NPPF: Summary Line 347

[Scott Badger]

Line 347: old barn

Before we enter the barn, Kinbote introduces us to its owner, Paul Hetzner.
This "gaunt solemn German", man of the here-and-now, was one of Shade's
favorite "fellow ramblers" (fellow traveler? see Notes). Esteemed by Shade
for "knowing 'the names of things'", Kinbote jealously cautions that
Hetzner's naming is not to be trusted; "monstrosities", "Germanisms" or,
worse even, made up on the fly. OK, ironies abound here, but note in
particular the contrast of "monstrosities" with Kinbote's complaint, in the
line 319 commentary, that "popular nomenclature of American animals[...]has
not yet acquired the patina of European *faunal* names [my emphasis]."
Kinbote ends his account of Hetzner with a description of his favorite, umm,
watering hole. "Here Papa pisses." remarks H's son. An act that carries with
it the obvious territorial connotations, consistent with the several canine
references in this passage, but also, I think, binds him to the immediate
landscape as texture - a temporal and physical present repeatedly renewed,
turned-over, and lacking the abstract text of historians, poets and
prophets. But in the end, the course of history washes Hetzner away; his
wife leaves him, taking their child, the farmhouse is sold and torn down to
make way for a drive-in theater; the present, turned-under the reflective
surfaces of the past and future. After Hetzner's death while sleeping in the
old barn (note the cocoon-like imagery of his "sleeping bag"), it too is
demolished at Shade's request - purportedly a fire hazard, though also,
perhaps, an hazard to Hazel's psychic condition. Fittingly, flittingly even,
in its place arises a weed and butterfly patch, ghost-like amidst the
"goldenrod all around it".

After Hetzner's death there is a reported haunting in the barn that prompts
Hazel to investigate the scene herself, as part of a psychology class paper.
Hazel visits the barn three nights, but only sees/hears the ghost once,
while alone. Details of the first visit are dictated to Kinbote by Jane P.
("a pillar of reliability"...as reported by Jane), for the second, Kinbote
has selectively copied a "transcript based on jottings" made by Hazel during
the visit, the third is fabricated completely by Kinbote, though we are
assured it "cannot be too far removed from the truth". What are we to make
of such lengths gone to to present us with these "pathetic" scenes? Kinbote
is even able to restrain himself from digressing into another Zembla
episode, unlike when he might have gotten more information on Hazel from
Shade himself, to relate the events of the three nights.

The first night is a wash-out, the pyrotechnics of a storm overwhelm
anything the ghost might produce. Hazel fails to find a companion for the
second visit, but decides, despite her parents attempts to stop her, to go
it alone. Only nine minutes after settling in, she hears "scrappy and
scrabbly sounds". Six minutes later, a "roundlet of pale light" appears,
inviting play it would seem. Then, "gone". Twelve minutes more, and it
returns. The "luminous circlet" assures Hazel that it is not a
will-of-the-wisp, or trickster, but that "it" *is* dead. In the process,
Hazel and the apparition work out a crude means of communication on the wall
of the barn, a "keyboard of dry wood"(line 649). With great effort and
persistence, Hazel records "a short line of simple letter-groups". Later,
despite "abominable" headaches, and with "endless" effort and "infinite
patience and disgust", Kinbote applies himself (to the point, even, of
distraction from his more appealing night-games) to cracking the code. He's
compelled by a line in Shade's poem that urges the discovery of a secret
"pattern in the game". "[T]here is a merciful preponderance of a's" we are
told, in this "abracadabra"...but Kinbote's many and lengthy pains finally
come to nothing. Another "diabolical" red herring? Boyd does a pretty good
translation, a pretty good pattern, but is it The Pattern? Is there a
pattern at all? After all, a player of games of words might find it
interesting to see how many "sensible" solutions might be formed of a
non-sensible problem...perhaps it really would take, literally, "endless"
effort and "infinite patience" to solve...

Before any more data is collected, a resumption of the "scrabbling" and a
sudden charge by the light frightens Hazel out of the barn. In a sense, she
awakens to a nightmare; suddenly realizing how unnatural the apparition is,
she flees into the familiar night. But comforting reality reverts back to
nightmare when she misapprehends her father, waiting for her return, as a
ghost.

Kinbote claims a third night, which satisfies his sense of symmetry, though
no notes survive. Nonetheless, he presents what he claims as an account not
"too far removed from the truth" (compared to the preceding "truth", it may
not be far off at all...). Hazel is accompanied by her parents this time but
the family scene provides no further evidence of the haunting. Ironically,
though, Hazel believes her parents to be mocking her and is pushed further
along the path to suicide. Perhaps the sense of this is the reason for
Shade's "confusely" manner in talking about the barn episode.

Horatio's third night watch....dog days, animal nick-names, madness, jointed
time, incommunicable messages, pale luminous lights, ghostly fathers and
suicide...Hamlet seems unavoidable, but I'd be foolhardy indeed to venture
such waters. Jasper?

The interplay of possible identities of the apparition in this commentary is
notable. The circlet of light is linked to Hetzner through the barn, though
its difficulty in communicating, as well as the mention of her cane, might
suggest Aunt Maude, as Boyd has argued. In an earlier commentary (Line 230),
Kinbote reports Jane's claim that the Shade's believe the earlier
manifestation of Aunt Maude's ghost, a "domestic ghost", to be an "outward
extension or expulsion of [Hazel's] insanity", and fear that her experiences
in the barn may be a repeat performance. Also, returning home, after fleeing
from the barn, Shade appears, briefly, as a ghost to Hazel. Finally, there
is Kinbote's reproduction of Shade's poem, _NoE_, which asks, what if
electricity is a ghostly manifestation, informing, perhaps, a comment in the
poem on Hazel's "strange force of character"(line 344). As a footnote,
Kinbote adds that on the authority of "science", we know that "the Earth
would not merely fall apart, but vanish like a ghost, if Electricity were
removed from the world." If we transcribe "Electricity" as ghost, we get,
the world falls apart if the ghost is removed....The world of this story?...

Makes my head spin...


Scott Badger