NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph

[Jasper Fidget]

On Behalf Of jbor

> 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.

On Behalf Of MalignD at aol.com
> 
> 
> Perhaps the time has come to speak to the relative merits of Shade as a
> poet.  God knows it's interesting, as it brings into question VN's
> intentions and his own qualities as a poet.  And it opens into the wider
> question, raised first, I think, by Richard Rorty, as to how to assess the
> quality of writing of both Kinbote and Shade in a novel which asks, at
> least according to Rorty, that such questions be considered.
> 
> [to Ms. Bell:  this is the part that relates to Nick Carroway.]
> 
> 

Another way to phrase this concern is by asking whether the poem "Pale Fire"
compares well to the novel _Pale Fire_.  If removed from the surrounding
commentary, would "Pale Fire" by John Shade be worth reading?  If so, would
it be a *great* work?  Kinbote's contribution to the poem almost certainly
gives it greater value than it would have had on its own, which strangely
fulfills Kinbote's desperate desire to have assisted Shade with it.

Partly at issue here is the question of whether or not Shade wrote the
commentary (the Shadean approach)-- the two problems are closely linked.  J
Morris says in his "Genius and Plausibility" essay:

"It is important to notice that, if the poem is indeed second rate, Shade's
ability to write as well as 'Kinbote' looks much less likely. True,
dissatisfaction with the poem could be considered part of Shade's motivation
to 'transcend' it, to create a commentary that manages to express what the
poem could not. But motivation and ability are not the same thing. It is
implausible that a truly second-rate poet could have produced the 'Kinbote'
commentaries, however motivated he may have been to do so. If it was VN's
intention that we accept this, then we must judge the novel, in this
respect, a failure." (Morris, 2).

Morris (J not D) goes on to say that he believes VN didn't think "Pale Fire"
a  second rate poem (VN read Canto Two aloud at Harvard's Poetry Room in
1964 and allowed it to be recorded and distributed), and perhaps the best of
his ability to produce given he was not a great poet.  In _Strong Opinions_
VN refers to "Pale Fire" as the "the hardest stuff I ever had to compose"
(55), and refers to Shade as "by far the greatest of *invented* poets" (59).


Is "Pale Fire" worth the commentary Kinbote devotes to it?  Surely it's not
Pushkin, but "worth" is a difficult thing to appraise when it comes to
something like poetry (and there's all kinds of critical work dedicated to
terrible literature), so it's certainly *conceivable* that somebody like
Kinbote would write a commentary to something like "Pale Fire".

Also, consider the possibility that "Pale Fire" is simply not as good as
some of Shade's earlier work.  Shade is ranked as a great poet in
Pale-Fire-Land, "one oozy footstep behind Robert Frost" (48) and worthy of
having the name of Main Hall at Wordsmith changed to honor him after his
death.  

The counterpoint question here of course concerns Kinbote: is there any
reasonable reason for us to believe that someone with Kinbote's claimed or
implied background would be capable of writing something as impressive as
the Commentary?  Morris says "Charles Kinbote, if he exists, is either a
deposed Zemblan monarch, an insane Zemblan scholar, or an extremely insane
Russian scholar. None of these back-stories seems likely to produce the
astonishing literary gifts apparent in the commentary." (3).

If Kinbote is presumed to be the author, then we probably must also assume
that the hints pointing to his true identity as Vseslav Botkin are not red
herrings.  For this, Morris makes a particularly compelling attack on the
Kinbotean theory:

"The problem lies in the relationship between Shade and Kinbote/Botkin if
[we] view Kinbote/Botkin as an existing personage and not a creation of
Shade himself. Thorny questions abound: Is it Botkin with whom Shade is
friendly, Botkin who flees to Utana with the manuscript of 'Pale Fire'?
Would that mean that all of Shade's and 'Kinbote's' give-and-take about
Zembla recounted in the commentary is false? Has Botkin translated whatever
actual relationship he had with Shade into a fictional version? Are we to
understand that Botkin urged Shade to write a poem about Russia? That he
wished to show him a photograph of the Royal Palace in Moscow? et cetera.
These suppositions rob Pale Fire of much of its magic, and much of its
integrity as a narrative. They are one trapdoor too many."

Ultimately Morris decides the Shadean interpretation is the most plausible;
see the article for his insightful evaluation in full, findable here:

http://www.libraries.psu.edu/iasweb/nabokov/morris1.htm


akaJasperFidget