NPPF Comm2: Parents, part 2

[Don Corathers]

Well, hell, I guess we're just going to have to resign ourselves to agreeing
on this. The only thing I would take issue with is that "pretty soon, it
becomes clear that the strands won't ever unravel" part. For me this novel
has a lasting, tantalizing appeal, and part of that is a matter of clinging
to the (probably forlorn) hope that it can all be sorted out. Another more
realistic part of it is a respect for the mind and generous sensibility that
created this literary playground for us.

Don

----- Original Message -----
From: "jbor" <jbor at bigpond.com>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Saturday, August 30, 2003 6:58 PM
Subject: Re: NPPF Comm2: Parents, part 2


>
> >> It's also possible that the two incidents (bird into window, plane into
> >> scaffolding) actually happened (in terms of the fiction), that the
> >> similarities between them are superficial and coincidental, and that
the
> >> account of each was independent of the other, or that the detailed
> >> recollection/significance of the one was jogged by the oral/written
> > recount
> >> of the other.
> >>
> >> Call this the Nabokovian authorship theory.
> >
> > Certainly. But if that is true of all of the consonances between Shade's
> > life and Kinbote's, and Shade's poem and Kinbote's Commentary--and I
realize
> > that you didn't suggest that it was--then the intricacy and complexity
of
> > the coincidence and happenstance is pretty spectaclar, isn't it? But not
> > terribly interesting.
> >
> > I believe the book invites the reader to make connections and to indulge
the
> > human impulse to create order and sense.
>
> Sure. But by "the book" you actually mean Nabokov. And as the composer of
> the text he not only "invites" this activity on the part of the reader, he
> satirises it (through his characterisation of Kinbote), and in fact has
> rendered the task of creating ultimate "order and sense" impossible.
>
> The thing that strikes me about _Pale Fire_ is that, yes, we're invited
to,
> and, yes, we *do* end up wondering whether Kinbote fabricated this or
that,
> whether Kinbote or Shade or another character made everything and everyone
> else up, whether one or another event or character or reminiscence is
"true"
> or "fictional", and so forth, when in fact it's *all* a fiction, and the
> questions about authorship and identity -- about what's "fact" and what
> isn't -- are components of a larger literary construction, and they are
> questions and coincidences and contradictions which Nabokov has
deliberately
> created. And, that he has deliberately created these hints and leads and
cul
> de sacs in such a way that there is no ultimate solution to the questions
we
> are being invited to consider about all these connections and coincidences
> and consonances. (I actually find that pretty interesting. But I realise
> that mileage will vary.)
>
> > It's impossible to resist trying to
> > unravel the strands.
>
> Pretty soon it becomes clear that the strands won't ever unravel in a neat
> way, however. But I agree it can be fun, a bit like trying to put together
a
> jigsaw puzzle where there are too many pieces.
>
> best
>
> > It's probably also impossible to achieve a Unified
> > Theory that everybody is going to find satisfactory, but it's fun
trying.
>
>