NPPF: Canto Three: The Web of Sense

[Vincent A. Maeder]

Pale Fire: Canto Three: The Web of Sense

After Mr. Shade's investigation into a near-death experience that
appeared to be similar to his own, only to find out his hope and faith
were dependent upon a misprinted word--mountain versus fountain--the
jolt is enough to an epiphany of hope upon a "web of sense". It is in
stanzas thirty-two through thirty-four that Mr. Shade discovers the
conspiracy of the Them that Mr. Pynchon uses as his theme.  However,
where Mr. Pynchon's conclusions tend to be that the conspiracy of the
Them grinds the self down, Mr. Nabokov's theme takes a decidedly
different tack; the discovery that the preterite can sense Their greater
plan gives his characters hope rather than despair.  

It is Nabokov's "web of sense" which illuminates his characterization of
Mr. Shade at this point.  A conspiracy of them, "aloof and mute/Playing
a game of worlds, promoting pawns" and "kindling a long life here,
extinguishing/A short one there" and still stepping into history not
with some menacing military-industrial complex often associated with Mr.
Pynchon, but rather a chorus of sprites, elves and gods who would step
in to kill a Balkan king turning history over and yet hide Mr. Shade's
keys.

One commentator has pointed out that Mr. Nabokov's and Mr. Pynchon's
fictions are similar in exploiting the "compulsive tendency we have as
human beings and especially as readers to look at phenomena and see
meaningful patterns that perhaps do not objectively exist.  Both build
narratives upon a web of echoes, reflections, and repeated details that
see to be interlocking clues. . . ."  Cooper, Signs and Symptoms, Thomas
Pynchon and the Contemporary World, University of California Press,
1983, p. 40.  As a consequence, "both writers evince some ambivalence
about fabricated designs and envisioned meanings, such as fictional
plots and so both employ parody and self-parody to keep themselves
uncommitted."  Cooper, p. 41.

Yet this is where the two authors diverge.  While Nabokov "tends to
dismiss the epistemological problem of whether the phenomenal world is
perceived or projected; his main concern is whether the projection is
controlled and artistically sound.  Pynchon's characters, who worry
about what is 'really' going on, tend to be detectives--Nabokov's are
often artists or artists manque's, deliberate, manipulative, and self
directing rather than subject to large, mysterious, and impersonal
forces.  Hence they typically experience more 'combinational delight'
than paranoia when they encounter the 'web of sense.'  Humbert recalls
'those dazzling coincidences that logicians loathe and poets love' (L,
p.31).  He cherishes and employs that which obsesses Stencil, goads
Oedipa and frightens Slothrop."  Cooper, p. 41.

V.
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