NPPF: Canto Three: Chron & Analysis Pt 1 of 2

[Vincent A. Maeder]

Pale Fire: Canto Three: Chronology and Analysis: Part 1 of 2

Canto Three runs 333 lines arranged in 34 irregularly divided stanzas
running from line 501 to line 834.  The Canto engages in a series of
flashbacks in which the poet, Mr. Shade, reprises his encounters with
the subject of life after death.  The Canto begins with Mr. Shade's
"lecture on the worm" for the Institute of Preparation for the Hereafter
(hereafter "IPH") while living in Yewshade.  V52.1-16/lines 501-514.

His first engagement is with IPH at the behest of President McAber.  IPH
itself is described by Mr. Shade as a "larvorium", a portmanteau word
meaning a place of larva which is a symbol of entropy, death and rebirth
(see Pale Fire: Canto Three: The Worm and Entropy).  Mr. Shade engages
in a hypothetical and entertains the idea of the transmigration of souls
stating that he is "ready to become a floweret/Or a fat fly" rather than
face eternity without the loves of his life there to greet him.
V52.17-53.13/lines 515-536.

Mr. Shade recounts that IPH did not give a traditional vision of life
after death, but existed to deliver a death-for-dummies instruction to
the afterlife as set forth in detail in the second through fifth
stanzas.  V53.14-55.13/lines 537-596.

An interesting image is recounted in the sixth stanza.  V55.14-25/lines
597-608.  In an almost pentimento moment, Mr. Shade recounts a political
execution, not of dictator or other despot, but of some manner of
royalty.  At line 605, Mr. Shade recounts "royal hands" being tied.  In
the context of Mr. Nabokov's Russian heritage, the image is appropriate.
However, the image is also suitable in the context of either Mr.
Kinbote's influences upon Mr. Shade during the drafting of the poem, or
of the possibility that the poem was actually written by Mr. Kinbote.
In any event, the use of "royal hands" is striking.  

The seventh stanza also sets up another striking image in the context of
Mr. Kinbote as poet.  V55.26-56.5/lines 609-616.  Here, the poet
describes an "exile" dying in a motel on the plains in the heat of some
forgotten summer.  This image is either prescience of Mr. Kinbote, exile
from Zembla concluding his commentaries in Cedarn, Utana, (V29) or a
slip of Mr. Kinbote in drafting the poem.  Note that Mr. Kinbote
describes earlier in the text that he takes time to visit the plains
states to finish his commentary during the summer (probably relying on
those old reservations he had to shadow the Shade's while they were on
vacation).  The seventh stanza also brings in additional details only
Mr. Kinbote could know of his final days; the image of "bits of colored
light" from the outside--the amusement park referred to in the Foreword?
V13.27-28

In combination, the sixth and seventh stanzas belie a different author
than that of Mr. Shade.  Perhaps Mr. Kinbote is the poet recounting an
imaginary Mr. Shade as a device to get his royal story told. In any
event, the seventh stanza smacks of that Theodore Kaczynski holed up in
some small room in the torrid heat of a northern Midwestern summer, with
the resident suffocating himself to death--note Mr. Kinbote's discussion
of suicide, including "sundry forms of suffocation" (V220.19) and Mr.
Kinbote's "discussion of Suicide with himself".  (V309.8-9)

The poet continues his encounter with IPH and details his own lecture,
"I tore apart the fantasies of Poe,/And dealt with childhood memories of
strange/Nacreous gleams beyond the adult's range."  V56.21-23/lines
632-33.  The decline of IPH is recounted while the poet notes how his
relationship with IPH helped him deal with his daughter, Hazel's, death
in the eleventh and twelfth stanzas.  V56.27-57.13/lines 638-652.

Stanzas thirteen through nineteen recount Mr. Shade's mourning beginning
with the ghostly images of tapping and rapping, a vacation to Italy,
thoughts of Hazel slowly losing their hold, her absence from his
thoughts noted, the time drawing out between spells of remorse, until
the return to his professorship at the college.  V57.14-58.18/lines
653-682.

V.