NPPF--status of the two author theory

[Jasper Fidget]

On
> Behalf Of Don Corathers
> 
> 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.
> 
> 
> 


An interesting post to the N-List:


http://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0307&L=nabokv-l&P=R36690

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: James Veitch <mailto:james at jveitch.fsbusiness.co.uk>
> 
> Dear Mr (soon to be Dr?) Olson,
> 
> What a great abstract! This is exactly what I am interested in. Nabokov
> anticipates his critics (most clearly in 'Pale Fire') and forces terms
> such as the extradiegetic-heterodiegetic  and the intradiegetic-
> homodiegetic to become instantly redundant.  Rimmon comments (on Sebastian
> Knight, where the interpenetration is impossible to unravel) that Œas if
> to complicate matters, the different levels are made analogous to each
> other, sometimes so much that they seem identical and the borders between
> them are often blurred by the penetration of one level into another. ¹
> 
> What intrigues me, however, is the critical need (still) to 'unravel' the
> novel into its parts. This is beautifully impossible in 'Sebastian
> Knight,' though that does not stop critics trying. I've even noticed this
> in the excerpts I've read of the 'Pale Fire' reading; a need to discover
> an empirical solution...what 'actually happens.' But like Humbert Humbert
> who manufactures dreams for his Freudian doctors, 'pure classics in style
> (which make them the dream-extortionists, dream and wake up shrieking),'
> Nabokov anticipates the critical response and makes it impossible.
> 
> Here's an example that I think, partly, sums up a form of 'Pale Fire'
> criticism. In the index of Pale Fire, the notation under ŒLass¹ reads Œsee
> Mass,¹ the note for ŒMass¹ orders the reader to Œsee Male,¹ then ŒMale¹
> says Œsee Word Golf¹ (the reader starts to get the joke) and ŒWord Golf¹
> leads full circle giving the notation Œsee Lass.¹ Thus, through literally
> searching for an answer and elucidation, the reader is lead in a circle of
> maddening Œword golf,¹ that parallels the vain critical search for a
> definite reality in 'Pale Fire.'  It's easy to do though, and it's easy to
> be found at the end of the novel, still spinning from 'Lass,' to 'mass' to
> 'male' etc. Yet this form of 'paper chase' criticism is surely misguided;
> a wonderful, cunning diversion. True engagement with the novel, I think,
> occurs when one considers the effect of these multiple and overlapped
> narrative layers; when the reader accepts the plurality of realities and
> disallows one to take precedence over the other; allowing an examination
> of the effect this multiplicity has upon the reader, how it possibly
> comments upon art, artifice, identity and reality.
> 
> Your thoughts?
> 
> Best Wishes
> James
>


My take on this idea is that PF ultimately resembles one of those Escher
prints (I'm thinking for instance of the one with the cloister and the
stairs that twist dimensions through perspective), where once a stable
perspective of one plane is achieved, the other planes are made impossible
since each plane or perspective overlaps or bleeds into another.  As the eye
of the viewer -- or the mind of the reader -- shifts perspective, the object
is made to transform.  (As Mr. Veitch points out, the game of Word Golf
played in the Index might reveal a simple way in which this transformative
process occurs.)  We will probably come to a better understanding of this as
we get deeper, but I'm wondering now, if this proves to be the case, then is
PF essentially unstable?  A paradox?  Is it essentially fluid?  If it is the
activity of the reader in attempting to come to a complete understanding --
or what somebody has called a Grand Unified Theory -- of this novel that
causes it to transform, then what implications does that have regarding its
relationship with its audience?  Is it Schrodinger's Novel?

Jasper