Anyone interested in the book Pale Fire...or Nabokov in general? My earlier post was not set up to allow comments.
46 comments:
Anonymous
said...
lhoffman -
If you "follow the notes", kinbote is getting the better of you. The notes are all about him. It's a good idea to read the poem itself a couple of times until you understand the subplot, which is Shade's tragic loss of his daughter.
bparton...thanks. I had started reading the commentary and find it laugh-out-loud funny. When I look back at the poem, it is tragic. The book feels almost schizophrenic in its duality.
And I see the duality is extended to the characters. First there is the Shade/Kinbote connection. Then there is Gradus...which Nabokov relates to Gray, but which also reminds me of Grading/shading/shadowing. Not sure I'm on track yet though. But I really like what I've read so far.
Are you going to participate in "Lolita" as your own double?
Prepare yourself for more laughs. I wish we could somehow find blackvegetable on those forums and get him to post over here - but, I guess you could look at the archived Pale Fire discussion instead. The first week or so is quite interesting.
Bparton. I saved all the posts from the "Pale Fire" forum and I'm working my way through them. The first hundred down and so far a good discussion.
I've finished reading "Pale Fire" with the exception of the Index at the end. When you mentioned reading it cover to cover like a "normal" book, I had already gotten quite far into it, following the leaps the commentator advised. Then I went back and read the poem. I think the sense of the book would be quite different reading it cover to cover..front to back. I did catch on quite early that Kinbote is quite clueless about the text of the poem.
Now I'm going to re-read it the way you suggested, cover to cover, and see what that feels like.
McGrail...that sounds great. I've only just begun to read Nabokov, too. I started with "Speak, Memory" because I wasn't sure what to expect in the "Lolita" discussion. Then moved to "Lolita" and next to "Pale Fire." I really love "Pale Fire." I find every aspect of it brilliant and beautiful...the poem, the commentator's story.
I think Nabokov may become my favorite author. Something about him truly resonates with me. I'm not sure whether it's his sense of humor, the weirdness in his stories, or just the beauty of his writing. While you read "Pale Fire," I'm going to start looking at the short stories.
Hmmm - I posted a comment here yesterday, but it never did show up "in public", so to speak. It did appear in the thread after I posted it. Wonder what's wrong?
Anyway, I was addressing your remark on reading the book straight through. I've done that without paying enough attention to the poem, then I finally figured out how important the poem is. Following the notes is fine unless you get sick of it (and you will, I'll bet), just as long as you read the poem. Kinbote advises us to read his commentary, returning to the poem for each line of commentary. That's my primary objection to what many people refer to as "reading the book the way Nabokov says to read it." It's Kinbote speaking there, no Nabokov. I believe Nabokov once remarked that one should "read the notes", but I still think it's his little joke on the reader.
As for the index, it is an animal unto itself, I find.
Sorry for the very long absence here. I have read through Pale Fire, but I am afraid it really is not for me. Nor, Lover of Unreason I'm afraid. I envy the ability of the people here and at the NY Times to be able to shift in their reading tastes so easily.
I think I will stick with older things for the time being, the older the better (and perhaps an essay or two).
If there is still an interest in discussing Beowulf or other ancient literature here, I will try to join in. I have finally obtained an old copy of the book by John Grigsby and I suppose I will read that next.
I had the feeling when I was reading "Lover of Unreason" that it would be the perfect gift to give to parents who view their daughters as princesses. I'm not certain that Assia was all that brilliant, but she probably would have done better if her parents had taught her that looks and brains don't magically create a successful life. Hard work is the only answer..no matter how "special" you are.
I liked the Grigsby book quite a bit. Let me know when you finish. I'm just now beginning to make headway on "Creative Mythology." I found the beginning hard going.
McGrail...also, I've got the Norton Critical edition of Beowulf. I think you mentioned earlier that you were using that edition. Were there any essays you particularly enjoyed there?
Reader5232...Sounds like a good idea, although I hope the forum isn't closed down too quickly.
I quite like the feel of "Pnin." Nabokov gives him mention in "Pale Fire:" "Speaking of the Head of the bloated Russian Department, Prof. Pnin, a regular martinet in regard to his underlings (happily, Prof. Botkin, who taught in another department was not subordinated to that grotesque 'perfectionist'): 'How odd that Russian intellectuals should lack all sense of humor when they have such marvelous humorists as Gogol, Dostoevski, Chekhov, Zoshchenko, and those joint authors of genius Ilf and Petrov.'"
"Talking of the vulgarity of a certain burly acquaintance of ours: 'The man is as corny as a cook-out chef apron.' Kinbote (laughting): 'Wonderful!'"
That sounds good. I haven't even started the Lolita annotations yet.
Don't know how many will follow. Hopefully, you won't attract Lifeline. I guess that's the danger in advertising. (Perhaps you can block the especially disruptive with the tools of this sight.)
Pnin calls for a different sort of analysis than does Lolita or Pale Fire. I didn't love Lolita or Kinbote or any of the characters in either of those two novels. I didn't love Nabokov in Speak, Memory. But, I loved Professor Pnin, through and through.
I had the same reaction about that scene and about all of the stuff that comes after.
I told my son I was going to rewrite the ending and put the pages in the back of the book for the next time I read it. He said I couldn't do that. But I pressed and begged and finally he relented, but only after telling me that I shouldn't do it until I fully understand the ending.
How does he do it? How does Nabokov make us love Pnin?
Here's a meaningless forumula of observations that while correct do nothing toward really understanding his method.
VN sets Pnin apart. He makes him eccentric. He gives him a funny way of speaking and other funny foibles. He makes the life a lonely one without saying it is lonely. He lets us see that Pnin sees and he lets us see that Pnin does not let others know everything he sees.
Pnin makes himself a character. Somehow VN shows this. Humbert does not make himself a character. Lolita does not. Kinbote and Shade and Gradus don't. Pnin does. That sets him still further apart, maybe even above.
Then, he lets Pnin be happy. It's a simple sort of happiness, like the kind a child gets from daydreaming, or wading quietly. Not the kind that comes with frolic. We also see that it is important to Pnin to make other characters happy.
We see that he tries and his trying is love.
We see that others love him.
So, we love him, not just for this last reason but for all the other reasons too.
What else? What did you see that made you love him? In terms of method, the more precise the observation the better.
Like that punch bowl. A beautiful detail. Like the soccer ball. Like the intelligence of Victor.
Didn't you feel bad for Pnin when you saw that VN didn't let Victor stay around for very long? That's part of the method too.
And that's what I mean about art and love. I don't mean to say that one must create the art with love in order for it to be truly of a higher form.
What I mean to say is that something happens during the process of creation. Regardless of the emotion that the artist brings to the creation, if the art is to ascend to a truly high form, to the highest forms we know at least, then something happens to that artist. He or she begins to create with love as the dominant controlling force.
That's all instinct though. I have no idea whether it is true or how to go about proving the idea. It surely seems right though.
Many of his paintings depict a group of overly dressed 19th century people on beaches.
The Beach (1877) The Beach at Villerville (1864) Beach Scene (1862) Figures on the Beach (1867-70) On the Beach (1894) On the Beach, Trouville (1887) Washerwoman near Trouville (1872)
There are numerous others like this. I spent some time with them recently. See:
Beaudin is very good at putting water in the air. Rain in the distance, heavy clouds above, ocean in the background, clothes drenched with humidity, wind blown water in the foreground -- that sort of thing -- atmosphere, like Nabokov's haze and shades of grey.
But, Boudin's compositional skills were what came to mind as I read Pnin; those groups of people coverd in clothes on beaches at the edge of the world, like Earth on the edge of a greater world. There is a collective sort of loneliness in those paintings.
Light seems to be leaving (or sometimes arriving) but never left and never arrived. It's passing, like the ships in some of those paintings, and the group is at the shore looking but not swimming, standing and not sailing.
Are they waiting? Are they trapped?
Those groups reminded me of Pnin's freinds at the Pines (or vice versa), and of Pnin and Victor together, of Pnin on his journey to Cremona.
Boudin says a lot in those paintings. Those people on the beach are not a group of Victorian Sunbathers. They are humanity. That beach is not Trouville. It is Earth. It is the brief time humans are on the earth.
And although I can't quite seem to say it yet, Pnin seems to be about those things too.
I'll look at the artworks you mention this evening when I have a bit more time. One image that popped into my head at the mention of Boudin at the beach is the scene where Pnin fashions a hat out of his handkerchief...very visual writing.
As to Pnin, do you think that the narrator intends for us to like him? or do we like him in spite of the narrator?
The narrator at first appears to be Nabokov himself. The two have much in common. But I believe that narrator is Liza's real love. This is the only way I can explain (1) how the narrator had access to Liza's letter, and (2)the difference in attitude in the first chapter, where the narrator is unhappy with happy endings, and the end of the book, where the narrator seems to have gotten a certain satisfaction from Pnin's misfortunes....(of course we know that Pnin comes out all right, and we run into him again at Wordsmith College...Pale Fire.)
Thank you. I remembered Pnin from Pale Fire but I did not go back to determine that his mention postdates the events in his own book and they must have given the detailed chronology we get, a chronology that does not mention Wordsmith. So, a new ending is not necessary after all.
So, I can rest easy about that.
The narrator is very sophisticated and does not forgive himself. That's what I think right now, but I too will have to go back when I have more time.
There is a shift, you're right about that. Pnin is less likeable in the begining, or at least he is intended to be less likeable. (I confess that I like him quite a bit right from the start. My world is filled with Pnin's. They seem attracted to me and I to them. They come in all forms, shapes and accents. So maybe my reaction is not the typical one and maybe Pnin is supposed to be repulsive. If so, is VN manipulating the reader so that he/she must recognize that in the absence of reading books like Pnin they too might be just another Jack Cockerral?)
Cockerral's name incidentally sounds curiously doglike. A cocker spaniel truncation perhaps?
I disagree that the narrator got satisfaction. He seems desperate by the end -- or maybe that was me -- desperate to make things right and to find out why they weren't.
He tolerated Cockeral's doggeral but seemed to wake from it in time like he was waking to the story and maybe its meaning too.
I got my feeling about the narrator and the ending from a few different passages. First, the beginning of Chapter 1 (3) (Vintage page 25 if you're using that edition) "Some people---and I am one of them---hate happy ends. We feel cheated. Harm is the norm. Doom should not jam. The avalance stopping in its tracks a few feet above the cowering village behaves not only unnaturally but unethically. Had I been reading about this mild old man, instead of writing about him, I would have preferred him to discover, upon his arrival to Cremona, that his lecture was not this Friday but the next...."
Then at the end of Chapter 6, Pnin has just finished cleaning up after his party and he is writing Hagen. Pnin's story ends. Narrator takes care to assure the reader that he is hurt by Pnin's refusal to work with him.
Chapter 7, the narrator's tale. We learn how he first met Pnin, how Pnin owned a toy monoplane but our narrator "had a similar one, but twice bigger...". He relates the incident of the play and his ensuing embarrassment and that he took "miniscule interest" in Pnin's existence. Later, they meet in a Paris cafe, where Pnin denies knowing him, denies ever meeting him. Still later, there is the awkward incident of Pnin's accusation: "Now, don't believe a word he says...He makes up everything. He once invented that we were schoolmates in Russia and cribbed at examinations. He is a dreadful inventor...."
The book ends with the narrator being regaled by the "Brilliant Cockerell" of Pnin's inept foibles in the world of academia.
Of course, if you read "Brilliant" as sarcasm, the ending takes on a whole new light.
He writes: "I would have preferred him to discover, upon his arrival to Cremona, that his lecture was not this Friday but the next."
Then, by the end, Jack Cockerell says he is "going to tell you the story of Pnin rising to address the Cremona Women's Club and discovering he had brought the wrong lecture."
We know Cockerell is lying of course. Because we know that Pnin was "juggling three papers, all of which he stuffed into his coat so as to have the one he wanted among the rest ..."
The narrator has, by then, had enough: "By midnight the fun began to thin ... Finally the whole thing grew to be such a bore ..."
The narrator's view has changed, though perhaps minutely so.
I think you are right about the sarcasm. I hope you are right about it.
Still, there is no forgiving the call that was made on the night of the fourteenth. It seems to me that the call was borne of malice.
The narrator says he was "foolishly eager to say something friendly" and in this way recognizes the folly of the call.
And after Cockerell suggests a drive over to 999 (there is that Pale Fire number again) it is not the narrator who says no.
Finally, by the time he goes to bed, he has a vague sense of distaste about it all.
So, if he evolves, it is a slow and minute evolution. He might just barely start to see, but he is not exactly the good guy that I wanted him to be by the end.
I agree that you are likely right about the narrator's identity. Interesting how he appears and dissapears, fades in and out, like the narrator in Speak, Memory, becoming a firm presence only by the end of the novel.
The narrator is important in this book, particularly with respect to the way he fades in and out. When he's gone, we get a more or less omniscient point of view. When he's present, we see facts that are incorrect or which may be out right lies. The narrator has given us no reason to trust him and no reason to like him. Pnin, by contrast, gives us both reason to trust him and to like him.
Sort of like life, don't you think? Characters tend to be far more likeable and trustworthy than humans (narrators, tale tellers). In my industry, everybody lies about everything. They all have reason to do so. They all have wonderfully immediate temporal motive.
Characters are a funny contrast. They don't lie even when they do so. And that's for two reasons: first, because we as readers generally know about the lie and that knowledge tends to defuse the act; and second, the lie more often than not reveals something more truthful, or more real. Those sorts of things tend not to happen in real life.
The interesting thing about the narrator in Pnin, is that he is clearly also a character. At first, I thought it was Nabokov, entering into the story as a physical presence.
What do you think is the meaning of the recurrence of squirrels in Nabokov's work?
Also, do you have any ideas about the significance of the colors rose (Liza) and aquamarine (Victor) for Nabokov? The rose is very puzzling to me, because rose is often associated with a distorted view of reality...as in "looking at the world through rose-colored glasses."
I've been looking at the Boudin paintings you mentioned. I've been lucky enough to see some of these originals. View of Antibes is in the museum near me. I've also seen On the Beach at Troville, Princess Pauline Metternich on the Beach, Village by a River in the museum near my son's home, and El Puerto del Trouville in his university's gallery.
I've wondered about those people at Boudin's beaches, too. But for me the question is why they have gone to the beach in that sort of weather. But I think I see what you're getting at in the comparison to Nabokov...both share a certain sense of movement. Boudin in the clouds and water, Nabokov in the way he shows us he characters through the movement of their minds and bodies. Rarely a sense of rest.
The Boudin's do remind me somehow of the scenes that take place at Cook's Castle. Even when they are playing chess or reading, there is no sense of stillness. Instead, Nabokov has written a balance of longing for the homeland with a sort of contentment in spending time with other emigres. Even the dead don't rest, instead they "formed committees, and these, in continuous session, attended to the destinies of the quick."...and this his meditation amongst a swarm of mosquitoes.
"...both share a certain sense of movement. Boudin in the clouds and water, Nabokov in the way he shows us he characters through the movement of their minds and bodies. Rarely a sense of rest."
Didn't see that but I like the idea. There is a dynamism in Nabokov's novels irrespective of the presence of physical action. We don't need Humbert Humbert to fight Quilty (and that may never have happened anyway) and we don't need John Shade to get shot by Gradus (which also might not happen). The play of emotions and the reach and span of intellect are more than sufficiently dynamic.
I'm not sure really why my mind connected Nabokov to Boudin. Maybe it was because, they both seem to see islands in places where the islands aren't readily apparent. And they see those islands as important.
The event at the Pines was what really brought me to the paintings. That little party at the end, with Cockerall and the narrator, didn't get me to Boudin. The group at that latter party aren't the people on the beach; they're the sea that surrounds it.
Shade is a shadow now that his daughter has passed. "A" shadow sure, that's easy. But what does it mean to be "the" shadow?
Anything?
Was Deadalus the shadow of Icarus who died the same way that Shade's daughter did? Both drown. Both soared before they drowned.
Is Nabokov telling us not to overlook the potential of the old stories?
Hercules defeats the Nemedian lion. Theseus defeats the Minotaur. Perseus the Medusa. Icarus dies and his father made it so, or at least made it possible.
Icarus dies. He didn't listen to his father's advice. He flew too close to the sun. The Shade woman too must have been told not to cross the ice in the winter without being sure it is safe. Every child is told this in the northeast every year of their lives every time the ice starts to freeze every February during that little false spring that seems to come at almost exactly the same time every year and then again when real spring comes.
But how fun that must have been, to fly close to the sun, to cross the ice at night. How hard it must be to listen to that sort of advice. Don't look into the sun, as another poet suggests that's where the fun is, right?
The shadow -- Look at what Deadulus saw: the sun behind him, the son before. Heat and light at his back, cold, sinking shadow to the front.
"The" shadow not "A" shadow. The ultimate shadow. What is that part of the construct called? The one that blocks the sun in order to create the shadow. I bet there's a word for it.
Is it guilt? Is it sorrow? Is it the unfair and unjust confusion that guilt can bring to sorrow? One of those emotions that we don't have a word for.
Oh, probably not; I'm sure it is some sort of term out of physics.
Don't know Nabokov's views on myth, but I wonder if his views on Freud might give us a clue.
Got to thinking about shadows...what is the block called? I did find something of interest in Wikipedia:
"For other uses of the word "umbra", see Umbra (disambiguation). For other uses of the word "penumbra", see Penumbra (disambiguation).
Umbra and penumbra Umbra, penumbra, and antumbraThe umbra (Latin: "shadow") is the darkest part of a shadow. From within the umbra, the source of light is completely blocked by the object causing the shadow. This contrasts with the penumbra, where the light source is only partially blocked and there is only a partial shadow.
Penumbras occur only when the source of light is not a point source. As the sun is a visible disc, solar shadows have penumbras.
The part of the penumbra where an annular eclipse is visible is called the antumbra. In an annular eclipse, the moon is not of sufficient size to completely cover the sun, and so its shadow is not long enough to reach the Earth and result in a total solar eclipse. At maximum eclipse, the moon is surrounded by a ring, or annulus, of light, and the location on Earth where the ring can be seen is also the location of the antumbra. Although the antumbra may be referred to as a "negative shadow", it is nevertheless darker than the penumbra, just like the umbra is in a total eclipse. However, whereas the umbra is completely devoid of sunlight, the antumbra is not because of the remaining ring."
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umbra"
(Wikipedia has a nice chart there is you look it up.)
I like the image of the people at the Pines as the sea...If so, then the people at Cook's Castle could be his islemates...all afloat in an empty ocean, nothing of value to grab onto...the emigre experience?
46 comments:
lhoffman -
If you "follow the notes", kinbote is getting the better of you. The notes are all about him. It's a good idea to read the poem itself a couple of times until you understand the subplot, which is Shade's tragic loss of his daughter.
bparton...thanks. I had started reading the commentary and find it laugh-out-loud funny. When I look back at the poem, it is tragic. The book feels almost schizophrenic in its duality.
And I see the duality is extended to the characters. First there is the Shade/Kinbote connection. Then there is Gradus...which Nabokov relates to Gray, but which also reminds me of Grading/shading/shadowing. Not sure I'm on track yet though. But I really like what I've read so far.
Are you going to participate in "Lolita" as your own double?
Gosh, hadn't thought of that. Maybe I should.
Prepare yourself for more laughs. I wish we could somehow find blackvegetable on those forums and get him to post over here - but, I guess you could look at the archived Pale Fire discussion instead. The first week or so is quite interesting.
I will join you with Pale Fire, but I won't be able to start reading it for a week or so if that's okay?
PS I know nothing about Nabokov. I will be starting from scratch.
Bparton. I saved all the posts from the "Pale Fire" forum and I'm working my way through them. The first hundred down and so far a good discussion.
I've finished reading "Pale Fire" with the exception of the Index at the end. When you mentioned reading it cover to cover like a "normal" book, I had already gotten quite far into it, following the leaps the commentator advised. Then I went back and read the poem. I think the sense of the book would be quite different reading it cover to cover..front to back. I did catch on quite early that Kinbote is quite clueless about the text of the poem.
Now I'm going to re-read it the way you suggested, cover to cover, and see what that feels like.
McGrail...that sounds great. I've only just begun to read Nabokov, too. I started with "Speak, Memory" because I wasn't sure what to expect in the "Lolita" discussion. Then moved to "Lolita" and next to "Pale Fire." I really love "Pale Fire." I find every aspect of it brilliant and beautiful...the poem, the commentator's story.
I think Nabokov may become my favorite author. Something about him truly resonates with me. I'm not sure whether it's his sense of humor, the weirdness in his stories, or just the beauty of his writing. While you read "Pale Fire," I'm going to start looking at the short stories.
Hmmm - I posted a comment here yesterday, but it never did show up "in public", so to speak. It did appear in the thread after I posted it. Wonder what's wrong?
Anyway, I was addressing your remark on reading the book straight through. I've done that without paying enough attention to the poem, then I finally figured out how important the poem is. Following the notes is fine unless you get sick of it (and you will, I'll bet), just as long as you read the poem. Kinbote advises us to read his commentary, returning to the poem for each line of commentary. That's my primary objection to what many people refer to as "reading the book the way Nabokov says to read it." It's Kinbote speaking there, no Nabokov. I believe Nabokov once remarked that one should "read the notes", but I still think it's his little joke on the reader.
As for the index, it is an animal unto itself, I find.
Sorry for the very long absence here. I have read through Pale Fire, but I am afraid it really is not for me. Nor, Lover of Unreason I'm afraid. I envy the ability of the people here and at the NY Times to be able to shift in their reading tastes so easily.
I think I will stick with older things for the time being, the older the better (and perhaps an essay or two).
If there is still an interest in discussing Beowulf or other ancient literature here, I will try to join in. I have finally obtained an old copy of the book by John Grigsby and I suppose I will read that next.
Should have said 'used' not 'old'.
Oh, and I have Creative Mythology too, which I have not read yet.
MrGrail...good to hear from you again.
I had the feeling when I was reading "Lover of Unreason" that it would be the perfect gift to give to parents who view their daughters as princesses. I'm not certain that Assia was all that brilliant, but she probably would have done better if her parents had taught her that looks and brains don't magically create a successful life. Hard work is the only answer..no matter how "special" you are.
I liked the Grigsby book quite a bit. Let me know when you finish. I'm just now beginning to make headway on "Creative Mythology." I found the beginning hard going.
McGrail...also, I've got the Norton Critical edition of Beowulf. I think you mentioned earlier that you were using that edition. Were there any essays you particularly enjoyed there?
lhoffman,
Would you consider inviting the crowd over here to continue the Nabokov discussion once the month closes on Lolita?
With the new rules at the NYT I wonder if they will shut the forum down precisely at the end of the month.
I feel there is still a lot to say about these books, and I want to continue reading Nabokov too. I'll probably move on to Pnin after Speak, Memory.
Reader5232...Sounds like a good idea, although I hope the forum isn't closed down too quickly.
I quite like the feel of "Pnin." Nabokov gives him mention in "Pale Fire:" "Speaking of the Head of the bloated Russian Department, Prof. Pnin, a regular martinet in regard to his underlings (happily, Prof. Botkin, who taught in another department was not subordinated to that grotesque 'perfectionist'): 'How odd that Russian intellectuals should lack all sense of humor when they have such marvelous humorists as Gogol, Dostoevski, Chekhov, Zoshchenko, and those joint authors of genius Ilf and Petrov.'"
"Talking of the vulgarity of a certain burly acquaintance of ours: 'The man is as corny as a cook-out chef apron.' Kinbote (laughting): 'Wonderful!'"
That sounds good. I haven't even started the Lolita annotations yet.
Don't know how many will follow. Hopefully, you won't attract Lifeline. I guess that's the danger in advertising. (Perhaps you can block the especially disruptive with the tools of this sight.)
Will be ready to discuss Pnin by tomorrow, if there is any interest here in doing so.
es...and Pnin is still my favorite.
Pnin calls for a different sort of analysis than does Lolita or Pale Fire. I didn't love Lolita or Kinbote or any of the characters in either of those two novels. I didn't love Nabokov in Speak, Memory. But, I loved Professor Pnin, through and through.
I could hardly stand to read the scene after the party where Pnin is washing the bowl. My heart was in my mouth.
Also love Pnin's driving!
I had the same reaction about that scene and about all of the stuff that comes after.
I told my son I was going to rewrite the ending and put the pages in the back of the book for the next time I read it. He said I couldn't do that. But I pressed and begged and finally he relented, but only after telling me that I shouldn't do it until I fully understand the ending.
I don't understand the ending at all.
How does he do it? How does Nabokov make us love Pnin?
Here's a meaningless forumula of observations that while correct do nothing toward really understanding his method.
VN sets Pnin apart. He makes him eccentric. He gives him a funny way of speaking and other funny foibles. He makes the life a lonely one without saying it is lonely. He lets us see that Pnin sees and he lets us see that Pnin does not let others know everything he sees.
Pnin makes himself a character. Somehow VN shows this. Humbert does not make himself a character. Lolita does not. Kinbote and Shade and Gradus don't. Pnin does. That sets him still further apart, maybe even above.
Then, he lets Pnin be happy. It's a simple sort of happiness, like the kind a child gets from daydreaming, or wading quietly. Not the kind that comes with frolic. We also see that it is important to Pnin to make other characters happy.
We see that he tries and his trying is love.
We see that others love him.
So, we love him, not just for this last reason but for all the other reasons too.
What else? What did you see that made you love him? In terms of method, the more precise the observation the better.
Like that punch bowl. A beautiful detail. Like the soccer ball. Like the intelligence of Victor.
Didn't you feel bad for Pnin when you saw that VN didn't let Victor stay around for very long? That's part of the method too.
And that's what I mean about art and love. I don't mean to say that one must create the art with love in order for it to be truly of a higher form.
What I mean to say is that something happens during the process of creation. Regardless of the emotion that the artist brings to the creation, if the art is to ascend to a truly high form, to the highest forms we know at least, then something happens to that artist. He or she begins to create with love as the dominant controlling force.
That's all instinct though. I have no idea whether it is true or how to go about proving the idea. It surely seems right though.
Ever see the paintings of Eugene Boudin?
Many of his paintings depict a group of overly dressed 19th century people on beaches.
The Beach (1877)
The Beach at Villerville (1864)
Beach Scene (1862)
Figures on the Beach (1867-70)
On the Beach (1894)
On the Beach, Trouville (1887)
Washerwoman near Trouville (1872)
There are numerous others like this. I spent some time with them recently. See:
http://www.nga.gov/cgi-bin/psearch?Request=A&Person=3350
Beaudin is very good at putting water in the air. Rain in the distance, heavy clouds above, ocean in the background, clothes drenched with humidity, wind blown water in the foreground -- that sort of thing -- atmosphere, like Nabokov's haze and shades of grey.
But, Boudin's compositional skills were what came to mind as I read Pnin; those groups of people coverd in clothes on beaches at the edge of the world, like Earth on the edge of a greater world. There is a collective sort of loneliness in those paintings.
Light seems to be leaving (or sometimes arriving) but never left and never arrived. It's passing, like the ships in some of those paintings, and the group is at the shore looking but not swimming, standing and not sailing.
Are they waiting?
Are they trapped?
Those groups reminded me of Pnin's freinds at the Pines (or vice versa), and of Pnin and Victor together, of Pnin on his journey to Cremona.
Boudin says a lot in those paintings. Those people on the beach are not a group of Victorian Sunbathers. They are humanity. That beach is not Trouville. It is Earth. It is the brief time humans are on the earth.
And although I can't quite seem to say it yet, Pnin seems to be about those things too.
Boudin painted those scenes for what? Thirty, forty years?
That's a long time.
'Pnin' means stump of a tree.
'Timofey' is an aristocratic name of the nineteenth century.
I know a Russian here. He does not like Russian literature, preferring Wolfe to Nabokov, but he is sometimes helpful.
How about that book "Dreamcatcher" by Stephen King? Ever read that one?
No bounce, no play.
I'll look at the artworks you mention this evening when I have a bit more time. One image that popped into my head at the mention of Boudin at the beach is the scene where Pnin fashions a hat out of his handkerchief...very visual writing.
As to Pnin, do you think that the narrator intends for us to like him? or do we like him in spite of the narrator?
The narrator at first appears to be Nabokov himself. The two have much in common. But I believe that narrator is Liza's real love. This is the only way I can explain (1) how the narrator had access to Liza's letter, and (2)the difference in attitude in the first chapter, where the narrator is unhappy with happy endings, and the end of the book, where the narrator seems to have gotten a certain satisfaction from Pnin's misfortunes....(of course we know that Pnin comes out all right, and we run into him again at Wordsmith College...Pale Fire.)
Thank you. I remembered Pnin from Pale Fire but I did not go back to determine that his mention postdates the events in his own book and they must have given the detailed chronology we get, a chronology that does not mention Wordsmith. So, a new ending is not necessary after all.
So, I can rest easy about that.
The narrator is very sophisticated and does not forgive himself. That's what I think right now, but I too will have to go back when I have more time.
There is a shift, you're right about that. Pnin is less likeable in the begining, or at least he is intended to be less likeable. (I confess that I like him quite a bit right from the start. My world is filled with Pnin's. They seem attracted to me and I to them. They come in all forms, shapes and accents. So maybe my reaction is not the typical one and maybe Pnin is supposed to be repulsive. If so, is VN manipulating the reader so that he/she must recognize that in the absence of reading books like Pnin they too might be just another Jack Cockerral?)
Cockerral's name incidentally sounds curiously doglike. A cocker spaniel truncation perhaps?
I disagree that the narrator got satisfaction. He seems desperate by the end -- or maybe that was me -- desperate to make things right and to find out why they weren't.
He tolerated Cockeral's doggeral but seemed to wake from it in time like he was waking to the story and maybe its meaning too.
I got my feeling about the narrator and the ending from a few different passages. First, the beginning of Chapter 1 (3) (Vintage page 25 if you're using that edition) "Some people---and I am one of them---hate happy ends. We feel cheated. Harm is the norm. Doom should not jam. The avalance stopping in its tracks a few feet above the cowering village behaves not only unnaturally but unethically. Had I been reading about this mild old man, instead of writing about him, I would have preferred him to discover, upon his arrival to Cremona, that his lecture was not this Friday but the next...."
Then at the end of Chapter 6, Pnin has just finished cleaning up after his party and he is writing Hagen. Pnin's story ends. Narrator takes care to assure the reader that he is hurt by Pnin's refusal to work with him.
Chapter 7, the narrator's tale. We learn how he first met Pnin, how Pnin owned a toy monoplane but our narrator "had a similar one, but twice bigger...". He relates the incident of the play and his ensuing embarrassment and that he took "miniscule interest" in Pnin's existence. Later, they meet in a Paris cafe, where Pnin denies knowing him, denies ever meeting him. Still later, there is the awkward incident of Pnin's accusation: "Now, don't believe a word he says...He makes up everything. He once invented that we were schoolmates in Russia and cribbed at examinations. He is a dreadful inventor...."
The book ends with the narrator being regaled by the "Brilliant Cockerell" of Pnin's inept foibles in the world of academia.
Of course, if you read "Brilliant" as sarcasm, the ending takes on a whole new light.
Does the narrator evolve?
He writes: "I would have preferred him to discover, upon his arrival to Cremona, that his lecture was not this Friday but the next."
Then, by the end, Jack Cockerell says he is "going to tell you the story of Pnin rising to address the Cremona Women's Club and discovering he had brought the wrong lecture."
We know Cockerell is lying of course. Because we know that Pnin was "juggling three papers, all of which he stuffed into his coat so as to have the one he wanted among the rest ..."
The narrator has, by then, had enough: "By midnight the fun began to thin ... Finally the whole thing grew to be such a bore ..."
The narrator's view has changed, though perhaps minutely so.
I think you are right about the sarcasm. I hope you are right about it.
Still, there is no forgiving the call that was made on the night of the fourteenth. It seems to me that the call was borne of malice.
The narrator says he was "foolishly eager to say something friendly" and in this way recognizes the folly of the call.
And after Cockerell suggests a drive over to 999 (there is that Pale Fire number again) it is not the narrator who says no.
Finally, by the time he goes to bed, he has a vague sense of distaste about it all.
So, if he evolves, it is a slow and minute evolution. He might just barely start to see, but he is not exactly the good guy that I wanted him to be by the end.
I agree that you are likely right about the narrator's identity. Interesting how he appears and dissapears, fades in and out, like the narrator in Speak, Memory, becoming a firm presence only by the end of the novel.
The narrator is important in this book, particularly with respect to the way he fades in and out. When he's gone, we get a more or less omniscient point of view. When he's present, we see facts that are incorrect or which may be out right lies. The narrator has given us no reason to trust him and no reason to like him. Pnin, by contrast, gives us both reason to trust him and to like him.
Sort of like life, don't you think? Characters tend to be far more likeable and trustworthy than humans (narrators, tale tellers). In my industry, everybody lies about everything. They all have reason to do so. They all have wonderfully immediate temporal motive.
Characters are a funny contrast. They don't lie even when they do so. And that's for two reasons: first, because we as readers generally know about the lie and that knowledge tends to defuse the act; and second, the lie more often than not reveals something more truthful, or more real. Those sorts of things tend not to happen in real life.
The interesting thing about the narrator in Pnin, is that he is clearly also a character. At first, I thought it was Nabokov, entering into the story as a physical presence.
What do you think is the meaning of the recurrence of squirrels in Nabokov's work?
Also, do you have any ideas about the significance of the colors rose (Liza) and aquamarine (Victor) for Nabokov? The rose is very puzzling to me, because rose is often associated with a distorted view of reality...as in "looking at the world through rose-colored glasses."
If you look deeply into a rose you get the affect of looking into a spiral.
Not sure re squirrels though.
Maybe something from his childhood?
The squirrel seems particularly pertinent to Pnin.
Roses...spirals...labyrinths.
I can't find the passage, but in Speak, Memory doesn't he describe his wallpaper as having squirrels in the design?
Yeah, there's something in Speak, Memory about squirrels. I can't remember what.
Another comment about method. Nabokov makes us love Pnin by making Pnin vulnerable.
I've been looking at the Boudin paintings you mentioned. I've been lucky enough to see some of these originals. View of Antibes is in the museum near me. I've also seen On the Beach at Troville, Princess Pauline Metternich on the Beach, Village by a River in the museum near my son's home, and El Puerto del Trouville in his university's gallery.
I've wondered about those people at Boudin's beaches, too. But for me the question is why they have gone to the beach in that sort of weather. But I think I see what you're getting at in the comparison to Nabokov...both share a certain sense of movement. Boudin in the clouds and water, Nabokov in the way he shows us he characters through the movement of their minds and bodies. Rarely a sense of rest.
The Boudin's do remind me somehow of the scenes that take place at Cook's Castle. Even when they are playing chess or reading, there is no sense of stillness. Instead, Nabokov has written a balance of longing for the homeland with a sort of contentment in spending time with other emigres. Even the dead don't rest, instead they "formed committees, and these, in continuous session, attended to the destinies of the quick."...and this his meditation amongst a swarm of mosquitoes.
"...both share a certain sense of movement. Boudin in the clouds and water, Nabokov in the way he shows us he characters through the movement of their minds and bodies. Rarely a sense of rest."
Didn't see that but I like the idea. There is a dynamism in Nabokov's novels irrespective of the presence of physical action. We don't need Humbert Humbert to fight Quilty (and that may never have happened anyway) and we don't need John Shade to get shot by Gradus (which also might not happen). The play of emotions and the reach and span of intellect are more than sufficiently dynamic.
I'm not sure really why my mind connected Nabokov to Boudin. Maybe it was because, they both seem to see islands in places where the islands aren't readily apparent. And they see those islands as important.
The event at the Pines was what really brought me to the paintings. That little party at the end, with Cockerall and the narrator, didn't get me to Boudin. The group at that latter party aren't the people on the beach; they're the sea that surrounds it.
"I am the shadow ..."
Shade is a shadow now that his daughter has passed. "A" shadow sure, that's easy. But what does it mean to be "the" shadow?
Anything?
Was Deadalus the shadow of Icarus who died the same way that Shade's daughter did? Both drown. Both soared before they drowned.
Is Nabokov telling us not to overlook the potential of the old stories?
Hercules defeats the Nemedian lion. Theseus defeats the Minotaur. Perseus the Medusa. Icarus dies and his father made it so, or at least made it possible.
Icarus dies. He didn't listen to his father's advice. He flew too close to the sun. The Shade woman too must have been told not to cross the ice in the winter without being sure it is safe. Every child is told this in the northeast every year of their lives every time the ice starts to freeze every February during that little false spring that seems to come at almost exactly the same time every year and then again when real spring comes.
But how fun that must have been, to fly close to the sun, to cross the ice at night. How hard it must be to listen to that sort of advice. Don't look into the sun, as another poet suggests that's where the fun is, right?
The shadow -- Look at what Deadulus saw: the sun behind him, the son before. Heat and light at his back, cold, sinking shadow to the front.
"The" shadow not "A" shadow. The ultimate shadow. What is that part of the construct called? The one that blocks the sun in order to create the shadow. I bet there's a word for it.
Is it guilt? Is it sorrow? Is it the unfair and unjust confusion that guilt can bring to sorrow? One of those emotions that we don't have a word for.
Oh, probably not; I'm sure it is some sort of term out of physics.
Don't know Nabokov's views on myth, but I wonder if his views on Freud might give us a clue.
Got to thinking about shadows...what is the block called? I did find something of interest in Wikipedia:
"For other uses of the word "umbra", see Umbra (disambiguation).
For other uses of the word "penumbra", see Penumbra (disambiguation).
Umbra and penumbra
Umbra, penumbra, and antumbraThe umbra (Latin: "shadow") is the darkest part of a shadow. From within the umbra, the source of light is completely blocked by the object causing the shadow. This contrasts with the penumbra, where the light source is only partially blocked and there is only a partial shadow.
Penumbras occur only when the source of light is not a point source. As the sun is a visible disc, solar shadows have penumbras.
The part of the penumbra where an annular eclipse is visible is called the antumbra. In an annular eclipse, the moon is not of sufficient size to completely cover the sun, and so its shadow is not long enough to reach the Earth and result in a total solar eclipse. At maximum eclipse, the moon is surrounded by a ring, or annulus, of light, and the location on Earth where the ring can be seen is also the location of the antumbra. Although the antumbra may be referred to as a "negative shadow", it is nevertheless darker than the penumbra, just like the umbra is in a total eclipse. However, whereas the umbra is completely devoid of sunlight, the antumbra is not because of the remaining ring."
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umbra"
(Wikipedia has a nice chart there is you look it up.)
I like the image of the people at the Pines as the sea...If so, then the people at Cook's Castle could be his islemates...all afloat in an empty ocean, nothing of value to grab onto...the emigre experience?
'The emigre experience.'
Easy to say; difficult to feel. Like most literature that so few read and so few analyze so blithely.
The emigre experience.
What does that FEEL like?
Does the literature convey it?
Yes.
Is the conveyance received?
Not often.
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