NPPF: Notes C.1-4 - C.42

[Paul Mackin]

On Sat, 2003-08-23 at 19:10, jbor wrote:
> >> C.1-4
> >> pg 73
> >> "a bird knocking itself out": Kinbote assumes the bird has not died,
> >> although this is not stated explicitly in the poem.
> 
> on 23/8/03 11:22 PM, Paul Mackin wrote:
> 
> > And it's important to know this if we hadn't gathered it already. The
> > bird's survival can be seen (perhaps only retrospectively) as a bit of
> > foreshadowing. 
> > 
> > (or perhaps the bird really is dead :-))
> 
> I think "slain" is pretty conclusive, as far as Shade's poem goes.


And Shade was conclusively dead when he said "one night I died" ((682)

and "I did know that I had crossed/The border."(699-700)


 Kinbote's
> very first entry indicates to the reader just how prone to "irresponsible
> embellishment" he is, and how badly he misinterprets the text.

Yes, this is pretty conclusive. If CK misinterprets the text as often as
RJ does then surely the bird is dead. (joke)


 There's no
> mention in the poem of Shade picking up the bird, for example,

K is "visualizing" how such a scene might have appeared. Perhaps he had
at some point seen S pick up a stunned bird (not the particular bird of
the poem naturally) or more likely had a past incident described to him.
Birds' knocking themselves unconscious, then flying away a few moments
later no worse for wear isn't an uncommon thing. I remember the first
time I saw this as a very young child. I certainly assumed the seemingly
lifeless thing was dead and (contra K) had no inclination to pick it up.
It's rapid accent a minute or two later into the blue isn't something
one forgets.

Why should K deliberately distort S's thought?  Seems to me most likely
that K honestly interpreted the bird as surviving. Why lie about
something that how nothing to do with the price of eggs in Zembla. 


and Kinbote
> misreads lines 3-4 as though they imply that the actual bird "Lived on, flew
> on" when in fact it's purely a metaphysical conceit, a flight of Shade's
> self-characterising fancy.


Yes, of course, it's all Shade's fancy. And whether the imaginary bird
lived or died is indeterminate. (like so much else in the novel) But
survival for the bird and for Shade (up until the final moment) makes as
much sense as anything.

P.