NPPF: Epigraph (not the pissing contest)

[gumbo at fuse.net]

Interesting note from David Roach on the epigraph.

Thanks also to jbor, malign and others who illuminated this topic earlier today. One other morsel I happened across at lunch that relates to Kinbote’s perception of himself as Shade’s biographer: p 264 in the Commentary, a note on a section of Canto IV in which Shade describes his method of shaving in the tub:

Lines 887-888: Since my biographer may be too staid or know too little

[Of which Kinbote writes] Too staid? Know too little? Had my poor friend precognized _who_ that would be, he would have been spared those conjectures. As a matter of fact I had the pleasure and honor of witnessing (one March morning) the performance he describes in the next lines. [
]

Clearly suggesting that Kinbote did consider himself a Boswell to Shade’s Johnson. It seems consistent with Kinbote’s delusion that he believed he was serving his favorite poet even as he tried to hijack Shade's last poem, both before and after his death.

Anyhow, I’m going to leave my nomination of Kinbote as the source of the epigraph on the table for now.  


David Roach wrote:

But > here's the rub: in the first edition of PF [Putnam's, 1962, and in the > 
current "standard," the Vintage International paperback, published in 1989, > 
which was apparently reset from the first edition], the epigraph (the > 
quotation from Boswell) appears *before* the table of contents, whereas in > 
later editions [such as the Berkley Medallion paperback, published in 1963, > 
and the Wideview/Perigee paperback, published in 1980], it appears *after* > 
the table of contents. The raises the question, who chose the epigraph? Is > it 
VN acting as the author of the novel PF, or is it someone within the > story 
world (i.e., Kinbote or Shade)? 

[more]


Don Corathers