Ron Rosenbaum writes:
Dear List Memebers,
Has anyone else noticed the contradictory logic of B. Boyd and his
loyal defenders in regard to the role of Hazel Shade in <Pale
Fire>?
On the one hand we are told by Jerry Friedman that Boyd never
<really> argued for the role for the dead girl's ghost in
wriiting/inspiring <Pale Fire> or "Pale Fire".
I
think you may not have noticed the way gmail marks quotations from the
e-mail being responded to, or you may have mixed me up with John Morris. The view you're attributing to me has some
resemblances to the one I quoted from him, but it's not like
anything I said.
On the other hand we are told with unconvincing muse-ings such as that
from R.S. Gwynn that, if in fact Boyd did so argue (as most would agree
he did), he was right.
I think what most would agree on is that Boyd argued that
Hazel indirectly inspired "Pale Fire"--not "wrote", not "dictated" (as
you said in your previous post).
I agree with Jansy that they are wrong on both counts. I think the
problem is that Boyd (and many others) are too eager to offer a
"solution" to <Pale Fire> as if it were some crossword puzzle
rather than a luminous numinous work of art.
Nabokov did write that he liked
"composing riddles with elegant solutions," and I think he'd have
disagreed with your dichotomy between puzzles and luminous numinous
works of art. That in itself doesn't mean we can
be sure he meant Pale Fire to have a solution.
Jerry Friedman
All private editorial communications, without
exception, are
read by both co-editors.