NPPF Comm 2: Dr. Notebook

[Don Corathers]

> >>>Keith goes nuclear. Settles that, I reckon.<<<
>
> I didn't find that essay convincing, just like I don't find much of
anything
> Boyd writes convincing. These folks are smart, but Nabokov is smarter, and
> he's much more imaginative and humorous.
>

I haven't finished reading Kaplan yet, but I think he's pretty persuasive on
the question of Kinbote = Botkin, which is a pretty well-established reading
as I understand it.

The argument I was trying to make last night on Nabokov coming close to
showing his authorial cards to get us to make the Kinbote/Botkin connection
was almost purely intuitive. To the extent there was any reasoning involved,
it was that since Kinbote ostensibly controls the narrative and wants to
conceal his past as Botkin, Nabokov would have to either contrive to get
Kinbote to act against his own interests (as a self-destructive psychotic
might plausibly do) or otherwise subvert Kinbote's intentions in order to
lead us to Botkin. Seemed to me that was what was happening in the two
passages Rob and I were discussing.

Don