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Fw: Pale Fire Solutions: Hazel vs Hyde. Problems in &Alternatives
to Boyd on PF
to Boyd on PF
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Re: Pale Fire Solutions: Hazel vs Hyde. Problems in &Alternatives to Boyd on PFEDITOR'S NOTE. Andrew Langridge has recently completed a dissertion THE SHATTERED WORLD OF NABOKOV'S BEND SINISTER (U of Aukland, NZ) that is by far the most detaild analysis of that book.
-----------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: Andrew Langridge
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
Sent: Thursday, September 05, 2002 11:03 PM
Subject: Re: Pale Fire Solutions: Hazel vs Hyde. Problems in &Alternatives to Boyd on PF
I think the reason that this Jekyll/Hyde interpretation of Pale Fire is (for me) so unconvincing, is that it's a solution in search of evidence, rather than a solution that has arisen from the evidence of the text. If one can only find six pieces of evidence in the novel to support a given interpretation of a novel seething with significant detail, then that solution is surely suspect.
Perhaps Brian's solution is not complete or watertight. He admits as much in his book (and is well aware of my skepticism regarding certain elements of it). But at least it is a solution that attempts to account for the full range of oddities that one finds in this marvellously odd novel, rather than an ad hoc theory with a minimum of evidence adduced in support (and no attention paid to contradictory details).
Of the six scanty items enlisted below, two can immediately be ruled out of bounds. The Lectures on Literature cross-reference is anachronistic in at least two dimensions. VN would not insert a cryptic allusion into one of his lectures just so he could exploit it in an undreamt-of work some several years later. Nor would he base a crucial clue on a cross-reference to an earlier piece of writing that, at the time, he had no definite intention of publishing. If there's one thing that Brian's work in so many corners of Nabokoviana has established, it's that VN, though ever demanding of them, always played fair with his readers.
The cheval glass can be similarly shattered: they are a Nabokovian allusion, not a Stevensonian one, and appear in The Defense (Vintage, 169) and Laughter in the Dark (Vintage, 124) as well. They further feature, in Gallic drag, in Despair (Vintage, 64), by which time they have shaded into a delicate lepidopterous reference which may or may not have nothing to do with Bend Sinister. . .
Also, does it strike anybody else as odd that a detail man like VN would truck with "instinctual" readings of his - or anyone else's - novels?
Andrew Langridge
----------
>From: "D. Barton Johnson" <chtodel@cox.net>
>To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
>Subject: Fw: Pale Fire Solutions: Hazel vs Hyde. Problems in &Alternatives to Boyd on PF
>Date: Thu, 5 Sep 2002 6:59 AM
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Carolyn Kunin" <chaiselongue@earthlink.net>
>To: "Vladimir Nabokov Forum" <NABOKV-L@listserv.ucsb.edu>
>>
>> ----------------- Message requiring your approval (59
>lines) ------------------
>> Problems with Boyd's Hazel-solution to Pale Fire
>>
>> 1) Boyd's connection of the Toothwort White (isn't "toothwort" in the barn
>> message?) and the Atalanta would have been a lovely discovery, but Boyd
>has
>> to go through a lot of contortions in order to force this to solve the
>> puzzle posed by Pale Fire. There should be a more instinctual solution to
>> be found - at least we should look for it.
>>
>> 2) If Hazel's manipulations solved the puzzle, the puzzle would be solved.
>> There would be no more to discuss. Fortunately I think the next level will
>> point to another level, which the Hazel solution does not. Boyd himself
>> suspects this.
>>
>> and 3) If Hazel is pulling all the strings behind both the poem and the
>> commentary, then Hazel = VN, an unsatisfactory solution.
>>
>> Argument for 'Shade is to Kinbote as Jekyll is to Hyde' solution:
>>
>> There are at least six clues pointing to the identity of Kinbote and Hyde:
>>
>> 1) meaning of name Kinbote (see Boyd's footnote in LoA edition). One of
>the
>> first sightings of Mr Hyde in RLS's story is when he is cornered and
>forced
>> to pay reparations for injury he has inflicted;
>>
>> 2) There is a reference to another Edward Hyde (identified as a reference
>by
>> Boyd in a footnote in Library of America edition);
>>
>> 3) Kinbote as author of book on surnames and reference to such a book in
>> VN's essay on Jekyll & Hyde in "Lectures on Literature";
>>
>> 4) There is a reference to another RLS story, "The Bottle Imp" in the note
>> to line 171
>>
>> 5) The clue of Mr Shade and Dr Kinbote; and
>>
>> 6) the cheval glass in the palace (note to line 80) comes from Hyde's
>> lodgings.
>>
>> One of the nicest aspects of this solution is that it can be solved by any
>> reader with general knowledge and it is an instinctual solution;
>>
>> This solution allows us to discover another level of meaning in the text
>of
>> the poem and in some of the notes to the commentary (I have been trying to
>> draw attention to these in recent postings);
>>
>> This solution points to another problem which we may now try to solve. If
>> Kinbote = Shade = Gradus, the reader can now tackle the puzzling nature of
>> time in the novel. I suspect that the solution to this will be "a fugue."
>> Multiple personality is a form of fugue state (a term less used in
>> psychology now than at the time Pale Fire was written, and which term has
>> the original twin meanings of chase and flight). Of course a musical
>fugue
>> is a complicated form in which the same themes and motifs chase and flee
>> from each other, overlapping and repeating to form complex
>> inter-relationships, inversions, subversions and so on. Kinbote chased by
>> Gradus chasing Shade may turn out to be a fugue in two voices (Shade's &
>> Kinbote's) or three (+ Nabokov's ?).
>>
>> Carolyn Kunin
>>
-----------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: Andrew Langridge
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
Sent: Thursday, September 05, 2002 11:03 PM
Subject: Re: Pale Fire Solutions: Hazel vs Hyde. Problems in &Alternatives to Boyd on PF
I think the reason that this Jekyll/Hyde interpretation of Pale Fire is (for me) so unconvincing, is that it's a solution in search of evidence, rather than a solution that has arisen from the evidence of the text. If one can only find six pieces of evidence in the novel to support a given interpretation of a novel seething with significant detail, then that solution is surely suspect.
Perhaps Brian's solution is not complete or watertight. He admits as much in his book (and is well aware of my skepticism regarding certain elements of it). But at least it is a solution that attempts to account for the full range of oddities that one finds in this marvellously odd novel, rather than an ad hoc theory with a minimum of evidence adduced in support (and no attention paid to contradictory details).
Of the six scanty items enlisted below, two can immediately be ruled out of bounds. The Lectures on Literature cross-reference is anachronistic in at least two dimensions. VN would not insert a cryptic allusion into one of his lectures just so he could exploit it in an undreamt-of work some several years later. Nor would he base a crucial clue on a cross-reference to an earlier piece of writing that, at the time, he had no definite intention of publishing. If there's one thing that Brian's work in so many corners of Nabokoviana has established, it's that VN, though ever demanding of them, always played fair with his readers.
The cheval glass can be similarly shattered: they are a Nabokovian allusion, not a Stevensonian one, and appear in The Defense (Vintage, 169) and Laughter in the Dark (Vintage, 124) as well. They further feature, in Gallic drag, in Despair (Vintage, 64), by which time they have shaded into a delicate lepidopterous reference which may or may not have nothing to do with Bend Sinister. . .
Also, does it strike anybody else as odd that a detail man like VN would truck with "instinctual" readings of his - or anyone else's - novels?
Andrew Langridge
----------
>From: "D. Barton Johnson" <chtodel@cox.net>
>To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
>Subject: Fw: Pale Fire Solutions: Hazel vs Hyde. Problems in &Alternatives to Boyd on PF
>Date: Thu, 5 Sep 2002 6:59 AM
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Carolyn Kunin" <chaiselongue@earthlink.net>
>To: "Vladimir Nabokov Forum" <NABOKV-L@listserv.ucsb.edu>
>>
>> ----------------- Message requiring your approval (59
>lines) ------------------
>> Problems with Boyd's Hazel-solution to Pale Fire
>>
>> 1) Boyd's connection of the Toothwort White (isn't "toothwort" in the barn
>> message?) and the Atalanta would have been a lovely discovery, but Boyd
>has
>> to go through a lot of contortions in order to force this to solve the
>> puzzle posed by Pale Fire. There should be a more instinctual solution to
>> be found - at least we should look for it.
>>
>> 2) If Hazel's manipulations solved the puzzle, the puzzle would be solved.
>> There would be no more to discuss. Fortunately I think the next level will
>> point to another level, which the Hazel solution does not. Boyd himself
>> suspects this.
>>
>> and 3) If Hazel is pulling all the strings behind both the poem and the
>> commentary, then Hazel = VN, an unsatisfactory solution.
>>
>> Argument for 'Shade is to Kinbote as Jekyll is to Hyde' solution:
>>
>> There are at least six clues pointing to the identity of Kinbote and Hyde:
>>
>> 1) meaning of name Kinbote (see Boyd's footnote in LoA edition). One of
>the
>> first sightings of Mr Hyde in RLS's story is when he is cornered and
>forced
>> to pay reparations for injury he has inflicted;
>>
>> 2) There is a reference to another Edward Hyde (identified as a reference
>by
>> Boyd in a footnote in Library of America edition);
>>
>> 3) Kinbote as author of book on surnames and reference to such a book in
>> VN's essay on Jekyll & Hyde in "Lectures on Literature";
>>
>> 4) There is a reference to another RLS story, "The Bottle Imp" in the note
>> to line 171
>>
>> 5) The clue of Mr Shade and Dr Kinbote; and
>>
>> 6) the cheval glass in the palace (note to line 80) comes from Hyde's
>> lodgings.
>>
>> One of the nicest aspects of this solution is that it can be solved by any
>> reader with general knowledge and it is an instinctual solution;
>>
>> This solution allows us to discover another level of meaning in the text
>of
>> the poem and in some of the notes to the commentary (I have been trying to
>> draw attention to these in recent postings);
>>
>> This solution points to another problem which we may now try to solve. If
>> Kinbote = Shade = Gradus, the reader can now tackle the puzzling nature of
>> time in the novel. I suspect that the solution to this will be "a fugue."
>> Multiple personality is a form of fugue state (a term less used in
>> psychology now than at the time Pale Fire was written, and which term has
>> the original twin meanings of chase and flight). Of course a musical
>fugue
>> is a complicated form in which the same themes and motifs chase and flee
>> from each other, overlapping and repeating to form complex
>> inter-relationships, inversions, subversions and so on. Kinbote chased by
>> Gradus chasing Shade may turn out to be a fugue in two voices (Shade's &
>> Kinbote's) or three (+ Nabokov's ?).
>>
>> Carolyn Kunin
>>