NPPF Comm(1) Temptation to synchronize

[Otto]

I think everything K. says has to be read very carefully and maybe even
turned upside down to get any "truth" out of it. For example he tells about
that gardener he's interested in (p. 61) and sends us to his notes to line
998 (pp. 228-29) where he asserts that the man was "impotent" so that he
could only have the "aesthetic pleasure of watching him" doing the garden
work. I believe it's very likely that the gardener simply wasn't homosexual
and has rejected K.'s advances.

Otto

----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Mackin" <paul.mackin at verizon.net>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Friday, August 22, 2003 11:35 AM
Subject: Re: NPPF Comm(1) Temptation to synchronize


> 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.
>
>
>
>