Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0019955, Sun, 2 May 2010 06:09:42 -0700

Subject
Re: THOUGHTS on Shade's Litany of Loathes, Shaving, Canto 4
Date
Body
Dear Gary Lipon,

This interesting train of thought lead me to think in a new direction.
Instead of the reading order (that is, disorder) proposed by Kinbote,
it might behoove the reader to follow the reading of the poem with a
re-reading of Kinbote's preface, where the disintegration into madness
continues unabated. Hadn't thought of that before - - thank you. I'm
not sure why you refer to the last part of the poem as "epilogue or
envoy" - - I should rather call it "metamorphosis."

Carolyn Kunin


On May 1, 2010, at 3:47 PM, Gary Lipon wrote:

It seems to me that one might summarize Pale Fire, the poem, as follows:
Canto 1: Shade's early life,
Canto 2: eschatological commitment, Maud's stroke & commitment,
Hazel's story
Canto 3: Shade's grief and attempts to heal and find meaning to, or
in, life. (IPH, and the White Fountain)
Canto 4: Proclamation of great insight,
description of two methods of composition, one of which is compulsive,
travails of shaving,
epilogue or envoy.



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