Nabokov/Pynchon

[Paul Mackin]

On Sun, 5 Mar 2000, davemarc wrote:

> Daniel Zalewski's review in the NYTimes (p. 32) of Brian Boyd's Nabokov's
> Pale Fire, sez, in part, "Yet [Boyd's] argument, for all its oddities,
> ultimately coheres into an intricate pattern that reflects the spirit of
> Nabokov, who valued concord--aesthetic and moral--above all else. 
> Deconstruction-minded literary critics have mistakenly placed 'Pale Fire'
> on the bookshelf alongside maddeningly irresolvable texts like Pynchon's
> 'Crying of Lot 49.'  Boyd's singular reading of 'Pale Fire' suggests a
> novel that is in fact startlingly harmonious, one in which life and death
> blend in seamless unity."
> 
> Eh.

Interesting. The idea of life and death blending in seamless unity ties in
for me in a lucky self-serving and totally undeserved way to the idea of
pornography as Eros standing against the Death-Instinct so much at play
aboard the Anubis. Naw.
			P.