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Fw: Review of Boyd's PALE FIRE: Boyd response
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----- Original Message -----
From: Brian Boyd (FOA ENG)
To: 'Vladimir Nabokov Forum'
Sent: Sunday, August 25, 2002 4:36 PM
Subject: RE: Review of Boyd's PALE FIRE: Boyd response
Dear All:
Since Victoria Alexander quotes without permission from what I wrote, may I set those phrases in context?
She writes that "Brian Boyd wrote me saying he though[t] I had little understanding of 'Nabokov's art' or 'of evolutionary theory, or the history of the theory, or of philosophy, or of the philosophy of science.' "
I had read her essay on "Neutral Evolution" and thought it flawed in many ways, but saw no point in saying so anywhere. Since she wrote me asking for a reaction, however, I gave her a detailed commentary:
-----------------------------------
>Dear Victoria,
>Thank you for the offprint of your Neutral Evolution, which I had already received from somewhere (Kurt?). It's a delight to see someone else in literature taking the science seriously.
>However, since you ask, I have to say that although I find the attempt valuable I find the execution deeply flawed. You do not seem to understand the science or Nabokov's art sufficiently clearly and will have to work at clarifying your thoughts and expression.
>Here are some specific comments:
[some pages later]:
>>natural selection as a theory, the strength of which lies in its tautological nature:
>???: I wonder how much you understand of evolutionary theory, or the history of the theory, or of philosophy, or of the philosophy of science, if you can say this. If a theory is tautological, then it cannot be refuted, and it is therefore unscientific (it fails to meet the criteria of potential falsifiability) and can have no explanatory power whatever. But the supposedly tautological nature of natural selection has always been used in criticism of the theory, and the clear demonstration that it is far from tautological has been made again and again, by Dawkins for instance, but by many more before him, back to Darwin.
[I end a little later]:
>Sorry, but I had to say it as I see it.
>Best wishes for your future work,
>Brian Boyd
In her review, which is perfectly fair and even generous in the circumstances, Victoria Alexander comments:
> Boyd has swallowed Kinbote's bait. Kinbote wants readers to think his
> commentary is supernaturally inspired. Boyd discounts Nabokov's warning
> that Shade has learned not to believe in "domestic ghosts."
Where is the evidence that Kinbote wants readers to think that his commentary is supernaturally inspired? I and other readers I know see only evidence that he wants readers to think Shade's poem would have been much better had it been inspired by Kinbote.
Ms Alexander's next sentence again betrays the text. What Shade actually writes is quite different:
So why join in the vulgar laughter? Why
Scorn a hereafter none can verify: . . . .
It isn't that we dream too wild a dream:
The trouble is we do not make it seem
Sufficiently unlikely; for the most
We can think up is a domestic ghost.
Suddenly, this makes me notice something I should have seen earlier. Nabokov does not repeat a couplet's rhymes casually. Within sixty lines, Shade introduces Hazel, to lead up to the account of her suicide. He begins, though, by addressing his wife, Hazel's mother, and then introduces Hazel herself this way:
And I love you most
When with a pensive nod you greet her ghost. . . .
This verse paragraph is saturated with anticipations of the final verse paragraph of the poem, which introduces the particular "Vanessa with a crimson band" that seems to be a sign of Hazel's transformation and presence.
To return to Ms Alexander's sentence: an experienced reader of Nabokov would see that "Nabokov's warning that Shade has learned not to believe in 'domestic ghosts'" would be just the kind of disclaimer that in Nabokov alerts us that there is indeed something of that very kind to look out for. But in the Catno that depicts Hazel's suicide Shade in fact says he expects something more in the hereafter; and the repetition of "most"/"ghost" as Hazel is introduced into the poem hints just where we should look. Not Hazel appearing as a stage spook, not Hazel as text; but Hazel in the texture of the poem.
Brian Boyd
-----Original Message-----
From: D. Barton Johnson [mailto:chtodel@cox.net]
Sent: Sunday, August 25, 2002 4:37 AM
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Subject: Review of Boyd's PALE FIRE
----- Original Message -----
From: Victoria N. Alexander
To: chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu
Cc: alexander@dactyl.org
Dear All:
Coincidentally last fall, a few days after Brian Boyd wrote me saying he though I had little understanding of "Nabokov's art" or "of evolutionary theory, or the history of the theory, or of philosophy, or of the philosophy of science," the editor of the _Antioch Review_ sent me the paperback edition of Boyd's book on _Pale Fire_ to review. I took it as a sign from the ghost of Nabokov that I should review it. It has just come out. Now that I've had time to cool down a bit, I think my tone sounds rather cheeky. Nevertheless, I stand by my point. Here it is:
> _Antioch Review_ (Summer 2002 Vol. 60, No. 3): 530-531.
>
> Nabokov's Pale Fire: The Magic Art of Discovery by Brian Boyd. Princeton
> University Press, 303pp., $16.95 paper
>
> Nabokov's _Pale Fire_ is a fictitious edition of a poem by John Shade
> with commentary by an egocentric critic, Charles Kinbote. Boyd offers
> detailed analyses of patterns in the poem, performing the work that
> should have been done by Kinbote. He also provides excellent commentary
> on Kinbote's work. Boyd then looks at the patterns occurring _between_
> Shade's and Kinbote's contributions, which have led several critics to
> argue that the whole of _Pale Fire_ was written by one deceptive
> meta-author. Boyd once argued it was Shade. Now he claims it was
> Kinbote possessed by the ghosts of Shade and Shade's daughter. Boyd
> overstates his case somewhat by not making clear distinctions between
> patterns that could be attributed to one of the living authors and
> patterns that _require_ a meta-author: e.g., the fact that Kinbote's
> commentary echoes themes in Shade's poem is not an uncanny coincidence;
> the fact that Shade's poem seems to prophesy his own murder is.
>
> Boyd dedicates considerable space to Popper's _Logic of Scientific
> Discovery_, claiming his "theory" about _Pale Fire_ is falsifiable.
> However, poetic interpretations, like any postulation about supernatural
> beings, are precisely the kinds of assertions that _cannot_ be
> falsified. As Pale Fire itself demonstrates, art and belief are the
> effects of ambiguity and coincidence.
>
> All the same, Boyd is right: there do _seem_ to be ghosts afoot. But
> Boyd has swallowed Kinbote's bait. Kinbote wants readers to think his
> commentary is supernaturally inspired. Boyd discounts Nabokov's warning
> that Shade has learned not to believe in "domestic ghosts." Shade's
> subtler discovery is that certain kinds of poetic patterns tend to
> suggest a meta-author, and similar patterns in real life tend to suggest
> supernatural meta-authors. Nevertheless, Boyd's discovery of Kinbote's
> planted clues advances Nabokovian scholarship considerably. My criticism
> should ultimately only strengthen the better part of his thesis.
>
> --Victoria N. Alexander
>
>
>