VLVL2 and NPPF: The Nature of Reality (part 1)

[Tim Strzechowski]

The nature of reality is a theme introduced and explored both in the "Foreward" to Pale Fire and Chapter One of Vineland.

Early in the "Foreward," Kinbote declares that Shade's poem "contains not one gappy line, not one doubtful reading" (14).  To illustrate, Kinbote explains how "our professed Shadeans" dismiss the poem as "disjointed" and textually inadequate, yet they've made this claim "without having seen the manuscript of the poem" [italics are Nabokov's].  Furthermore, Kinbote replies to the statements of Prof. Hurley that the existing Shade poem is "only a small fraction" of the full work Shade intended to write.  In response, Kinbote references a 7/25/59 document by Sybil Shade which indicates otherwise, and recalls a conversation he himself had with Shade to demonstrate that, save for the final line, the poem was finished.

Here, Nabokov is deliberately and skillfully using the very nature of literary analysis itself to examine and question the nature of reality.  When assessing the value of a work of art, how much must one consider the "drafts" or manuscript of the work versus the Fair Copy?  How much credence can one give to a letter written by a secondary source like a spouse (vs. the author himself)?  How much credence can be given to an alleged comment made by the author in confidence to a secondary source?  Finally, at what point must the reader consider the literary artifact itself a self-contained work of art, a work of art that must be judged on its own merits, without benefit of biographical data, secondary scholarship, drafts of the writing-in-process, etc. (questions many of us wrangled with in our college Lit. Crit. courses, I'm sure)?

This portion of the Foreward alone creates a hall-of-mirrors effect for the reader, who of course must balance these queries with the realization that this is a piece of invented scholarship on a "fictional" poet and poem.

In the opening chapter of Vineland, Pynchon too introduces the theme of reality on a couple of levels: by establishing the dramatic irony that will surround Zoyd's window-jumping event, and by establishing a layer of mystery through the events leading up to it. Zoyd goes through elaborate means to present his antic disposition, including purchasing of the dress, ratting his hair, gassing up CHERYL, etc.  On a literal level, the irony surrounding Zoyd's very obvious "put-on" of insanity will take a curious twist when he crashes through a candy sheet window, making it a put-on to himself as much as it is a put-on of the media and the government.  Pynchon allows the events of the narrative proper to question the nature of reality:  Does the Government really think Zoyd is crazy?  Does the media?  If the locals (and, of course, the reader) know that this is all a set-up, what does this suggest about how the American Government perceives "reality"?


continued . . .

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