NPPF: CANTO ONE More Fowler/for Jbor

[Malignd]

Charles:

<<I also believe, as MalignD has stated, that it would
be out of "character" for Nab to "lead" with some
obvious clue, even if satire was his intent...>>

My main disagreement with Rob on this is that I think
VN is up to something more subtle and fine and tricky
than satire and parody.   I think that because I find
there's too much that’s fine in the poem to support an
argument that VN's simply satirizing.  

I think, as best he could, VN imagined Shade, imagined
a man of a particular time and place, endowed with
certain talents as well as limitations; then, as that
character, as Shade, VN wrote as good a poem as he--VN
and Shade (VN as Shade)--was capable.  The result is
some clunkiness and homeliness mixed with passages of
real beauty and feeling. 

VN wrote this about Joyce and Ulysses:

“... the frilly novelette parodies in the Masturbation
scene are highly successful; and the sudden junction
of its cliches with the fireworks and tender sky of
real poetry is a feat of genius.”

I think this fairly describes what Nabokov is after
with Shade:  his limitations as an artist as
envisioned by VN are often and throughout transcended
by the beauty he (Shade) is able to express when moved
by his most genuine feelings. 


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