NPPF - Blast From The Past

[s~Z]

from http://www.geocities.com/medss/starr.htm:

"Pale Fire" is another work of Nabokov's which is an obvious literary
precursor of The Starr Report. This consists of the last poem written by
John Shade, a recently murdered poet, along with a preface, lengthy notes
and an index by his editor. This mirrors the structure of Starr's magnum
opus, with its myriad sections and subsections. Furthermore, the actual poem
"Pale Fire" is a restrained and often moving retrospective, but the
increasingly unhinged editor puts his own fantastical interpretation on the
whole work that oozes out of every footnote, just as Starr's determination
to do Clinton in is obvious at each step. The eccentric editor of "Pale
Fire" feels persecuted and complains about enemies in academia and the
non-co-operation of Shade's wife; Starr moans "this office extended six
separate invitations to testify," further proof of Clinton's guilt.

The Starr Report is Nabokovian in many other ways. The similarity of the
names "Monica" and "Lolita"; early in Nabokov's novel, the narrator rolls
the trisyllable "Lo-lee-ta" off his tongue, as we can imagine Starr doing
("Mon-ic-ah") as, having made her life misery, the offer of immunity allowed
him to reel in his quarry. Indeed "Ken Starr" is a rather vacuous, identikit
name, reminiscent of "John Shade", and surely without too much imagination
can be made to symbolise something ("persecuting zeal" perhaps?) The gifts
the two lovers exchanged were a mix of the high-mindedness and the absurd;
from Whitman's "Leaves of Grass" to "Oy Vey! The Things They Say! A book of
Jewish wit" (one can imagine Nabokov having fun thinking that title up) to
"a mug emblazoned 'Santa Monica'" to "a letter opener depicting a frog." The
sad comedy of the line "Many of the 30 or so gifts that she gave to the
President reflected his interests in history, antiques, cigars and frogs" is
pure Nabokov.