NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph

[Don Corathers]

No argument with any of that. I was really just trying to explore the
question of whether the epigraph should be read as Kinbote's illumination of
the text, or the more distanced author's--a question that, as others have
suggested, probably cannot be resolved.

Feel like we're having a nice cup of tea under a mortar barrage here.

Don Corathers


----- Original Message -----
From: "jbor" <jbor at bigpond.com>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Saturday, July 12, 2003 8:21 PM
Subject: Re: NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph


> on 12/7/03 11:22 AM, Don Corathers wrote:
>
> > All part of Kinbote's delusion. I don't think he should be held
responsible
> > for inconsistency.
>
> Indeed. Kinbote clings with absurd persistence to absolutely any pretext,
> however slender, from Shade's poem to launch into a further recount of the
> life and times of Charles the Beloved (which, it is implied, is pretty
much
> what he did in his walks and talks with Shade as well), to tie in the
> assassin's approach with the timetable of the poem's composition, and to
> confirm his preconceived certainty that Shade would write the poem as a
> tribute to the deposed Charles and Zembla. Shade's mention of a
hypothetical
> future "biographer" (line 887) is one such pretext which affords Kinbote
an
> opportunity to try and convince the reader (and reassure himself?) of his
> importance in Shade's life as the poet was composing his epic. However, in
> the greater scheme of things, the content of the Commentary isn't his
> biography of Shade à la Boswell and Johnson at all, and nor does it really
> support the idea that Kinbote perceived himself as standing in that
> relationship to the poet. The note reads more like Kinbote clutching at
yet
> another straw.
>
> All that said, this section of Shade's poem, juxtaposing his ablutions
with
> his poetic pretensions and methods, is a prime example of the poet's
> self-indulgent banality, and thus of Nabokov's satiric intent, imo. (I
think
> it's a stretch to nominate Shade as a "major poet", both on the strength
of
> the poetry itself and in terms of the details of his career and work's
> reception which are sprinkled throughout the text, even though that might
be
> Kinbote's evaluation of him. In fact, *because* that's Kinbote's opinion
is
> cause enough for doubt.)
>
> And I must admit I have real difficulty with the suggestion that the
> Epigraph is Shade's doing, which, I guess, defers to the oft-mentioned
> "Shadean reading" of the novel. I can't see that Shade is anything but
dead
> (i.e. a "shade") at the time when the surrounding portions of the text
were
> composed.
>
> best
>
>
> > If he's crazy enough to believe that a major poet is
> > going to write The Zemblaiad, why is it a stretch to accept that he
believes
> > he's serving Shade's legacy? One of the weird sympathies I have for
Kinbote
> > is that he seems so desperately sincere, even (or especially) when he's
at
> > his most delusional.
> >
> > Don Corathers
> >
> >
> > jbor wrote:
> >
> >> At many other moments, however, Kinbote details how he continually and
> >> deliberately hinted to Shade to compose the poem about his own
alterego,
> >> Charles the Beloved, and in the final piece of commentary to the
missing
> >> Line 1000 he admits his expectation that the poem would be a "kind of
> >> *romaunt* about the King of Zembla", about how disappointed he was to
find
> >> it at first merely an "autobiographical, eminently Appalachian, rather
> >> old-fashioned narrative in a neo-Popian prosodic style", and then how,
on
> >> rereading the poem he did perceive the "dim distant music, those
vestiges
> > of
> >> color in the air" which confirms his original solipsism and generates
much
> >> of the substance of his commentary.
>
>
>