Simon Rowbery:
Perhaps enact was a clumsy word, but it was just extending the
metaphor of the death of the author. Regarding subverting Nabokov's intentions
and how even Nabokov cannot stop multiple readings of this text, I would say
this is a positive thing. It is just that it occurs most explicitly within Pale
Fire. It's perfectly fine to try and unlock the puzzles within the text in the
way in which the author intended,
but individual readership is arguably
greater because there's no such thing as a great book without
readership.
JM:In my opinion Nabokov had no
intention to limit the multiple readings of his novels, nor did he
disregard his multiple reader's responses ( although he did expect them to "look
like" him), so I'm basically in agreement with you. But, as I see it,
Nabokov expected that at least a few readers would get his ideas,
irradiating intuitions, joys and games.
Like Updike maintained, Nabokov “writes
prose the only way it should be written: ecstatically.” However, as I see
it, this is not the same as to delve into the free-flow of
Barthes' "plaisir du texte."
In "Pale Fire," "plexed artistry" "ivory
pawns"and the "mysterious non-authorial web of sense" are
introduced as a kind of philosophical stand, whereas he seems to enjoy
cultivating a special "non-naturalistic" kind of mimetism in his
response to nature's complexity (this is why I find his rejection
of the freudian unconscious second "web of sense" so
curious).