Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0002768, Fri, 30 Jan 1998 09:30:29 -0800

Subject
Re: PF Narrator (fwd)
Date
Body
From: Tim Henderson <thenders@mail.lanline.com>


As another spectator in the peanut gallery, having done my homework and
re-read PF with Brian Boyd's notes in hand, I must say I had a wonderful
time doing it and trying to imagine Kinbote as a immense practical joke
on Shade's part.

I can envision a creator of Kinbote, a "serious author" who is tired of
curiousity about his personal life, perhaps -- and would like
demonstrate somehow that, if you were to hide in the bushes and watch
him at work, you wouldn't see anything more lurid than the author
sticking a pencil in his ear and then his mouth. I can imagine a playful
Shade including that detail.

What I DO have trouble imagining, is that Shade would create a person
who fawns over him, and who criticizes him in ways that tend to ennoble
Shade in the mind of the astute reader. Would the Houyhnhnms create a
Gulliver to admire them? Wouldn't that detract from the very nobility he
admires?

--
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Tim Henderson, Database Manager work: thenders@mail.lanline.com
Gannett Suburban Newspapers home: thomas.henderson@mne.net
1 Gannett Drive (914) 694-5309
White Plains, NY 10604
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Uncle Wally's Poetry Corner:
A. A violent order is a disorder; and
B. A great disorder is an order. These
Two things are one. (Pages of illustrations.)
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