Subject
Botkin(e). Modest Proposal
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This is probably a very naive question, but what is the internal evidence in
PF that the nasty commentator is Botkin, a Russian madman, not Kinbote, a
Zemblan madman? Is not Botkin, or Botkine, a mirror-image of Kinbote? Is VN
being reliable here? I certainly failed to notice Botkin's authorship in
reading PF several times after first buying the paperback in 1964. But I'm used
to being called dense.
Mary McCarthy's failure to uncover Timon of Athens is slightly deplorable,
of course.
Discoveries in a work of literature have to be a surprise to many, including
its author. This is a feature of what Robert Graves called the proleptic
nature of literary creation, and Koestler applied this to all forms of sudden
creative insight. A burr, or piece of fluff, which has lodged in memory since I
read it many years ago was the comment, made I think by a little girl, and
embryonic authoress: "How can I know what I mean until I see what I say?"
On another point: Dr. Samuel Schuman's Modest Proposal. Information overload
is the modern curse. I have been (still am) a subscriber to three other
lists. In each case the discussion is more or less ruined by persistent posters
who visit their stupefyingly tedious comments on the rest of the subscribers,
and I have abandoned any attempt to maintain a conversation at what I consider
a reasonably high level, and now limit myself to merely lurking, as well as
automatically deleting anything from contributors I know to be a pain in the
neck. This list is an exception, since personally I find virtually all the
remarks amusing, informative, perceptive, erudite and stimulating. My view is
that it is up to the reader to perform his/her own filtering. In time, I too
will no doubt fall silent. Like Beckett.
Charles HW
In a message dated 09/11/2006 17:57:31 GMT Standard Time,
NABOKV-L@HOLYCROSS.EDU writes:
Here the poet is revealed by his poetry; the commentator by
> his
> commentary. ['Pale Fire'] is jollier than the other [novels], and it is
> full
> of plums that I keep hoping somebody will find. For instance, the nasty
> commentator is not an ex-King of Zembla nor is he professor Kinbote. He
> is
> professor Botkin, or Botkine, a Russian and a madman. His commentary has
> a
> number of notes dealing with entomology, ornithology, and botany. The
> reviewers have said that I worked my favorite subjects into this novel.
> What
> they have not discovered is that Botkin knows nothing about them, and
> all
> his notes are frightfully erroneous.... No onehas noted that my
> comment ator
> committed suicide before completing the index to the book.... The last
> entry
> has no numbered reference.... And even Mary McCarthy, who has discovered
>
> more of the books than most of its critics, had some difficulty in
> locating
> the source of its title, and made the mistake of searching for it in
> Shakespeare's 'The Tempest.' It is from 'Timon of Athens.'
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