NPPF--status of the two author theory

[Don Corathers]

Paul Mackin:

is there anything in the foreword itself that
> leads us to suspect that the Kinbote edition of the Shade poem needs to
> be the product of a single mind--that one or the other gentlemen has to
> have invented the other? I don't recall that there is.
>


I think the short answer is no.

The author of the foreword takes pains to present evidence that the poem was
written by Shade, describing the physical manuscript in careful detail.
There are also remarks from Professor Hurley, others in the WU English
Department, and Shade's agent that seem to confirm the existence of a work
by John Shade and Charles Kinbote's contract to edit it and write a
commentary.

It seems one of the decisions a reader has to make in trying to sort out the
novel is what standard of evidence to apply. These standards change from
page to page as the assumptions underneath them shift and flow. For example,
if you believe the poem and commentary were published (or at least intended
for publication by the writer), you might be inclined to give more weight to
the comments of other living people included in the text on the theory that
their response to their own portrayals would have some deterrent value
against fabrications. But of course we have no way of knowing what Sybil and
Hurley might have said after reading the book--maybe one of them is writing
a letter to the New York Times Book Review right now.

Then there's that "your favorite." Still a puzzle. At the time the foreword
was written, only the recently late Shade, Sybil, Kinbote, and presumably
one or two people in the publisher's office knew the poem and were qualified
to have a favorite canto. If we can illuminate this question from evidence
later in the book just for a moment, there's not very much second person
address in here. Outside of conversations reproduced in the commentary, the
only place I can remember it happening is when Shade speaks directly to
Sybil in the poem.

The other aspect of the foreword that relates to the Single Bullet Theory is
the general impression that that Kinbote boy is not quite right in the head,
but I'll be damned if I could say which side of the ledger that goes on.

D.C.