Pale Fire Peoples!
Just finished PF this very morning. Enjoyed the close very much — it felt like a soft and very satisfying landing. Looks like many of the folks (at least the commenting folks) on the ‘march appear to be in the “he’s a nut” camp. But me, I didn’t feel like VN was committing 100% either way. It felt to me like at least three stories kept in focus at the same time — the story within the poem, the story of Charles the eccentric ex-King, and the inferred story of Charles the looped stalker. I’d been braced for some sort of neat “it was all a dream” ending and this more open-ended close was a bit of a relief. Or mebbe that’s my delusion 🙂
Either way, I’m glad I read this one. As with GR, it just felt good on the brain to be reading this ecstatic (to swipe Updike’s word from the back cover) prose in small, savoured doses.
Next week: This is the thread for closing thoughts on the book itself. Next week, by popular demand, we’ll add a thread for folks what want to re-read the poem, intro, and foreword, and throw any other external sources into the stew.
Thanks all,
-CV
This may be a little off topic, but speaking of monarchs who like to dress up, here’s our own George the Beloved wearing what appears to be the world’s largest square-dancing skirt:
http://wvgazette.com/section/photos/2005070413/BushWVU.jpg
He’s got a real purty mouth.
I agree with Cecil–I’m relieved the ending was more open than I’d expected. I’d been dreading–judging by peeks at criticism & comments here–that Kinbote would be revealed to be absolutely delusional & that the actual truth would be revealed. It’s hard to come to any other conclusion than that he’s delusional (or something), but it’s nice of Nabokov(?) to leave us to trust our own judgement on that point.
I read the article someone pointed to here:
http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/boydpf1.htm
Pretty interesting stuff.
I like the idea that you can spiral into an understanding of PF. (thesis -> antithesis -> synthesis. Then the synthesis becomes the new thesis and the cycle starts again.)
If you read the Introduction to the EL edition after the Index, as you’re supposed to, you’re perfectly positioned to go for another spin around through PF.
I’m not going to do it soon, but it definitely will be worthwhile to read it again.
Am I the only one who hit the note to line 991 (in which Shade tells Kinbote he finished the poem) and thought Kinbote is an idiot. How could he have notes to lines referencing events that took place after the poem was completed? How could he not see the foolishness?
And then he goes and admits his agenda and solipsism toward the poem, and I find myself wondering if he is not the greatest critical genius of all time.
BTW – recently started Azar Nafisi’s “Reading Lolita in Tehran.” Very different use of Nabkov, but quite interesting.
i missed plenty, including that about the line 991 notes, but the boyd article (linked again a few posts above) suggests an alternative to idiot or genius–and that is conduit. i think i’ll read the poem again with that possibility in mind.
Some Pale Fire essayists seem to think that Kinbote commits suicide at the end. I didn’t see that. Near the end, he suddenly talks about being in a hall (I don’t have the book in front of me as I write this — a mistake)and says “it’s time to end,” or words to that effect. I suddenly got the impression that he was in the dining hall of some mental institution — but, hey, maybe that’s just me (takes one to know one?).
I also would have to disagree with the critics regarding the fate of Kinbote. Suicide doesn’t fit in with his reality. In his world, Shade’s murder fittingly happened so that he could create the commentary on the poem revealing the hidden story about the ex-king/himself.
I dont think he was crazy, just looked at the world and people in it like a person brought up in a reality of being king, from a long line of kings-events and people fit to serve his purposes.
i don’t know if he kills himself at the end, but he seems inclined to suicide in his notes on line 493, a discussion of suicide that ends “We who burrow in filth every day may be forgiven perhaps the one sin that ends all sins.”
certainly he feels fatalistic by the last line of the notes, awaiting “a bigger, more respectable, more competent Gradus.” whether he knows that gradus is himself, or whether he’ll act before “gradus” gets there, i don’t know.
I agree with E. that although it’s left open whether he actually commits suicide, Kinbote certainly seems inclined that way. See also his index entry on Hazel Shade: “deserves great respect, having preferred the beauty of death to the ugliness of life.”
This mirroring (as Boyd would put it) of Hazel’s actual and Kinbote’s probable suicide goes a long way toward unifying the whole book. If Kinbote’s madness did not take on this tragic quality, there would be too much of a disjunction between the seriousness of the poem and the comic fantasy of the commentary.
I finished the book this weekend while vacationing in my summer zisterwau (small mountain house without excessive plumbing). How truly touching of Nabokov to have written this elegant persizl (short fictional work about identity or lack thereof). My vacation was enhanced, which is critical praise enough. Put me in the Kinbote camp–pale Shade and his Sybil left me cold.
I’ve finally tied up most of the loose ends on the Pale Fire vocabulary list, and with a little help from a couple of other people here, have managed to track down definitions (or reasonable stabs at them) for all words except “alin” (pg. 83 EL) and “skoramis” (p.120 EL). They seem to be Zemblan words of Nabokov’s inventions, but aren’t listed in the Zemblan vocabulary list I’ve linked to.
BTW, one of the things that took me a while to track down was “ingle” and the associated “ingledom”–which turned out to be kinda, hmm, interesting.
googled for “skoramis” and found that it almost certainly means “chamber pot.” it was also in a robert browning poem:
…Quick march! for Xanthippe, my house-maid,
If once on your pates she a souse made
With what, pan or pot, bowl or skoramis,
First comes to her hand—things were more amiss!…