NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph

[Otto]

----- Original Message -----
From: "jbor" <jbor at bigpond.com>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Sunday, July 13, 2003 6:57 AM
Subject: Re: NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph


> on 13/7/03 1:35 PM, Jasper Fidget wrote:
>
> > 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.
> [...]
> > 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
> >

Is his book then Boyd III?

>
> From that essay:
>
>     But one will search in vain for any direct statement from VN
>     as to the ultimate literary value of "Pale Fire." His reading
>     of part of Canto Two at Harvard thus must serve as an indirect
>     statement: It was a poem he was proud of, and was willing to
>     record for the ages.
>
> I don't know that this is a particularly convincing argument. I'm sure
> that
> Alexander Pope was proud of his 'The Rape of the Lock' as well, and that
> he
> read it aloud on occasion; and it's worth recalling the prominence of Pope
> throughout all facets of the text of _Pale Fire_. A satiric poem such as
> Pope's can be, and certainly is regarded as, a "great" one, and it's not
> at
> all inconsistent or implausible to imagine that Nabokov put much creative
> effort into the composition of the poem by his "invented" poet, and that
> he
> was pleased with the results, but that he still intended it to be a
satire.
>

Given the "content" of the poem (Hazel's death and Shades's lifelong quest
to understand the "beyond zero") I'm not so sure about the satirical quality
of the poem. I'm not in a position to judge its poetic qualities but the way
Boyd III explains it as the poetic pole it has a major function in the
contrapuntal structure of the novel, but not necessarily as major poetry.

> The other thing which doesn't quite gel for me is the assumption that
> Nabokov was trying to conceal the fact of his own overall authorship of
> the novel, his ultimate "control" over the fiction. Plainly, he wasn't.

I absolutely agree. The Epigraph thus for me is from Nabokov, preceding all
parts of the novel.

> The
> puzzles of the text, and their ultimate answerability, answerabilities or
> unanswerability, are intentional ones. I think that in this respect
> Nabokov
> himself, and _Pale Fire in particular, probably stand at one of those cusp
> points between Modernism and postmodernism (see eg. McHale 1987, 1992),
> and
> that Nabokov still perceived the author's position -- his own position --
> in
> respect to the text as one of preeminence, even though, admittedly, the
> themes and structural complexities within the text do challenge and
> problematise that whole relationship between "authorship" and "authority".
>I don't think Nabokov sees this paradox as an issue.

Again I agree, but when I follow Boyd III it is an issue (the question of
influence, inspiration, the muse) of the novel.

> Thus, the question of
> whether Shade or Kinbote or any other character could write "as well as"
> Nabokov seems to me to be irrelevant. It is Nabokov who can write as well
> as Nabokov: his characters are the *products* of his writing, not the
> producers.

I too don't buy either the shadean nor the kinbotian solution. Or, it is
rather a very special double-shadean point later in his book, in Boyd's
"rereaders"-chapters, so I'm reluctant to say more at this point. The way he
gets to this point following Nabokov's signifiers through the parts of the
novel is quite convincing.

Otto


I love you when you call me to admire
A jet's pink trail above the sunset fire.
(285-86) [Boyd p. 228]

But the rocket will be here before Pirate sees the sun rise.
    The trail, smudged, slightly torn in two or three directions,
hangs in the sky.
(GR 6-7)