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JF to WM on VN and conventional wisdom
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--- Walter Miale wrote:
> I haven't had time to comment on the recent fascinating threads of
> discussion, but would like to go on record with these summaries:
>
> -- The conventional "wisdom" that would inform us that no one but
> Shakespeare could have written Shakespeare's poems and plays should
> not be taken too seriously. Shakespeare might have been anybody. Just
> because that was his name--so what? Must we let facts have the last
> word? The "Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare" theory tells us nothing,
> and binds our imagination to the prosaic. As Borges would have
> readily acknowledged, Shakespeare's works written by ANYBODY else
> provide a richer as well as stranger literary experience.
>
> -- I challenge anyone to demonstrate that Charles Xavier (Kinbote) is
> NOT the King of Zembla and that the poem and the entire Shade family
> and his own totally daft personna are not constructs of his lively
> imagination.
Okay, I won't. I admit that your theory is self-consistent,
and anyway if you don't want facts to have the last word,
I don't know what kind of demonstration you have in mind.
But I will say why I'm not interested in that kind of
explanation. If Kinbote can construct the Shades and his
persona, he can construct anything. He could be the King of
Zembla, or the Akond of Swat, or anything else. The narrator
could be Gradus, or the undeodorized Frenchwoman, or Adam Krug.
As soon as I see the ease of making up those possibilities, I
lose interest. And as what you're saying amounts to "Kinbote
invented the whole thing" (which is what I see), then I don't
understand why it's an improvement over "Nabokov invented the
whole thing", which we knew from the start.
On the other hand, as I've said, I think "Nabokov invented the
whole thing" is something not to forget for this book, as it
adds two pale reflections of worlds.
> -- Has no one considered the rather obvious probability that Nabokov's
> aversion to Freud is attributable to his own unresolved
> Oedipus complex?
I'd bet a nickel someone has.
Jerry Friedman
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> I haven't had time to comment on the recent fascinating threads of
> discussion, but would like to go on record with these summaries:
>
> -- The conventional "wisdom" that would inform us that no one but
> Shakespeare could have written Shakespeare's poems and plays should
> not be taken too seriously. Shakespeare might have been anybody. Just
> because that was his name--so what? Must we let facts have the last
> word? The "Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare" theory tells us nothing,
> and binds our imagination to the prosaic. As Borges would have
> readily acknowledged, Shakespeare's works written by ANYBODY else
> provide a richer as well as stranger literary experience.
>
> -- I challenge anyone to demonstrate that Charles Xavier (Kinbote) is
> NOT the King of Zembla and that the poem and the entire Shade family
> and his own totally daft personna are not constructs of his lively
> imagination.
Okay, I won't. I admit that your theory is self-consistent,
and anyway if you don't want facts to have the last word,
I don't know what kind of demonstration you have in mind.
But I will say why I'm not interested in that kind of
explanation. If Kinbote can construct the Shades and his
persona, he can construct anything. He could be the King of
Zembla, or the Akond of Swat, or anything else. The narrator
could be Gradus, or the undeodorized Frenchwoman, or Adam Krug.
As soon as I see the ease of making up those possibilities, I
lose interest. And as what you're saying amounts to "Kinbote
invented the whole thing" (which is what I see), then I don't
understand why it's an improvement over "Nabokov invented the
whole thing", which we knew from the start.
On the other hand, as I've said, I think "Nabokov invented the
whole thing" is something not to forget for this book, as it
adds two pale reflections of worlds.
> -- Has no one considered the rather obvious probability that Nabokov's
> aversion to Freud is attributable to his own unresolved
> Oedipus complex?
I'd bet a nickel someone has.
Jerry Friedman
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm