole neighborhood and interfering with my ability to read properly.”
I’m not sure if everyone knows this, but according to the PFDM charter, we’re obligated to come to the aid of our members. So you hang in there, So-Called Bill. And if things get really grim, feng-shui-wise, well just switch on the old Pale Fire Deathmarch Emergency Spotlight (or siren of course, if it’s daytime), and watch the skies — help will be on the way.
i am ‘alice in wonderland’ late here (cec, i beg forgiveness, or forgive your blogness), but wanted to comment how much i enjoyed kinbote’s parasitic self-importance in the commentary.
“Let me state that without my notes Shade’s text simply has no human reality at all since the human reality of such a poem as his…has to depend entirely on the reality of its author…a reality that only my notes can provide.”
love it. it’s a schizophrenic poetry love fest.
the poem increased in enjoyment, and as others noted, the suicide scene was very touching. and the word gems, like nacreous, are a delight.
I tore apart the fantasies of Poe / And dealt with childhood memories of strange / Nacreous gleams beyond the adults’ range.
onto the commentary, and then a revisit to catch up to alice.
maybe it’s just me but is anyone, or everyone, looking at the references to the ‘see note’ (to other commentary). i’m not sure i follow.
Okay so I am behind and can’t make commentary on the whole section this week. But it seems to me that there are two literary types here: the humane poet, tender and curious, and the obsessive neighbor/writer, who notices only what he wishes to see, is insanesly obsessive yet who nonetheless can create a literary “ecstasy” denied the poet. Or so it seems to me. Are theses the two sides of Nabokov? The inner contrasts and anxieties? Not the point, I know.
I don’t see this poem as reaching literary genius. Kinbote is much more imaginative. Shade’s poem about the death of his daughter is not nearly as compelling a “story” as the novel. Kinbote’s commentary gives us something Shade could not – it surrounds the ordinary suffering of an aging mortal man with creative commentary which makes the poem itself much more memorable. With Kinbote we get a fantastical world of Zembla, along of course, with a purely insane narrator.
One small example of Kinbote’s LOL moments: in the commentary section about line 91: trivia. Who doesn’t want to see the covers on the Life magazines described?
Other Dan wrote:
“maybe it’s just me but is anyone, or everyone, looking at the references to the ‘see note’ (to other commentary). i’m not sure i follow.”
To be honest, I hadn’t really front-tracked that way till you mentioned this (I was busy enough with the back-tracking to the poem). But I spot-checked 4 or 5 last night, and they all seemed to check out. Have you hit some that lead into the abyss?
I’m really enjoying this book, but I feel like anything I have to comment on is goofy. Kinbote is a kook and gay. Duh! It IS pronounced like kin-boat, but with a softer long O. What else? Good poem, yeah, but maybe not Shade’s best work. I meant to figure out by time-zones where Onhava is, but haven’t gotten there. (3.5 hrs east of London) And Zembla reminds me of a cross between Finland and Sweden. This stuff is so obvious.
I’ve followed a few of the “see note”s, and it does make me think of a hypertext novel before the net. (Perhaps this “Commentary” is the one form of a book that actually could have hypertext.)
But mostly I keep feeling like this is an elaborate jigsaw puzzle that I’m missing by rushing through. will have to reread.
I am so adding “crapula” to my vocabulary.