NPPF: Who's watching Gradus?

[Jasper Fidget]

On
> Behalf Of Don Corathers
> 
> Tim and Jasper were talking about narrative voice and authority this
> morning, and it set me thinking about an aspect of Kinbote's narrative
> point
> of view that I don't think we've touched on yet, that has some bearing on
> the question of who is responsible for the commentary. From the beginning
> of
> the foreword to the last page of the commentary, Kinbote speaks to us
> pretty
> consistently in the same first-person voice. Whacked, but consistent.
> 
> *Except* when he's describing Gradus's progress from Zembla across Europe
> to
> New York and on to New Wye. Those sections are written in a jarringly
> omniscient third person, profoundly different from the rest of Kinbote's
> text. In them we are given a great deal of detail that could only have
> come
> from somebody who was present. We're told what people were wearing and
> given
> extended quotes of conversations and direct observations about what the
> weather was like, what the air smelled like, the "blinding blue of the
> sea"
> at Nice, all this in spite of the fact that Gradus is "exceptionally
> unobservant." More than that, we are inside Gradus's consciousness. We
> know
> what he had to eat and how it affected his digestive processes, how he was
> feeling, what he was thinking, why he was infuriated by the instruction to
> amuse himself in the South of France.
> 
> Now, Kinbote tells us he had an interview (or was it two?) with Gradus
> when
> the killer was in custody after the murder, and the implication is that he
> captured all of this narrative detail in that meeting. I don't believe it.
> 
> But I'm not sure where that leads. Seems to me there are three
> possibilities:
> 
> 1. The writer of the commentary was present. That is, Kinbote was
> describing
> first-person experiences, but shifted the narrative to the third person.
> Kinbote = Gradus. Problematical, yes (but what about this puzzle isn't?)
> because if we accept Kinbote's calendar, he was with Shade in New Wye when
> Gradus was traveling from Zembla.
> 
> 2. Kinbote (or somebody posing as Kinbote) made the whole thing up. This
> seems to be the default explanation for everything that cannot otherwise
> be
> sorted out in this novel. Not as much fun as some of the other
> possibilities.
> 
> 3. The wild card, Gerald Emerald, is somehow in play. He is present in at
> least three of Gradus's traveling episodes.
> 
> I expect we'll be returning to this question in the coming weeks.
> 
> Don Corathers

I agree -- and had the same impression -- that the narrator knows too much
about Gradus and his story, especially toward the end when Gradus becomes
fully realized -- er real-ized? -- and the level of detail grows quite
vivid.  Remember though that Kinbote starts out describing Charles II in
third person as well, although in that case he sometimes slips into first
person -- a pretty straightforward clue that Charles and Kinbote are the
same.  I wonder if we can take the example of Charles and use it to sponsor
theories about Gradus?

Did somebody say Emerald?  My pet theory at present is that since Kinbote
has a paranoid persecution complex centering on Emerald, whom he claims has
been "pursuing him with brutal practical jokes" (309), while inventing
Charles/Zembla he naturally selects Emerald to sponsor Gradus as an agent.

Jasper