NPPF Comm(1) Temptation to synchronize

[Don Corathers]

On the second page of his Commentary (p 74), Kinbote writes: "I do not doubt
that our poet would have understod his annotator's temptation to synchronize
a certain fateful fact, the departure from Zembla of the would-be regicide
Gradus, with the date [that Shade began work on Pale Fire]." It is a clear
signal that the editor Kinbote will not scruple to let the facts get in the
way of a good story. On this occasion he resists the temptation, though, and
in the next sentence acknowledges that Gradus actually left Onhava four days
later.

But in his very next note, Kinbote gives us two lines from a "disjointed,
half-obliterated draft which I am not at all sure I have deciphered
properly." They are conveniently referential to Kinbote and the deposed
king--unlike anything else in the 999-line poem--and Kinbote will later
admit that he fabricated them.

Kinbote's unreliability, both as a narrator and an editor, projects a corona
of indeterminacy around this entire enterprise. (I mean, more so than
usual.) Clearly delusional and an admitted embellisher, the author of the
Commentary says he had exclusive possession of the index-card manuscript for
a time. Everything we know about Shade and his poem is mediated through
Kinbote. Do you trust this guy even a little bit? How much? Why?

Don Corathers