NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph

[Paul Mackin]

On Mon, 2003-07-14 at 21:40, jbor wrote:
> on 15/7/03 12:48 AM, Malignd wrote:
> 
> >> Nick is a bond trader, a bond trader who writes like
> >> this:
> > 
> > "We walked through a high hallway into a bright
> > rosy-colored space, fragilely bound into the house by
> > French windows at either end. The windows were ajar
> > and gleaming white against the fresh grass outside
> > that seemed to grow a little way into the house. A
> > breeze blew through the room, blew curtains in at one
> > end and out the other like pale flags, twisting them
> > up toward the frosted wedding cake of the ceiling --
> > and then rippled over the wine-colored rug, making a
> > shadow on it as wind does on the sea."
> > 
> > The point is that a reader isn't intended to mull or
> > worry this, to bring it into the novel.  Rather, he
> > suspends disbelief and reads on.
> 
> Sure (except, to make this point, you, or Rorty, *are* mulling over and
> worrying about it). The fact that he's a bond trader doesn't automatically
> preclude him from having a way with descriptive adjectives, adverbs and
> imagery, of course.

Besides he wasn't a very good bond trader, was he? Not a very happy one.
Just something he went into as was customary for his social set. he was
Daisy's cousin.

P.
> 
> > But Pale Fire is a book in part about writers and the
> > quality of their writing, and so a good reader doesn't
> > so readily suspend disbelief when he notices that the
> > mad Kinbote writes like Nabokov.
> 
> But a "bad" reader does?! Is Kinbote totally "mad", or just occasionally
> deluded? (Eg. How would he have kept his job at Wordsmith if altogether
> insane?) This aside, many great artists and writers were cot-cases. And,
> does he really write exactly "like Nabokov"? There are quite a few
> assumptions made in this and I'm still not sure that I see it as a valid
> argument.
> 
> best
>