NPPF Comm 2: Dr. Notebook

[David Morris]

--- gumbo at fuse.net wrote:
> Sorry, that's not the way I read it.
> 
> Botkin created the *identity* of Kinbote, not a fictional character named
Kinbote. He did live next door to Shade, who wrote a 999-line poem titled "Pale
Fire." Living in New Wye and teaching at Wordsmith, Botkin used the name
Kinbote and believed his real name was Charles II, but his passport said he was
a Russian immigrant named V. Botkin.

OK, I can see that take, and I don't think it matters whether this is exactly
how Kaplan meant it (and I'm not saying he didn't).  But ultimately what is the
value of a Botkin existing at all, whether another as a layer beneath Kinbote's
madness or as a genius creator of a fictional construct which includes
authorship of a poem, other than, as Kaplan posits, for Nabokov to poke his own
identity into the text.  It's a fun minor-riddle but doesn't go anywhere.  It
doesn't get us any deeper into Kinbote's or Shade's lives because it doesn't do
anything but dead-end into a person named Botkin.

David Morris



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