NPPF Comm(1) Temptation to synchronize

[Paul Mackin]

On Fri, 2003-08-22 at 00:28, Don Corathers wrote:
> 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

Kinbote's all we've got. 

>From the start of Kinbote's input it's certainly pretty obvious (and
gets ever more obvious as time passes) that we are not going to hear
only straight facts about Shade and his poem. At least in part and
probably mainly we are going to be told a very fanciful story, one
seemingly about something quite separate from what the poem is about. 
In other words it's not the usual sort of commentary an editor would
normally provide. Yet commentary it is (I devoutly believe).Speaking for
myself I intend to treat Kinbote's words not as unreliable but as merely
as in an unusual form.  I expect to learn much about Shade's poem and
his world from Kinbote's commentary. I think we can do this if we hold
our mouths right (as the saying goes).

P.