INFORMATION TO USERS

This material was produced from a microfilm copy of the original document. While the most advanced technological means to photograph and reproduce this document have been used, the quality is heavily dependent upon the quality of the original submitted.

The following explanation of techniques is provided to help you understand markings or patterns which may appear on this reproduction.

1. The sign or "target" for pages apparently lacking from the document photographed is "Missing Page(s)". If it was possible to obtain the missing page(s) or section, they are spliced into the film along with adjacent pages. This may have necessitated cutting thru an image and duplicating adjacent pages to insure you complete continuity.

2. When an image on the film is obliterated with a large round black mark, it is an indication that the photoyapher suspected that the copy may have moved during exposure and thus cause a blurred image. You will find a good image of the page in the adjacent frame.

3. When a map, drawing or chart, etc., was part of the material being photographed the photographer followed a definite method in "sectioning" the material. It is customary to begin photoing at the upper left hand corner of a large sheet and to continue photoing from left to right in equal sections with a small overlap. If necessary, sectioning is continued again — beginning below the first row and continuing on until complete.

4. The majority of users indicate that the textual content is of greatest value, however, a somewhat higher quality reproduction could be made from "photographs" if essential to the understanding of the dissertation. Silver prints of "photographs" may be ordered at additional charge by writing the Order Department, giving the catalog number, title, author and specific pages you wish reproduced.

5. PLEASE NOTE: Some pages may have indistinct print. Filmed as received.

University Microfiims International 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 USA St, John's Road, Tyler's Green High Wycombe, Bucks. England HPlO 8HR MASTERS THESIS 13-9865

ROACH, David Christopher Wilson "ACCIDEm’S AND POSSIBILITIES": UNCERTAINTY IN NABOKOV'S PALE FIRE. The American University, M.A., 1977 Literature, modem

Xerox University Microfilms, Ann Arbor. Michigan 4sio6 "AGGIDSNTS AND POSSIBILITIES'*!

UNCERTAINTY IN NABOKOV'S PAIÆ FIRE

by

David O.Vt Roach

Submitted to the

Faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences

of the American University

in partial Fulfillment of

the Requirements for the Degree

of

Master of Arts

Literature

Signature of Committee

Chairman ! tLêj/Ls ùùajiôt

Dean of the College

1977

The American University Washington, D.C, 20016

THE AUERICAH ULlvEùoIïY LI2R;JIY

f 3iT/ It did not matter who they were. No sound.

No furtive light came from their Involute

Abode, but there they were, aloof and mute.

Playing a game or worlds, promoting pawns

To ivory unicorns and ebon fauns t

Kindling a long life here, extinguishing

A short one there| killing a Balkan king;

Causing a chunk of Ice formed on a high-

Flying airplane to plummet from the sky

And strike a farmer dead; hiding my keys,

Glasses or pipe. Coordinating these

Events and objects with remote events

And vanished objects. Making omwients

Of accidents and possibilities.

— "Rile Fire," 11. 816-829

ii CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION ...... 1

I CRITICAL APPROACHES...... 4

II THE TECHNIQUES OF CREATING UNCERTAINTY...... 9

Kinbote and His Narrative ...... 11

Shade and His Poem 21

"The Underside of the Weave"— the Author's Presence . . 23

III THE USES OP UNCERTAINTY...... 31

CONCLUSION...... 38

LIST OF WORKS C O N S U L T E D ...... 43

ill INTRODUCTION

By all means place the "how* above the "what" but do not let it be confused with the "so what." Rely on the sudden erection of your small dorsal hairs,— Vladimir Nabokovl

Pale Fire, a novel by Vladimir Nabokov, raises one's dorsal hairs many times as one tracks down the Immense number of allusions and cross references it contains, for above all it is a puzzle that asks the reader to search and research, to read and re-read. But one's dorsal hairs eventually form the shape of a question mark, for most of this detective work leads the reader to dead ends of confusion and uncertainty. Indeed, the previous criticism of this conundrum, which we shall examine briefly in the next section, presents a variety of mutually exclusive solutions, each claiming to be the Ultimate

Truth about the novel.

Bale Fire takes a standard, reliable form of literature— the poem and scholarly emendation— and pushes it to Its parodie limit. We see

Charles Kinbote usurp John Shade's poem by adding variants and twisting its content into a wild story of Zembla, We also slowly realize that

Pale Fire the novel, as opposed to "Pale Fire" the poem (this distinction will be made throughout by the use of underscoring to mean the novel and quotation marks to mean the poem In the novel), tells

^ "An Interview with Vladimir Nabokov," cond. Alfred Appel, Jr., Wisconsin Studies in Contemporary Literature, 8 (I967), rpt, in Strong Opinions (New York; McGraw-Hill, 1973)* P* 66, four stories— that of Shade the poet and his creation of the poem, that of Kinbote the commentator and his life in New Wye, that of

Charles the Beloved, exiled King of Zembla, and that of Jakob Gradua,

regicide. Our problem is how to relate these four stories to each other and gain an overall understanding of the novel. An extra twist

is the fact that our guide for eighty-seven percent of the novel,

Charles Kinbote, is Insane.

The reader can spend as much or as little time as he wishes

trying to find some key to Bale Fire; the result is the same. Some

elements of the story are obvious, some are discerned through careful

reading, and some are discerned by tracking down allusions. But the

elements never completely resolve themselves; uncertainties persist.

Frustrated, the reader may either give up or begin examining the form

of the novel, looking behind the plot for clues. Since Kinbote is

untrustworthy, the reader searches for a trustworthy author behind

him and finds, finally, a trace of one in the great variety of irony

embedded in Kinbote*s narration. This author is silent, but the

reader at least knows he is there, guiding the fiction in some unknow­

able direction. Prom this point the reader returns to the fiction and

finds that the author has been there all along, carefully blocking all

"ultimate solutions," "playing a game of worlds," as the poet John 2 Shade says. And then comes the final realization; we, the readers,

have been playing the same game that John Shade plays, trying to find

2 Vladimir Nabokov, Bale Fire (New York; Berkeley Medallion, 1962), p, 45, All further references will be parenthetical, citing page numbers in this edition first (as it, the same as the lancer edition, is the only edition available today), followed by a slash and the page number of the first edition (New York; Putnam's, 1962), evidence of a sensible creator in this illogical fictional world, and we have come to the same result, for we have found that, although we

cannot understand the creator of this "wonderful nonsense," we can at

least discern that he exists.

We shall examine the sources of confusion burled in the novel and

demonstrate the way in which they reduce the search for an Ultimate

Truth to a sense of uncertainty that keeps the reader from deriving meaning. We shall examine the purposes of this uncertainty within the novel, and, finally, we shall explain how this concept relates to the

rest of Nabokov's canon. CHAPTER ONE

CRITICAL APPROACHES

It is not easy to describe lucidly In short notes to a poem the various approaches to a fortified castle.— Charles Kinbote

A substantial amount of criticism has been devoted to Bale Fire.

For the most part, this criticism has been aimed at coming to an understanding of what is "going on" in the novel; that is, it has been

directed at theme or meaning rather than form or stylistics. The most

intriguing aspect of this body of criticism is its diversity of

opinion about what the "facts" of the story world are, Nina Berberova

offers the best explanation of this phenomenon*

There is In Rile Fire a structural surprise* the symbolic level, the fantastic, the poetic, lies on its surface and is obvious, while the factual, the realistic is only slightly hinted at, and may be approached as a riddle. The realistic level is hidden by the symbolic one which has nothing enigmatic in it and is immediately clear to the re^er. To know the real facts is another story and a tricky one.

The problem is that of relating Kinbote*s foreword, commentary, and

index to Shade's poem. Four dramatically different solutions are

suggested by four of Nabokov's prominent critics,

Rge Stegner, whose Escape into Aestheticsi The Art of Vladimir

Nabokov appeared in 1966, argues that

Nabokov's fiction , . , seems to concern itself consistently

^ "The Mechanics of Pale Fire," in Nabokov* Gritlclam, Reminis­ cences, Translations, and Tributes, ed. Alfred Appel, Jr., and Charles E. Newman (Svimstoni Northwestern Univ. Press, 1970), pp. 14-7-48. with two major problems* the way in which certain horrors of physical reality and finite consciousness can be escaped, and the discovery of a direction or design in the haphazard events of human life.^

Stegner believes that both of these problems are addressed In Bale

Fire; the escape is performed by Kinbote, the discovery of a design by Shade. Stegner introduces an Important aspect of the conclusion of this paper* the participation of the reader in playing the word games in Pale Fire is "extremely relevant," for "solving them involves us, in âlniature, in the se«ne kind of process that Shade describes in his poem." Like most of the critics, Stegner spends some time tracking down allusions in the novel, but finally he appears to go beyond the bounds of reasonable interpretation by stating that, although "a great measure" of the comedy In the book arises from the discrepancy between

Shade's poem and Kinbote*s interpretation, "the more ironical joke

. . . is that Kinbote, crazy as he may be, has actually understood

Shade's poem," This statement leads Stegner to a suggestion that

"Gradus and Shade are as much figments of Kinbote's imagination as

Charles the Beloved and the far-distant land of Zembla."^ This interpretation is extremely unlikely, for it proposes that a madman

has created a perfectly sane old poet.

In his Nabokov * His Life in Art, Andrew Field relates Bale Fire

to two chapters of Nabokov's unfinished novel. Solus Rex. Like Rile

Fire, Solus flex tells two stories, one of a northern kingdom and the

2 Escape I n ^ Aestheticsi The Art of Vladimir Nabokov (New York* Dial Press, 1966J7 p. 116. 3 Stegner, p. 126,

Stegner, p. 129, other of an artist attempting to come to terms with his wife's death.

Field decides that the epigraph to Bale Fire, from Boswell's Life of

Dr, Johnson, is most likely placed by Shade. He then finds an account of a story of Boswell's family to be written by Johnson that never came to be. This reference occurs on the same page of the Life of Dr,

Johnson as the epigraph, and from it and some of "Pale Fire's" variants that refer to Zembla, Field builds an argument that Shade creates

Kinbote, that Shade's death is only an artistic death,^ He supports his argument with a discussion of mirror Imagery in Bale Fire,

Unfortunately, Field presupposes as part of his proof that John Shade did indeed write the poem's two variants that mention Zembla, From this he concludes that Shade may have intended to write at some other time a poem about Zembla,^ As we shall see, we can prove arithmetically that Shade did not write these two variants,

Carol Williams, while tempering her argument by saying that "a critic would have to be brave to assert his viewpoint was the ultimate perspective of this book," suggests that "Gradus, Shade, and Kinbote— who the title page of the Index states to be 'the three main characters in this work'— are actually three aspects of one person— an artist *7 whose art and life are like his arcsi parts of one spiral,"'

Williams also points out the irony of Shade's search for a foresight

of life after death* "Ironically, man struggles to attain the end he

^ Nabokov* His Life In Art (Boston* Little, Brown, I967), pp. 299-300,

^ Field, p, 300.

"'Web of Sense'* Bale Fire in the Nabokov Canon," Critique* Studies In Modem Fiction, 6 , No, 3 (1963), 33. g Is inevitably and effortlessly moving towards— his death,"

Finally we come to Pale Fire * s earliest significant critic, Mary

McCarthy, whose "A Bolt from the Blue" appeared in June, 1962, Almost all of the critics who follow either agree with or attack McCarthy's proposition, and almost all pay her a debt of gratitude, McCarthy lays out three "levels" of Bale Fire. The first contains Shade and his poem and Charles Kinbote, a refugee from Zembla, who is the annotator of Shade's poem and who now is living In a cabin In Cedam, Utana,

Shade has been killed by a man who calls himself Jack Grey, The next level is that of Kinbote's story of Zembla, which he believes he has

Inspired Shade with, and which he believes Shade's poem is really about. Therefore, Kinbote's commentary is absolutely necessary to an understanding of Shade's poem. It is discovered from Kinbote*s notes that he is In fact Charles the Beloved, exiled King of Zembla,

Meanwhile, back in Zembla, the revolutionaries have sent Jakob Gradus to kill King Charles, but Gradus misses at the fatal moment and kills

Shade instead and then hides his real identity by claiming to be Jack

Grey, Then there is the "real, real story" which "has been transpiring gradually, by degrees, to the reader." Kinbote is An Insane, harmless refugee named Botkin who Imagines himself to be king of a fictional land. Shade's killer Is again Jack Grey, and the poem is what it appears to be, "Projected onto Zembla, in fact, are the dally events of the campus." McCarthy concludes, however, that "the plane of ordinary fijmitjr and common sense, the reader's presumed plane, cannot be accepted as final, , . , Each plane or level in its shadow box

® Williams, p, 40, 8 proves to be a false bottom; there is an infinite regression, for the o book is a book of mirrors."

It is obvious that all of these views cannot be correct; If Shade invents Kinbote, then Kinbote cannot have invented Shade. Except for

McCarthy, who refuses to arrive at a unified conclusion, these various critics offer interpretations that are mutually exclusive, and each interpretation seems to contain some unsubstantiated assumption.

Unfortunately, most of these critics and many of the other critics of

Pale Fire have grossly misread the novel, not in the gray area of

interpretation but simply in the black and white of words on its pages.

It is disappointing to see otherwise respectable critics undermine the quality of their work by making errors at the first step, the process of reading the text of the novel. Even if these errors are ignored,

however, the fact remains that these various interpretations by responsible critics point to the thesis of this paper, which is that there is no one correct interpretation that conclusively connects the

various levels of Pale Fire. In fact, on close examination, the

text reveals a conscious effort to block attempts at discovering a meaning. We shall examine specific Instances in the next chapter.

^ "A Bolt from the Blue," The New Republic. 4 June 1962, pp. 21-22, CHAPTER TWO

THE TECHNIQUES OF CREATING UNCERTAINTY

A palace intrugue is a spectral spider that entangles you more nastily In every desperate jefk you try.— Charles Kinhote

In the last chapter we examined different critical statements about Pale Fire. The variety of these interpretive attempts suggests another critical possibility that partially explains the disparate views of Stegner, Field, Williams, and McCarthyi perhaps there is no way within the novel to discern a single, primary theme. The attempt of the critics has been to assign significance to each Item in the story world in an attempt at what Jonathan Culler calls recuperation,

"the desire to leave no chaff, to make everything wheat, to let nothing escape but integrate it in a larger scheme by giving it a meaning."^ It is the primary function of criticism to Interpret, to explain how appearance in a created and hopefully logical world is related to reality. Thus the act of recuperation involves determining how each aspect or event in a novel contributes to the overall statement about life or truth or reality that the author is trying to make. I suggest that any attempt at recuperation is actively blocked by Nabokov; while attempting to discern the "meaning" of Pale Fire, the careful reader becomes aware of a conscious effort to prevent any

^ Flautert; The Uses of Uncertainty (Ithaca; Cornell Univ. Press, 197^)» p. 22, 10 derivation of meaning*

In approaching Bale Fire from a formal viewpoint, the reader expects, from its table of contents, that the fictional world it contains will be a recognisable literary form of poem and scholarly emendation. In this manner a tacit agreement is established between the reader and the author* the commentator will present a poem and then enlarge the reader's understanding of it in the commentary by pointing out themes and allusions. By the end of the foreword, however, this tacit agreement is broken; the commentator has introduced many extraneous elements that illuminate not the poem but his own psychological makeup. The reader is uncertain what to expect from this apparently disturbed man, who "for better or worse" has "the last word"

(p. 19/29), In examining the poem and commentary, the reader quickly becomes aware that Kinbote has a story to tell. Furthermore, in spite of the fact that Kinbote is sure that the poem echoes his story of

Zembla, the reader comes to realize that the final version of the poem contains nothing of that story. Instead of enlarging the reader's understanding, Kinbote has introduced a misinterpretation* he is sure that on a subliminal level "Pale Fire" is concerned with Zembla and

King Charles, Thus, whatever he says about the poem Is suspicious.

The reader later discovers that Kinbote lies about the variants to the poem to benefit his own Interpretation, On the occasions when he does attempt to understand specific elements of the poem he proves to be unbearably stupid. The final blow comes when the reader realizes that

Kinbote's own story contains narrative errors and may be a figment of his imagination. The reader comes to distrust almost everything

Kinbote says, which comprises most of the book. Not only is Kinbote 11 unreliable, he is also unpleasant— a blatant homosexual and an insatiable voyeur. Yet it Is Kinbote who has the last word,

Nabokov, the author controlling both the poem and the notes, also lays a formidable groundwork of deception. The reader's attempts at recuperation are constantly blocked, for many statements on which the reader relies are later shown to be in error. In other words, while the reader is placed in a position of superiority over Kinbote by being allowed to recognize Kinbote*s errors and stupidity, the reader

is still made inferior to the AAplied author by having his attempts at creating a synthesis blocked by sudden removal of the thesis or antithesis. The end product of Kinbote*s untrustworthiness and

Nabokov's deception is the reader's feeling of confusion and uncertainty. What is to be made of these distorted reflections? Does

Zembla exist? Is Kinbote really a king? Who is Shade's murderer—

Jakob Gradus, systematic killer, or Jack Grey, escapee from the

Institute for the Criminal Insane?

Kinbote and His Narrative

Throughout his commentary, Kinbote attempts to dive beneath the

surface of Shade's poem, but he mistakes clams for oysters. However,

the primary form of his untrustworthiness derives not from this mistake

but from the many implications that he is insane. These implications

come form two sources— remarks by others that are reported by Kinbote,

and indications made by Kinbote himself. On the first page of the

foreword, Kinbote interrupts a technical description of the poem's

manuscript to say, "There Is a very loud amusement park right in front

of my present lodgings" (p, ?/l3). The abruptness of this intrusion 12 startles the reader; such an intrusion should not occur in a work of scholarship, which is what the work purports to be at this point in the foreword. The amusement park intrudes four times in the foreword, each time becoming more subtly entwined with Kinbote*s comments and emphasizing the mental instability that allows this irrelevant intrusion, Kinbote Intrudes several times in the commentary to refer to his disorder, first at the end of the note to lines 47-48, He has just been attempting to list the physical aspects of the Wordsmith

University campus, but we discover that this general description has become a description of the campus on a specific summer day when a youngster Is flying a model airplane. Immediately after this descrip­ tion, Kinbote interjects, "Dear Jesus, do something" (p. 67/93)t indicating that the noise of the airplane deeply upsets him. Further­ more, he repeatedly refers to severe migrane headaches. As he lists his possibilities for the future at the end of the novel, Kinbote

includes "I may huddle and groan in a madhouse" (p. 212/301),

Other characters refer to Kinbote*s madness also. In the foreword

Kinbote describes a brief conversation with an unnamed lady who says

to him, "I fail to see how John and Sybil can stand you, , , , What's

more, you are insane" (p. I6/25), In the commentary, Kinbote quotes

a memorandum written by his arch enemy, Professor Hurley, which states

that Kinbote "is known to have a deranged mind" (p. 139/195), These

and a number of other Indirect and direct references consistently

maintain the thread of Kinbote*s insanity throughout the novel,

Kinbote’8 references to his disordered mind work primarily

through form rather than content. He seems to allow intrusions such as the amusement park and the model airplane to drift into his 13 commentary as they overpower his thoughts; the intrusions strike us as Interruptions In logical development. In a similar manner, Kinbote shifts from one level of his commentary to another through a peculiar referential system of words. The first reference to Zembla and King

Charles comes about through sùch a referential system. The note to line 12, "that crystal -land," la, Kinbote says, "perhaps an allusion to Zembla, my dear country" (p, 54/?4), Clearly this line in the poem has nothing to do with Zembla, as it refers to the snow-covered night ground outside Shade's window. But Kinbote introduces at the same point a variant (later confessed to be his own invention) that clearly does allude to Zembla, This allows him to begin his story of

King Charles, A few pages later, a note to line 42, "I could make out," uses the poem's wording to introduce a comment about Kinbote*s supposed influence on Shade's poemi "By the end of May I could make out the outlines of some of my images in the shape his genius might give them" (p, $8/80), The "I" shifts posesaion from Shade to Kinbote, indicating Kinbote's continuous usurpation of the poem for his own devices.

Even more confusing that the referential shifts from poem to note are those that cause a sudden shift within a note; a good example is the note to line 162, Kinbote is commenting on Shade's childhood fainting spells»

It must have been a mild form of epilepsy, a derailment of the nerves at the same spot, on the same curve of the tracks, every day, for several weeks, until nature repaired the damage, Who can forget the good-natured faces, glossy with sweat, of copper­ chested railway workers leaning upon their spades and following with their eyes the windows of the great express cautiously gliding by? (p. 106/147),

The train as metaphor of Shade's illness becomes an actual train on 14 which Kinbote is riding; in fact, In the index, it becomes a specific train, the Orient Express (p. 218/308),

A more blatant method of confusion than these narrative interruptions is narrative error. In describing Gradus* visit to

Joseph Lavender's villa, Kinbote Appears to forget what he Is doing, lavender's nephew Gordon is showing Gradus the garden, and In the

course of this scene, Gordon's clothing changes four times. Initially

he wears "a leopard-spotted loincloth," then he is "wreathed about

the loins with ivy," then he is wearing "black bathing trunks," then

"white tennis shorts," and finally he returns to "his Tarzan briefs"

(pp. 143-44/199-201),

A pair of more subtle narrative errors occurs in Kinbote*s

description of the King's night flight overthe Bera Mountains, The

King has stopped for the night at a farmhouse, and in the morning

"he found his host outside, in a damp comer consigned to the humble

needs of nature" (p, 10l/l40-4l), The two men go inside. Griff (the

farmer) awakens his daughter, and as the King is preparing to leave.

Griff starts "the laborious business of unlocking and unbolting two

or three heavy doors" (p, 102/141), While the reader Is puzzling

over how Griff could have just been outside while the doors were

locked, another quirk slips by* the farmer has on his mantlepiece "a

color print representing an elegant guardsman with his bare-shouldered

wife— Karl the Beloved, as he was twenty odd years before, and his

young queen, an angry young virgin with coal-black hair and ice-blue

eyes" (p, 102/141-42), We already know that the year of the King's

escape is 1958 and that King Charles wed Disa in 1949 (pp. 81-82/112),

nine years before. We later learn that the King first saw Disa on 15

July 5t 1947, eleven years before his escape (p, 124/173)* If Kinbote can't keep his own story straight, how are we to accept his

interpretations of Shade's?

In the infrequent moments when Kinbote attempts to understand or

interpret elements of the world of New Wye or of Shade's poem, he exhibits extraordinary stupidity by refusing to understand what appears obvious to the reader. In explaining a note that someone surrep­ titiously thrust in his pocket ("You have hal , . , , , s real bad,

chum"), Kinbote concludes that the note means "'hallucinations,' although a malevolent critic might infer from the insufficient number

of dashes that little Mr, Anon, despite teaching Freshman English,

could hardly spell" (p, 7I/98), Kinbote is so set on disparaging Mr,

Anon that he misses what the reader quickly sees— "itosi" fits

perfectly,

Kinbote lacks any awareness of American sports, and this, too,

causes him error. In his note to line I30, "I never bounced a ball

or swung a bat," Kinbote eagerly concludes that this refers to

European and British sports 1 "Frankly I too never excelled in soccer

and cricket" (p. 85/ÎI7 ), In fact, since Shade is an American, the

poem probably refers to basketball and baseball. In a note to an

earlier line, Kinbote concludes that in the newspaper headline "Red

Sox Beat Yanks 5-4/On Chapman * s Homer (11, 98-99), the phrase "on

Chapman's Homer" has been "drolly Transposed" by a printer. He is

apparently ignorant of baseball slang. In fact (this is my favorite

discovery), these two lines are one of many indications of the author

behind the narrator carefully controlling the reader's perception and

blocking recuperation, Benjamin Franklin Chapman played for the 16

Boston Red Sox for two years, In 1937 and 1938» therefore this exact headline could have appeared. However, in the course of these two years the Red Sox never beat the Yankees by a score of 5-4, and

Chapman never hit a game-deciding home run.

Kinbote*s stupidity is not limited to misinterpretation of surreptitious notes and a lack of awareness of American sports. His critical vision proves very limited when he attacks Shade's coordination of unrelated events, a technique that Kinbote uses more than Shade, In describing Shade's use of the technique in the events that lead to Hazel's death (television scenes versus Hazel's drowning),

Kinbote comments that "the whole thing strikes me as too labored and long, especially since the synchronization device has been already worked to death by Flaubert and Joyce" (p, 140/196), Kinbote fails to make the fairly obvious connection between this synchronization and his own synchronization of Gradus* movements with Shade's composition of "Bale Fire," In effect, he attacks his own technique for relating one of the central themes of his narrative. To go a step further, we may safely say that the fact that Gradus or Grey, whoever he may be, kills Shade, a poet writing a poem one of whose major themes is

"topsy-turvical coincidence," is an immense and cruel coincidence.

But Kinbote never understands this theme ; in attempting to recuperate

his life he cannot accept the possibility of an accident or coincidence.

Thus, having quoted early in the commentary the very lines of Timon

of Athens from which the poem's title has been taken (p. 58/80),

Kinbote uses an argument against coincidence in denying that the title

could be from that play* "All I have with me is a tiny vest pocket edition of Timon of Athens— in Zemblant It certainly contains nothing 17 that could he regarded as an equivalent of 'pale fire* (if it had, ray luck would have been a statistical monster)" (p. 210/285)# The dramatic irony of this and other cases of Kinbote*s stupidity place him far from the reader.

As if all of the preceding problems weren't enough to make the reader doubt Kinbote, another element enters his untrustworthiness— he lies. The only variant to the poem that refers to Kinbbte himself is the firstI "Ah, I must not forget to say something/That my friend told me of a certain king" (p. 54/?4), This variant reinforces three of Kinbote*3 themes— his story of Zembla, his friendship with Shade, and the idea that Shade intended to use some of Kinbote's story in his poem. The variant is, supposedly, part of the one source in Bale Fire that the reader can trust— the poem. In a much later note, however,

Kinbote admits that he invented this variant (p. 162/227-28). The admission of this falsification puts all of the variants in doubt, particularly the other two that seem to refer to Zembla— the king's escape (p. 72/9 9 ) and the discovery of a secret passage In a castle

(p. 85/118), In the index Kinbote refers to three additional variants as " K 'b contribution" (p, 224/314), and two of these three are the other two references to Zembla mentioned above. Thus all traces of

Kinbote's story are removed from Shade's poem and its variants.

In the case of the variants, as in the baseball headline, the author behind the narrator has set a trap for the meticulous reader.

In the foreword, Kinbote mentions the variants* "Another, much thinner, set of a dozen cards, clipped together and enclosed in the same man!la envelope as the main batch, bears some additional couplets running their brief aind sometimes smudgy course among a chaos of first 18 drafts" (p. 9/15)» later, in the note to line 1000, Kinbote talks of his methods of hiding the poem. The final and most ludicrous hiding place is in his clothes 1 "for a few days wore it, as it were, having distributed the ninety-two index cards about ray person, twenty in the right-hand pocket of my coat, as many In the left-hand one, a batch of forty against my right nipple and the twelve precious ones with variants in my innermost left-breast pocket" (p. 212/200), We learn from these two statements that there are twelve variants. If one counts the number of variants quoted in the commentary, one discovers that there are seventeen. Subtracting the four that Kinbote admits he has written, one is left with thirteen variants, Including the twelve originals. Thus one other variant must be specious, and there is no way of absolutely deteimlning which one this is. Again the reader is blocked from recuperation,

Kinbote also lies about his relationship with John and Sybil

Shade, He desires to edit Shade's poem because he thinks it is about

Zembla; he feels he has a right to edit the poem because he is Shade's closest friend, Kinbote*s conception of Shade's friendship is constantly undermined in both overt and subtle ways. In his peculiar willingness to tell all and thus not control his story to gain his own ends, Kinbote reveals John Shade's true attitude toward him at the same time that he attempts to display Shade's friendship.

Both of these aspects are displayed at times with great subtlety and at times overtly. One description of Kinbote*s close friendship with Shade is cleverly undermined through use of a stylistic technique of including words that undermine what follows while seeming to enhance the description. William Rowe calls this technique "easily 19

2 unnoticed precision." In the case in point, Kinbote says "this friendship was the more precious for its tenderness being intentionally concealed, especially when we were not alone" (p. 16/25). The word

"especially" undermines the meaning of the statement ; Kinbote is saying that Shade's friendship is "intentionally concealed" when the two are alone as well as when they are not, which indicates that he must assume its existence.

A less subtle indication of Kinbote*s actual relationship with the

Shades occurs in the notes to lines 47-48. In this note Kinbote gives a subtle example of his nosiness and allows John's true attitude

toward his intrusions to be discerned. First, Kinbote casually mentions "bringing [John] some third-class mail from his box on the road" (p. 62/86). The reader must realize the implication of this

event, which is that Kinbote has been going through Shade's mailbox.

He is intercepted by Sybil, whom he has not noticed, as she is

"squatting on her hams in front of a flower bed" (p. 62/86), Sybil

informs Kinbote that John has started a poem and should not be

disturbed, Kinbote mumbles "something about his not having shown any

of it to me yet" (p. 62/86), which logically prompts Sybil's response,

"What do you mean— shown any of it? He never shows anything

unfinished" (p, 63/86), When this statement is reinforced by John,

Kinbote decides that his "strangely reticent friend" has been "well

coached by his lady" (p. 63/87), Kinbote cannot accept the fact that

John has no intention of discussing his unfinished poem. Shortly

2 "The Honesty of Nabokovian Deception," in A Book of Things about Vladimir Nabokov, ed. Carl R. Proffer (Ann Arbort Ardis, 1974), pTl?!. 20 after this encounter, Kinbote discovers the Shades one night when they have moved to the one side of their house that he cannot see from any of his usual spying points. In order to find them, Kinbote has walked through their yard and is standing in a box hedge to peer in the window; he finds them both nearly in tears. The reader discerns the cause of this, although Kinbote does not— John is reading part of his poem to Sybil, By comparing the date (July 11) to the progression of the composition of the poem, the reader quickly discerns that John is reading Canto Two, which deals with Hazel's suicide, Kinbote stubbornly refuses to believe that John would read his unfinished poem to Sybil but not to him. However, he cites an incident four days later when this fact is so obvious that not even he can deny it.

Having been "stood up" by John for a sunset ramble, Kinbote finds the

Shades in their kitchen and walks in. This time he realizes that John is indeed reading his poem to Sybil, John Shade, obviously annoyed, emits "an unprintable oath" and begins "to clean the bowl of his pipe as if it were ray heart he were hollowing out" (p. 66/91), Later John apologizes, but still Kinbote reads '!a hideous meaning" into these events*

Not only did I understand then that Shade regularly read to Sybil cumulative parts of his poem but it also dawns upon me now that, just as regularly, she made him tone down or remove from his Fair Copy everything connected with the magnificent Zemblan theme with which I kept furnishing him (p, 66/9I),

This enlightening and quite funny note to lines 47-48 exhibits Kinbote's incredible refusal to realize that he is not the center around which

Shade's life revolves,

Charles Kinbote Is the author of approximately eighty-seven percent of the material in Pale Fire, As we have seen, he Is 21 absolutely untrustworthy because of his insanity and his blinding desire to prove that "Pale Fire" is about Zembla, The reader is left suspended, wondering what to believe or how to recuperate the amorphous mass of the commentary. Many of Kinbote's faults are exhibited through dramatic irony and unconscious narrative irony, two techniques that point behind Kinbote to the author, Nabokov, who is sharing a variety of jokes with the reader at Kinbote's expense.

In effect, these little jokes do assist the reader in a limited form of recuperation that includes the conclusions reached thus far in this chapterI Kinbote is insane, Kinbote is a liar, Kinbote is an object of pity, rather than a close friend, to John Shade. From a careful reading of Shade's poem (the reader's last grasp at something trustworthy), it becomes evident that Shade never intended to mention or allude t6 Zembla at all.

Shade and His Poem

Having been meude uncertain and uncomfortable by Kinbote's narrative, the reader turns from the unreliable storm of foreword, commentary, and index to the more reliable port of Shade's poem.

Shade is evidently not insane, and his poem is his creation, an apparently autobiographical recounting of his search for a meaning to

life and death. It is not abstiruse* it is, apparently, unfinished.

The four cantos of "Pale Fire" may be categorized as follows.

Canto One begins with a description of the natural world and its many

deceits, especially in conjunction with the man-made object of glass.

From this theme Shade switches to memory and its tricks— his thousand

evoked parents. He recalls his childhood and his Aunt Maud. He 22 describes his joy in contemplation of the unfathomable natural world and his puzzlement at the conundrum of the ability of a seemingly finite being (man) to recognize infinity. The canto closes with a description of his childhood fainting fits in which he foretastes a removal from time and space.

Canto Two begins with Shade's exploration of thè possibility of an afterlife and contains its resulti "Today I'm sixty-one, Waxwings/

Are berry-pecking. A cicada sings" (11. 181-82, p, 28/39)« Shade continues the description of his questioning, again returning to the

incomprehensibility of life, the impassability of nature. Following this, he addresses his wife, confirming his love for her. Finally, he describes their daughter, Hazel, and the canto ends with her suicide.

Canto Three presents Shade's brief sojurn at the Institute of

Preparation for the Hereafter, a rather ludicrous place that attempts to define proper etiquette in heaven. Shade next describes his heart attack, the fountain he sees, and his interview with Mrs, 2, his kindred spirit in fountain viewing} and finally comes to his "faint

hope"} "not text, but texture ; not the dream/But topsy-turvical

coincidence,/Not flimsy nonsense, but a web of sense" (ll. 808-810,

p. 4 4 /6 3 ).

Canto Four begins rather lightheartedly, promising great things

and then stalling with a description of Shade's process of composition,

which leads to a lengthy description of his shaving technique. He then

returns to his affinity with Sybil, a selection of a name for the poem,

and a statement of his found meaning of llfei

I feel I understand Existence, or at least a minute part 23

Of my existence, only through my art, In terms of combinational delight; And if ray private universe scans right, So does the verse of galaxies divine Which I suspect is an iambic line. (11. 970-76, p. 4-9/68-69)

The poem concludes with Shade's assertion that he believes his daughter exists in some afterlife and a satisfied return to things temporal— a description of the late afternoon of July 21, 1959.

The climax of the poem, if we may call it such, occurs at the end of Canto Three, as Shade takes comfort in the realization that, although he cannot discern anything about continued existence after death, he can discern the presence of some force "playing a game of worlds" by creating wild coincidences with life, such as the misprint of "fountain" for "mountain" in Mrs, Z's story. Moreover, this particular coincidence, the revelatory one for Shade, not only points to forces, but suggests that they are not indifferent— they seem to have created this coincidence just for him, which means they are aware of his existence, and herein lies the comfort. Unfortunately, Shade's comfort proves short-lived.

"The Underside of the Weave"— the Author's Presence

The forces that Shade discerns operating in his life seem to be one step ahead of him. At the end of the poem, Shade conforms to his self-created image at the beginning! "I was the shadow of the waxwing slain" (l. 1, p. 23/33). Although he is aware of the coincidence of the misprint of "fountain" for "mountain," he is apparently unaware of the coincidence of the gardener "trundling an empty barrow up the lane"

(1 . 999» p. 49/69) and the "tin wheelbarrow pushed by a tin boy" that prefigured his childhood fainting fits (l. 144, p. 26/38). This lack 24 of awareness on Shade's part, easily discerned by the reader, places the reader in a superior position to Shade, but at the same time it

emphasizes the validity of Shade's discovery. By stepping back from

the novel, the reader can gain an awareness of the validity of Shade's

discovery by recognizing that the creator of coincidences in Shade's

poem, as well as the creator of uncertainty and confusion in Kinbote's

commentary, is the author, Nabokov, By definition, the author is the

creator of the fictional world, whether this Implied author is overt

or covert. As we have hinted, the author of whom we speak is not

Vladimir Nabokov, of Montreux, Switzerland, but the semifictional

Nabokov, the artist whose creation is Pale Fire, This is Wayne Booth's

"implied author," the shaper of the fiction who, however impersonal he 3 tries to be, will nevertheless in some way inform the story world.

Our implied author realizes the fullest implication of his position,

which is that his relationship to the story world he has created is

the same as that of a god or a primary force to the physical world,

Nabokov masterfully buries traps for the studious reader who

would thoroughly research the allusions in Pale Fire. We have already

seen two of his workings behind the scenes— the problem of the number

of variants and the baseball headline on Maud Shade's door. Twice

more Nabokov sends the researcher chasing after magazine and newspaper

articles and advertisements. In the note to line 91, "trivia,"

Kinbote refers very specifically to two somewhat risqué advertisements

in Life magazine for Talon zippers and Hanes underwear, Kinbote

helpfully gives date and page number for both, and both ads occur as

3 The Rhetoric of Fiction (Chicagoi Univ. of Chicago Press, I96I), pp. 71-77. 25 quoted. In his note to line 949, "and all the time," Kinbote shows

Gradus reading issues of the New York Times for July 20 and July 21,

1959, Kinbote quotes a number of stories and ads, all but one of which exist, except that the details concerning Zembla are added and the names of companies are anagrams. There is no reference to a thunderbolt smashing a TV set in Newark, although there were thunderstorms in New York on July 20, 1959, and parts of Newark were flooded (p. 194/275). In short, everything fits with one maddening exception. Thus the reader is allowed to discover a connection between the reality of New York City and the fictional world of New

Wye, down to one missing link. Kinbote probably speaks for the author when he says "I confess it has been a wonderful game— this looking up in the WUL of various ephemerldes over the shadow of a padded shoulder" (p. 194/275).

Another source of confusion is the actual form of the poem.

Kinbote carefully explains its appearance on the opening page of the foreword!

The manuscript, mostly a Fair Copy, from which the present text has been faithfully printed, consists of eighty medium-sized index cards, on each of which Shade reserved the pink upper line for headings (canto number, date) and used the fourteen light- blue lines for writing out with a fine nib in a minute, tidy, remarkably clear hand, the text of his poem, skipping a line to indicate a double space, and always using a fresh card to begin a new canto (p. 7/l3).

The words "faithfully printed" almost challenge the reader to reconstruct the manuscript. This can be done by comparing the first

(Putnam's) edition with the paperback (Berkeley or lancer) edition in order to find all double spaces. Following the directions above, one finds that the first canto does not tally— it contains one too many 26 lines to fit on the thirteen cards allotted, This could he explained as a printer's error in inserting an extra space somewhere, but still, it is puzzling} and if it is a printer's error, it raises the question, which printer? The fictional printer (who has made a number of other errors), or the real one? All the other cantos fit on their allotted cards; however, Canto Four is exactly the same length as Canto One but missing its final line, which means that it fits exactly on thirteen

cards with no room for line 1000. At several points in the text

Kinbote specifically states what lines appear on what cards. The first two instances, in Canto Two, do not tally with the reconstruction and are also only thirteen lines long instead of the fourteen prescribed

in the foreword. The one reference to lines on cards in Canto Three

shows the correct number— fourteen— but again the beginning and ending

lines do not tally. Only the remarks made concerning the appearance

and number of lines in Canto Four agree with the parameters of the

foreword. These apparent errors on Kinbote's part make the reader

doubt the authenticity of the poem. It is possible for Kinbote to

have erred or been imprecise in the description of the poem in the

foreword, but the reader is left wondering, uncertain of what to make

of these errors.

The most unnerving narrative error in the commentary occurs in

the note to line 181, "Today," and appears to point to the author and

not the narrator. Kinbote is detailing Shade's movements on the night

of July 5 and the early morning of July 6i "On another trip to the

bathroom [Kinbote has drunken a bottle of champagne by himself that

evening] an hour and a half later, at sunrise, I found the light

transferred to the bedroom, and smiled indulgently, for, according to 2? my deductions, only two nights had passed since the three-thousand- nine-hundred-ninety-ninth time— but no matter” (p, 113/157), The only thing in the novel that the number 3,999 can possibly refer to occurs in lines 275-277 of the poemi

We have been married forty years. At least Four thousand times your pillow has been creased By our two heads, (p. 30/4-3)

Kinbote lets the reader know that he is aware of something in the poem sixteen days before he says he first read it. But the most unnerving fact here (for the reader, at least— Shade would no doubt be unnerved to find that Kinbote keeps count of the number of times he makes love to his wife) is that Kinbote refers to lines that have not yet been written.

The primary intentional geographic confusion carefully placed by the author is that of the location of New Wye, Appalachia, There are references throughout the foreword and commentary to New Wye's location, but outside of this, a simple reversal of town and state suggests

Appalachia, New York. There is no Appalachia, New York, but there is an Appalachin, New York, However, there is a town of Appalachia in southwestern Virginia, The chase is on. Kinbote says in the foreword that New Wye is "at the latitude of Palermo" (p. 12/19). Palermo,

Sicily, is approximately 3^^ 30* In latitude, roughly equivalent to

Staunton, Virginia, in the United States. However, there is also a

Palermo, Ontario, Canada, at 43° 45* latitude, roughly equivalent to to central New York. Kinbote refers to "New Wye in New England"

(p. 100/139). As Gradus prepares to leave New York, he discovers that the train "left at 5*13 A,M. . , . and took eleven hours to cover the four hundred miles to Exton" (p. 195/277). No point in New York State 28 is 400 miles from New York City; however, Roanoake, Virginia, is.

Kinbote finally reinforces this fact by saying that the newspapers say that "Jack Grey had been given a ride from Roanoake, or somewhere"

(p. 200/284), Ultimately, one cannot say for certain where New Wye is; there are enough clues to both locations to make the matter unsolvable.

One ambiguity frequently discussed and obviously attributable to the author is that of the novel's epigraph. In the paperback edition of Pale Fire this quotation from the Life of Samuel Johnson occurs immediately after the table of contents, which indicates, as G, B,

Chabot has pointed out, that it is part of the fictional world

This implies that either Shade or Kinbote b&s placed it there; indeed at one point Kinbote mentions having in his notebook "a footnote from

Boswell's Life of Dr, Johnson" (p. Ill/l54), Although the epigraph is not a footnote, this at least indicates Kinbote's awareness of the book.

But it seems unlikely that the epigraph could be placed by Shade unless he foresaw his own death and Kinbote's theft. It seems equally unlikely that Kinbote would Introduce the quotation, for he would be equating himself with a "favorite cat." The epigraph is ambiguous within the story world, but It is much clearer as a comment on the entirety of Pale Fire by Nabokov, If one looks in the Putnam's (first) edition, one discovers that the epigraph comes before the table of contents, thus allowing the authorship of Nabokov, Although Nabokov has pointed out a number of textual errors in the paperback edition of

Pale Fire,^ he has not mentioned the shift of the epigraph. This

4 Personal conversation, November 1976.

^ "An Interview with Vladimir Nabokov," cond. Alfred Appel, Jr., p. 75. 29 seems to imply that Nabokov likes the ambiguity and the uncertainty that this dual positioning creates.

Nabokov is a master of various techniques that require the reader's involvement in the events of the story world in terms of discerning what Kinbote cannot see, of making connections that Kinbote does not make, and of researching allusions. The Impetus to this sort of involvement is a better understanding of what is "going on” in

Bale Fire} yet, as we have seen, most of these attempts, while appearing to explain, only serve to confuse by offering more possibilities and no solutions. Some things are knowni Shade is dead, Kinbote is insane, Kinbote thinks that Shade, his best friend, has subtly woven the story of Zembla into the poem "Pale Fire," whereas Shade at best pities Kinbote and has ignored his wild story.

Some things are probable} Kinbote's story of Zembla is his own

invention, Gradus is actually Jack Grey, lunatic* And some things are

possible; Kinbote is actually V. Botkin, Kinbote commits suicide at

the end of the book. There is no way to prove or disprove the probable

or possible items; the reader is left in doubt as to which of these

elements are in the story world, and this doubt prevents any successful

recuperation.

This chapter has given many examples of a conscious undermining of

the "facts," a constant blocking of recuperation. There are many more

examples, and several hundred additional pages could be written

presenting them. Even when the reader takes for granted Kinbote’s

unreliability and Insanity, there remains the question of why Kinbote

intentionally undermines his own story. To return to Wayne Booth's 30 systems of narrative technique, the reader is placed at a great distance from the story world of Zembla by recognition of the possibility of its fictionality, at a great distance from the rest of

Kinbote's commentary by recognition of Kinbote's insanity, pederasty, voyeurism, and stupidity, and at some distance from Shade's poem both by suspicion of its authenticity and by recognition of Shade's apparent failure to recognize the coincidence that foreshadows his death. The reader is placed in close proximity to the Implied author by his superiority to the three fictional worlds just mentioned.

Still, the reader is uncertain of how to connect the events In the story world of Pale Fire either to each other or to something outside the story world, Nabokov's uses of this uncertainty will be investigated in the next chapter. CHAPTER THREE

THE USES OP UNCERTAINTY

There Is no appeal, no advice, no support, no correction, nothing.— Charles Kinbote

As we have seen, there is in Pale Fire a conscious force blocking recuperation, keeping us from deriving a single meaning from the novel. There is no way to relate Kinbote's story of Zembla to

John Shade's poem about his life in New Wye. There Is no way to determine whether or not Zembla exists. If we decide that Zembla is

Kinbote's invention, we must regard the entire note to line 894 as another invention, as it reports a faculty-room conversation about

Zembla. The problem Is that this note also contains the only reference, outside of the killer's own statement, to the resemblance of Shade to Goldsworth. There is simply no way to prove any satisfactory solution to this puzzle of plots and characters.

All of our attempts at understanding lead us back, eventually, to the fact that Kinbote Is untrustworthy and therefore everything he says

la doubtful. Some things we accept as more likely than others— the form of the poem. Shade's relationship with Kinbote, and so on. We trust these items because we have been able to discern, through irony, the error in Kinbote's view of them. That is, since Kinbote's

statements about these matters can be proved Incorrect, we accept our

proof. For example, we can count the number of variants to the poem and conclude that some of the variants are Kinbote's invention.

31 32

Likewise, we can judge by John Shade's actions and by our own reactions to Kinbote's actions that Shade Is not Kinbote's close friend, that in fact Kinbote Is an unconscionable voyeur. In this manner. Irony leads us to the author.

There are five central Ironies In Pale Fire that are pointed out and elaborated by the many other ironies and uncertainties we have discussed In the last chapter.

1. Bale Fire pretends to be a recognizable and reliable literary form of poem and annotation. Actually It Is a totally unreliable and comic parody of this form In which the meaning of the poem Is obfuscated by the annotation.

2. Charles Kinbote, the commentator and expllcator of John

Shade's poem, Is insane and therefore is an untrustworthy commentator.

3. Kinbote thinks "Bale Fire" Is about Zembla. Actually all of the references to Zembla that Kinbote sees In the poem and Its variants are either Invented by Kinbote or are too vague to be convincing.

4. Kinbote thinks that Shade is his close friend and that the reader accepts him as a trustworthy commentator. The reader discerns that Shade only tolerates Kinbote, and the reader does not trust

Kinbote at all.

5. Shade Is killed by mistake.

The first four of these ironies are shown us by an implied author, a shaper of the fiction. They force us to maintain a constant awareness of the world of Bale Fire as a created fiction. We are In effect communicating nonverbally with the author; the author Is showing us a certain amount of the "truth" in the story world through Irony.

Wayne Booth describes the author's stance In such a situation as 33 this. Where there Is a "secret communication between author and reader,"

though the narrator may have some redeeming qualities of mind or heart, we travel with the silent author, observing as from a rear seat the humorous or disgraceful or ridiculous or vicious driving behavior of the narrator seated In front. The author may wink or nudge, but he may not speak. The reader may sympathize or deplore, but he never accepts the narrator as a reliable guide,1

The author nudges us at many points, but, to continue Booth's analogy, he never takes the wheel, never suggests that the narrator stop driving on the wrong side of the road.

The Ironies enumerated above help us to understand some of what is going on the story world of %ile Fire. They do not, however, help us to reconstruct a meaning or guiding principle behind the work.

There appears to be no reason for the author's telling this particular story, or If there Is a reason It Is not discernable by listening to what Kinbote has to say. In Kinbote's world all things refer to him—

Shade writes "Pale Fire" to tell Kinbote's story of his kingship and persecution, or at least this would be the obvious theme of "Pale Fire" had not Sybil forced John to hide It. Gradus Is dispatched by the

Shadows to kill Kinbote, Kinbote is even sure that the "slim Hindu boy" in the library once lusted after him (p. 199/282), In short, everyone Is either for Kinbote or against him, either Karllst or anti-Karllst, but at least everyone Is aware of him. A passage In

Nabokov's short story "Signs and Symbols" seems to refer to another form of Kinbote's disease, A young man's problem Is diagnosed as

"referential mania"; In this disease "the patient Imagines that

^ The Rhetoric of Fiction, p. 3OO. 34 everything happening around him Is a veiled reference to his 2 personality and existence." Prom this egocentric position It seems easy to understand Kinbote's devout Christianity, a religion that offers him a personal God that guides and protects him, a God who orders his existence,

John Shade, on the other hand, Is uncertain of a personal god.

Shade starts with nothing, with an Impenetrable wall between himself and understanding, and works to discover something* His discernment of a game player that is aware of his existence Is not as egocentric as Kinbote's belief because Shade admits the possibility of chance In his world. Shade's search seems more reasonable to us, the readers, than does Kinbote's blind faith; for one thing. Shade does not appear to be Insane. We may conclude that If there Is a meaning or a reason to this story of Bale Fire It Is more likely that It can be found In

John Shade's poem than In Kinbote's commentary.

The reader operates on a different level of perception than do

John Shade and Charles Kinbote, As we are constantly reminded. Shade and Kinbote live In a fictional world created by an author, the

"Vladimir Nabokov" of the title page. Whether John Shade discerns them or not, we are aware of the coincidences that lead up to his death.

We are certainly aware of the e vent— unfore seen by Shade— of Kinbote's virtual theft of "Bale Fire." And we are aware of Kinbote's stupidity.

Thus, we are In a superior position to Shade and Kinbote In relation to the fictional world. Yet, Ironically, Shade and Kinbote manage to recuperate, at least partially, their positions, whereas we cannot,

2 Vladimir Nabokov, "Signs and Symbols," In Nabokov's Dozen (New York I Popular library, 1958)» p. 49. 35

Our only recourse Is to recognize our distance from the story, which,

In effect, forces us to turn to the author* The author has been constantly reminding us of his presence by carefully blocking our attempts at getting involved In the story world. In addition, the author has been Inviting us to join him, to share his jokes on Kinbote and perhaps on Shade also. As Wayne Booth says.

Often the predominant emotion when reading stable Ironies Is that of joining, of finding and communing with kindred spirits. The author I Infer behind the false words Is my kind of man, because he enjoys playing with Irony, because he assumes m^ capacity for dealing with It, and— most Important— because he grants me a kind of wisdom; he assumes that he does not have to spell out the shared and secret truths on which my reconstruction is to be built.3

The ironies in Pale Fire are not what Booth would call stable Ironies, but they operate In a similar manner. If we do.not enjoy them we will not tolerate the book. Kinbote Is a comic character, and we have to appreciate the humor of his narrative faults or he will prove

Intolerable »

How then may we use our distance from the story world, created by Irony, to help us understand, at least partially, what Is going on? Let us examine the Implied author's relationship to the narrators.

The Implied author's relationship to Kinbote and Shade Is that of a god, for Nabokov Is their creator. Ironically, we recognize that

Kinbote's creator laughs at him behind his back, and so Is not as kind to Kinbote as Kinbote believes. The reader has discerned Nabokov as shaper of the fiction and has been forced to the level of co-consplrator against the characters In the story world, watching their small

A Rhetoric of Irony (Chicago 1 Univ. of Chicago Press, 19?4), p. 234. 36 attempts to discern what is "going on." John Shade partially succeeds

in discerning what is going on, for his conception of the "player of the game" Is the same as the reader's conception of the shaper of the

fiction. It Is Nabokov who creates the coincidences that shape

Shade's life and bring him to his awareness.

The reader has. In effect, re-created Shade's search for meaning.

He M s tried to recuperate the events in the story world, to make

sense of the novel, to find meaning; but no matter how carefully the

reader tries, his recuperation Is blocked at every turn. This

blocking comes from a conscious source, a source that Is one step

ahead, setting up mirrors, laying traps, leading the reader through

a labyrinth with nothing but dead ends. In much the same way, John

Shade searches for a meaning of death and a proof of an afterlife,

finding finally one possibility— Mrs. Z's fountain that confirms his

own. Then he discovers that "fountain" Is a misprint in Mrs, Z's

version. Shade's discovery is that the coincidental misprint that

leads him on Is so perfectly planted that It must point to an active

force that planted It, The same force that has made "ornaments of

accidents and possibilities" for Shade has done so for us.

We are left with a novel that presents no Ultimate Truth but

Instead offers a glimpse of the Intricacy with which Its fictional world

Is created. like Shade, we have discerned a creator of this fictional

world through that creator's active blocking of our attempts at

understanding him. Shade Imitates his creator in the pale fire of

his poem. He Is conscious that he has created a small world In his

poem and that through this creation he can experience some of the same

pleasure as his creator "In terms of combinational delight," likewise. 37

Kinbote creates the world of Zembla, Although Kinbote's story lacks the philosophical elements of Shade's, its plot is rich and enjoyable.

The reader's pleasure comes from discovering the intricate way the story world Is put together, from sharing jokes with the creator, from taking a superior view. We are also challenged— challenged to recuperate a nonrecuperatlve story world, frustrated by our Inability to understand, and teased by possibilities. Finally, the diligent reader comes to the same realization as John Shadei we cannot know; the message ^ scribbled In the dark, but we can discern In the disorder the shadow of the hand that moves the pieces. CONCLUSION

I think that what I would welcome at the close of a book of mine is a sensation of Its world receding In the distance and stopping somewhere there suspended afar like a picture in a picturet The Artist's Studio by Van Bock.— Vladimir Van Bock^

Our discovery of the godlike author behind the two narrators of laie Fire suggests that the processes of Interpretation that we have used In the novel might be applied to our own world. In fact, they seem to work for Nabokov. In Speak, Memory, he gives us two helpful clues to the meaning he has discerned In his life. In the first chapter he describes the now-famous Incident of the matches:

One afternoon at the beginning of [1904], In our St. Petersburg house, I was led down from the nursery Into my father's study to say how-do-you-do to a friend of the family. General Kuropatkln, . . . He spread out to amuse me a handful of matches, . . . placed ten of them end to end to make a horizontal line, and said, "This is the sea In calm weather," Then he tipped up each pair so as to turn the straight line Into a zigzag— and that was "a stormy sea," He scrambled the matches and was about to do, I hoped, a better trick when we wore Interrupted, . , , This Incident had a special sequel fifteen years later, when at a certain point of my father's flight from Bolshevik-heId St. Petersburg to southern Russia he was accosted, while crossing a bridge, by an old man who looked like a gray-bearded peasant in his sheepskin coat. He asked ray father for a light. The next moment each recognized the other, I hope old Kuropatkln, In his rustic disguise, managed to evade Soviet Imprisonment, but that Is not the point. What pleases me la the evolution of the match theme I those magic ones he had shown me had been trifled with and mislaid, and his armies had also vanished, . . , The following of such thematic designs through one's life should be, I think, the true purpose of autobiography,^

^ "An Interview with Vladimir Nabokov," cond. Alfred Appel, Jr., pp. 72-73, 2 Speak, Memory! An Autobiography Revisited (New York; Capricorn Books, 1966), pp. 26-27 .

38 39

Here we have another coincidence, the recurrence of a theme like the tin wheelbarrow and Its clockwork boy that foreshadow Shade's death.

Later Nabokov points out one of nature's clever cheats In his favorite fleId— lepldopterology t

The mysteries of mimicry had a special attraction for me. Its phenomena showed an artistic perfection usually associated with man-wrought things. Consider the Imitation of oozing poison by bubblelike macules on a wing (complete with pseudo-refraction) or by glossy yellow knobs on a chrysalis (*!Don't eat me— I have already been squashed, sampled, and rejected"). Consider the tricks of an acrobatic caterpillar (of the Lobster Moth) which In Infancy looks like bird's dung, but after molting develops scrabbly hymenopterold appendages and baroque characteristics, allowing the extraordinary fellow to play two parts at once; , . , that of a writhing larva and that of a big ant seemingly harrowing it. When a certain moth resembles a certain wasp In shape and color, It also walks and moves Its antennae In a waspish, unmothllke manner. When a butterfly has to look like a leaf, not only are there all the details of a leaf beautifully rendered but markings mimicking grub-bored holes are generously thrown In, "Natural selection," In the Darwinian sense, could not explain the miraculous coincidence of Imitative aspect and initlatiVa ; vj behavior, nor could one appeal to the theory of "the struggle for life" when a protective device was carried to a point of mimetic subtlety, exuberance, and luxury far In excess of a predator's power of appreciation, I discovered in nature the nonutllltarIan delights that I sought In art. Both were a form of msiglc, both were a game of Intricate enchantment and deception,3

We may compare this to the deception of the pheasant's tracks, which form the shape of an arrow pointing backwards, that Shade marvels at In

Canto One of "Pale Pire."

The demanding reader may choose not to relate Shade's vision to his own outside the novel, even though he Is forced to apply Shade's vision to the story world. This reader may ask, "Very well, then, I have discerned this author frustrating me, but what is the point? What am I to do with this shadow box of shadow boxes? If Pale Fire does not present some sort of explication of life, why read It at all?" The

3 Speak, Memory, pp. 124-25, 40 answer lies In a statement made by Mary McCarthy, Page Stegner,

Andrew Field, and by Nabokov himself. To pick a quotation closer to home, Charles Kinbote says "'reality' Is neither the subject nor the object of true art which creates Its own special reality having nothing to do with the average 'reality* perceived by the communal eye" •

(p. 94/130). Pale Fire presents a world where three perceptions of reality are at work— Shade's, Kinbote's, and the reader's— none of which prove to be conclusive or perfectly ordered. The reader Is forced to give up searching for a logical and ordered reality and instead to appreciate Pale Fire strictly as a created work of art that re-creates not the false order of a novel but a microcosm of creator and creation.

Nabokov puts this In different wordsi "I have no social purpose, no moral message ; I've no general Ideas to exploit, I just like composing riddles with elegant solutions."^ Nabokov writes because he takes pleasure In his art, and the proper reader of Nabokov should find some of the same pleasure In appreciating the Inventiveness of the creator of a world of fiction.

Many of Nabokov's novels assert their fictionality and thus remind the reader that they are created worlds. For example, In The

Gift. Fyodor Godunov-Gherdynstev carries on two lengthy conversations with Koncheyev,a fellow poet, about other writers and theories of a r t .

Each time, at the end of the conversation, we are told that Fyodor has

Invented the conversation; that It never really occurred. The novel shifts frequently in the person of the narration, from third person to first person. At the beginning of the novel, when the narrator first

BBC Television Interview, cond, Peter Duval-3m1th and Christopher Burstall, rpt. In Strong Opinions, p. 16, 41 shifts from a first-person description of a scene to third person, he records Fyodor's thoughti "Some day, he thought, I must use such a scene to start a good, thick old-fashioned novel.Throughout The

Gift Fyodor takes mental notes of situations and Ideas such as this, and at the end the reader comes to realize that the third-person narrator is also Fyodor, that The Gift is the written form of the novel that Fyodor has been taking notes for throughout this novel.

Invitation to a Beheading presents Glnclnnatus G., a prisoner of a totalitarian state who Is about to be put to death. At one point early In the novel, Glnclnnatus Is Interviewed by Rodrlg, the prison director. After the Interview, It Is Glnclnnatus who quietly walks out of the cell and out of prison, through town, up the steps to his apartment door, and through It back Into his cell. Everything In

Glnclnnatus' surroundings appears to be a stage prop, down to the usual spider In the cell. At the end of the novel, Glnclnnatus recognizes the fictionality of his world and simply walks away from hla execution as the facades of buildings fall and characters shrivel up.

Perhaps Nabokov's most successful rendering of this sense of fiction occurs In Bend Sinister, where Adam Krug, the main character, dissolves as he Is about to die, and the reader Is presented with the actions of the author putting down his pen and examining a moth that has gotten caught In the screen,^

The dream of the fictional world fades at the end of ftile Fire in

^ Vladimir Nabokov, The Gift (New York; Capricorn Books, I963), p. 16.

^ Vladimir Nabokov, Bend Sinister (New York; McGraw-Hill, 1973), pp. 240-41, 42 much the sane way— Shade seems suddenly weak as Kinbote approaches him on his porch (his foot has gone to sleep), he descends "the steps of the porch, sideways, like a hesitating Infant" (p. 204/288), Kinbote, too, begins to fade : "My notes and self are petering out" (p, 212/3OO), he says, adding a final touch to his theme of homosexuality. Finally, the last line of the index, Zembla, Is followed by no page references and Instead is described as what we always thought It was— "a distant northern land" (p. 224/315)» LIST OF WORKS CONSULTED

Bader, Julia, Crystal land* Artifice In Nabokov's English Novels. Berkeley* Univ. of California Press, 19^1

"Benjamin Franklin Chapman." The Baseball Bicyclopediay Rev. ed. New York* Macmillan, 1974. P. 35TT*^

Berberova, Nina. "The Mechanics of Rile Fire." TriQuarterly, No. 1? (Winter 1970)» Rpt. in Nabokovi Criticism. Reminiscences, Translations and Tributes. Ed, Alfred Appel, Jr., and Charles E. Newman. Evanston, 111.* Northwestern Univ. Press, 1970. Pp. 147-59.

Booth, Wayne C. The Rhetoric of Fiction, Chicago* Univ. of Chicago Press, 1961.

. A Rhetoric of Irony. Chicago* Univ. of Chicago Press, 1974.

Boswell, James, Esq. The Life of Samuél Johnson, L.L.D, 6th ed., 1811, New York* Modem Library, n,d,

Brenalvirez, Irene Elizabeth, "Vladimir Nabokov* The Theme and Practice of Art." Dlss. Arizona State Univ., 1970,

Brower, Reuben, Mirror on Mirror* Translation « Imitation. Parody, Cambridge, Mass,* Harvard Unlv, Press, 1974.

Browning, Robert. "My Last Duchess." The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Ed. K. H. Abrams, E, Talbot Donaldson, Kallett Etailth, Robert M, Adams, Samuel Holt Honk, George H. Ford, and David Daiches. New York* Norton, I962, II, 801-2,

Carroll, Lewis. "Through the looklng-Glasa," In The Complete Works of Lewis Carroll. New York* Modem Library, 1936. Pp. 134-272.

Chester, Alfred, "Nabokov's Anti-Novel," Commentary 34 (Nov. I962), 449- 51. Culler, Jonathan. Flaubert * The Uses of Uncertainty, Ithaca, N.Y.i Cornell Univ. Press, 1974.

Dillard, R. H, W, "Not Text but Texture* The Novels of Vladimir Nabokov." The Hollins Critic. 3 (June I966), Rpt, in The Sounder Few. Ed. R. H. W. Dillard, George Garrett, and John Rees Moore, Athens* Unlv, of Georgia Rress, 1971 » Pp. 139-171.

43 4 4

Donne, John, "Holy Sonnet 10," The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Ed, M; H. Abrams, E, Talbot Donaldson, Hallett Smith, Robert M. Adams, Samuel Holt Monk, George H, Ford, and David Daiches, New York* Norton, 1962, I, 785,

Field, Andrew. Nabokov* His Life In Art, Boston* Little, Brown, 1967.

Fowler, Douglas, Reading Nabokov. Ithaca, K.Y.* Cornell Univ. Press, 1974.

Frost, Robert. Selected Poe*>s of Robert Frost. New York* Holt, Rinehart and Winston , 1962,

Galatl, Frank Joseph, "A Study of Mirror Analogues in Vladimir Nabokov's Rile Fire," Dlss, Northwestern Univ., 1971,

Gardner, Thomas, "Vladimir Nabokov," Studlum Generale. 21 (I968), 94- 110.

Gezarl, Janet K, "Game Fiction* The World of Play and the Novels of Vladimir Nabokov," Dlss. Yale Unlv,, 1971,

Green, Martin. "American Rococo* Salinger and Nabokov," In Reappraisals* Some Commonsense Re^lngs in American Literature. New York* Norton, I965. Pp. 5ll-^9,

Hamilton, Edith, Mythology. Boston* Idttle, Brown, 1942.

Handley, Jack, "To Die In Bigllsh." Northwest Review 6, No. 2 (Spring 1963), 23-40.

Hanes Underwear Advertisement. Life, 28 March 1949, p. 126.

Hughes, Philip Russell, "The Knight Moves of Mind* Nabokov's Use of Illusion to Transcend the Limits of Life and Art." Dlss. Boston Unlv,, 1974,

Hunt, John Dixon, ed. Pope* "The Rape of the Lock," Nashville, Teiui.t Aurora, 1970,

Kostelanetz, Richard, "Nabokov's Obtuse Pool." In On Contemporary Literature, Ed, R, Kostelanetz, New York* Avon, 1964, Pp. 481-85.

Krueger, John H, "Nabokov's Zemblan* A Constructed Language of Fiction," linguistics. 31 (196?), 44-49.

Lee, Lawrence L, Vladimir Nabokov. Twayne's United States Author's Series, no. 266, Bostont Twayne Publishers, 1976,

Levine, Jay Arnold, "The Design of A Tale of a Tub (With Digressions on a Mad Modem Critic)." Journal of Sigllsh literary History. 45

33 (1966), 198-227.

Lokrantz, Jessie Thomas. The Underside of the Weavei Some Stylistic Devices Used by Vladimir Nabokov. Dlss. Uppsala, I973. Stockholm* Rotobeckman, 1973,

Lyons, John 0. "Pale Fire and the Fine Art of Annotation." Wisconsin Studies in Contemporary Literature, 8 (Spring I967). Rpt. in Nabokov* The Man and His Work, Ed, L. S. Denbo. Madison* Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 19^77 Pp. 157-64.

McCarthy, Mary, "A Bolt from the Blue," The New Republic 146, No. 3 (June 4, 1962), 21-2 7 .

Macdonald, Dwight. "Virtuosity Rewarded, or Dr, Kinbote's Revenge." Partisan Review 29 (Summer I962), 437-42,

Marvell, Andrew, "The Nymph Complaining for the Death of Her Fawn." In Seventeenth-Century Prose and Poetry. Ed, Alexander M, Witherspoon and Frank J. Wamke, 2d ed. New York* Harcourt, Brace * World, I963, Pp. 964-65,

Morton, Donald E, Vladimir Nabokov. New York* Frederick Ungar, 1974.

Moynahan, Julian, Vladimir Nabokov. Unlv, of Minnesota Pamphlets on American Writers, no, 9 ^ Minneapolis* Univ. of Minnesota Press, I97I.

Nabokov, Vladimir, Ada or Ardor* A Family Chronicle. New York* McGraw-Hill, 1 9 ^

, The Annotated Lolita. Ed. Alfred Appel, Jr. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1955/197t).

. Bend Sinister. New York* McGraw-Hill, 1973,

. The Defense « New York* Capricorn Books, 1974.

______• Despair. New York* Pocket Books, I966,

. Details of a Sunset and Other Stories. New York: McGraw- Hill ,"l97ST

, The Eye, New York* Phaedra, I965.

• The Gift, New York* Capricorn Books, 1963,

. Glory, New York* McGraw-Hill, I97I,

. Invitation to a Beheading. Greenwich, Conn.* Fawcett Crest, 1959.

. King, Queen, toave, Greenwich, Conn. * Fawcett Crest, I968. 46

• laughter In the Dark» New Yorki Berkeley Medallion, 1958*

, Look at the Harlequinst New Yorki McGraw-Hill, 1974.

. Mary, Greenwich, Conn.i Fawcett Crest, 1970.

• Nabokov's Dozen. New Yorki Popular Library, 1958,

. Nabokov's Quartet. New York: Pyramid, I966.

• Pale Fire. New Yorki Putnam's, 1962.

• Pale Fire. New York: Lancer Books, 19&3*

. Pale Fire. New York: Berkeley Medallion, I968,

. Pnln. New York: Avon, 1957*

. Poems, New York: Doubleday, 1959*

. The Real Life of Sebastian Knight. Norfolk, Conn.i New Dltectlons, 1959,

, A Russian Beauty and Other Stories, New York: McGraw-Hill, T 973."

. Sneak. Memory: An Autobiography Revisited, New York: Capricorn,Books, 19661”

. Strong Opinions, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1973*

, Transparent Things. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1972*

Batteson, Richard F, "The Viewer and the View: Perception and Narration in Nabokov's English Novels," Diss. Univ. of Pennsylvania, 1975*

Pilon, Kevin. "A Chronology of Bale Fire." Russian Literature Triquarterly. 3 (1972), 370-77.

Pope, Alexander. Selected Poetry and Prose. Ed. William K. Wimsatt, Jr. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1951*

, trane. The Iliad of Homer. In The Poems of Alexander Pope. Ed. Maynard Mack. London: Methuen, 1967, Vols, VII-VIII,

Pryce-Jones, Alan. "The Falxilist's Worlds: Vladimir Nabokov," In The Creative Present: Notes on Contemporary American Fiction. Ed, Nona Balakian and Charles Simmons. 2d ed. New York: Gordian Press, 1973* Pp, 63-78.

Purdy, Strother B. "Solus Rex: Nabokov and the Chess Novel." Modem Fiction Studies, 14 (1968), 379-95* 47

Pushkin, Aleksandr. Eugene Onegin. Tr. Vladimir Nabokov. 4 vols, Bollingen Series 72. New Yorki Pantheon Books, 1964.

Rhodes, Jack W, "Vladimir Nabokov and the Concept of Time," Thesis Univ. of South Carolina, 1973*

Roth, Phyllis Ann. "Lunatics, Lovers, and a Poeti A Study of Doubling and the DoppelgSnger in the Novels of Nabokov," Diss, Univ. of Connecticut, 1972.

Rowe, William W. "The Honesty of Nabokovian Deception." In A Book of Things about Vladimir Nabokov. Ed. Carl R. Proffer. Ann Arbor, Mich.i Ardis, 197^ ^ 171-81.

Rowe, William Woodin. Nabokov's Deceptive World. New Yorki New York Univ. Press, I97I,

Shakespeare, William. The Life of Tiaon of Athens. In William Shakespeare 1 The Complete Works. Ed. Alfred Karbage, Baltimore, Md.I Penguin Books, 1969* Pp. 1141-1168.

Slotnick, Linda, "The Minotaur within 1 Varieties of Narrative Distortion and Reader Implication in the Works of Franz Kafka, John Ifeiwkes, Vladimir Nabokov, and Alain Robbe-Grillet." Diss. Stanford Univ., 1970*

Souvages, Jacques, te Introduction to the Study of the Novel, Genti B, Story-Sclentia, 1965,

Sprowles, Alden. "Preliminary Annotation to Charles Kinbote's Commentary on 'Pale Fire.'" In A Book of Things atout Vladimir Nabokov, Ed. Carl R, Proffer. Ann Artor, Mich.i Ardis, 1974, Pp. 226-47.

Stark, John. "Borges* 'TlSn, Uqbar, Orbis Teritus' and Nabokov's Pale Fire I Literature of Exhaustion," Texas Studies in Literature and Language^ 14 (Spring 1972), 1 3 9 - ^

, The Literature of Exhaustion 1 Borges, Nabokov. Barth. Durham, N.C.i Duke Univ. Press, 1974T

Stegner, Page. Escape into testhetics1 The Art of Vladimir Nabokov, New YorkI Dial Press, I966,

Talon Trouser Fastener Advertisement, Life, 2, No. 18 (May 10, 1937), P. 67,

Williams, Carol T, "Nabokov's Dialectical Structure," Wisconsin Studies in Contemporary Literature, 8 (spring 196?). Rpt. in Nabokov I The Han and M s Work. Ed. L. S. Denbo. Madison 1 Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1967* Pp. 165-82.

. "'Web of Sense'1 Bale Fire in the Nabokov Canon," Critiquet Studies in Modem Fiction, 6, No, 3 (I963), 29-45.