Fiction

[Lhoffman]

Bourdain...I just bought his Bloody Valentine.   Looks to be great fun!

[pugetopolis]

You enjoy the confrontation?

I'd rather be challenged by somebody, rather than have somebody say, "Dude, where are you going to have drinks after the show?" I love a spirited debate as much as anybody. I even like being wrong, if something can make a good case … on something. In a lot of ways, that's what I do professionally, traveling. I'm confronted by my own ignorance or misunderstandings all the time.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/dining/chi-100420-anthony-bourdain-chicago-interview,0,3060799.story

[Lhoffman]

It's a fun book...especially if you like to talk food. 

[pugetopolis]

“You know the line: "Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in." It's Pacino, complaining about the mob in Godfather III (or maybe about the Hollywood culture that got him to do the much-derided second sequel). Here I'm talking about the world of Nabokov controversies. Some pretty rough characters in that mob, too. You don't want to get on the Don's bad side.”—Ron Rosenbaum, “Freeing Pale from Pale Fire: The next big Nabokov controversy,” http://www.slate.com/id/2261520/

Well, Laurie, just after the exhausting “Laurie” debate with the Nabokov ms., (should it be burned or not burned) apparently here comes another one. Ho-hum.

“But things seemed to have settled down since the book came out. Then, like I said, I found myself dragged back again. More willingly this time because it was a controversy over what I regard as Nabokov's greatest work, his 1962 novel, Pale Fire.”

Well, well, Laurie.

I wonder if Whiskeypriest has got all his books outta the cardboard boxes yet or not? It seems as if Pale Fire is warming up again.
 

 

[Lhoffman]

Here's this morning's mail:   Boyd to Rosenbaum

http://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind1008&L=nabokv-l&T=0&P=2603

[Lhoffman]

The thread is here:

http://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A1=ind1008&L=nabokv-l

-----------------

Forwarded to mail, not on server yet.   Jansy writes:

Brian Boyd is certainly the best authority we have to learn more about Brian Boyd's PF theory, so I read his latest message to Nab-L carefully.
I noticed that he doesn't mention anything related to Shade's ghost influencing Kinbote's hand for the synchronized appearance of Gradus, or Hazel's inspiring Kinbote's creation of Zembla. He writes about the importance of ghostly messages (the moving light in the barn) and of a girl who is unaware of her influence over different people (Browning's "Pippa Passes") Where does Hazel come into it?.
 
I browsed through Dieter Zimmer's translation of Fahles Feuer  with the intention to find out how Nabokov suggests a translation for the moving light's message at the Haunted Barn. I had the impression that the broken words in German were different, or that they emphasized different items from the English words, perhaps even excluding "Atalanta"*).
 
In relation to Hazel and ghosts, Zimmer notes (FF,417): "Wirkliche Beweise für diese Lesart had Boyd nicht beigebracht. Mich überzeugt sie auch darum nicht, weil sie zu heftige Eingriffe der Geisterwelt in der Irdischen voraus-setzte."
Zimmer seems to be holding onto a letter written by Nabokov, while he was still in the process of writing "Pale Fire."  In it Nabokov states that he had initially planned to name the novel "The Happy Atheist" (Der glückliche Atheist, in DZ text in German). Finally, he decided against it because he considers his novel to be "too poetical and romantic" ("aber dafür ist das Buch viel zu poetisch und romantisch...").
He adds that his aim while writing the novel has been to concentrate on the matter of pre and after-life and this is something he thinks has been elegantly solved by him.
 
My insufficient knowledge of the German doesn't allow me to offer a translation for Zimmer's text. There are puzzling words ("Figur") whose correct rendering might change my own interpretation and prove me to be in the wrong. Any help here (with the original text by VN, for example)?
In German we find (p.416) "Die Recherche meiner Figur konzentriert sich auf das Problem des Vor- und Nachlebens, das, wie ich sagen darf, auf schöne Weise gelöst wird." Who or what is this "Figur" (Kinbote?)
The word "gelöst" suggests to me that Nabokov considers that his novel presents the solution to a puzzle... (so now we have VN's word for the solution of a "puzzle"). Is it true?
 
...............................................................................................
* - I was wrong. In German the words are exactly the same. Perhaps the alteration is to be found in the French translation. I cannot find my original source about that! (so more help is enlisted to check on that!

[pugetopolis]

Well, well, Laurie. This debate sounds much more interesting
than the tiresome "estate angst" quibbling over the "Laura" ms.
Let the Great Debate (Boyd vs. Rosenbaum) begin. It's almost
like a continuation from our NYTimes "Pale Fire" Discussion Group
days. Kinda. Sorta.  
_____________________________________________________________

Date:         Thu, 5 Aug 2010 10:34:29 +1200
Reply-To:     Vladimir Nabokov Forum <[log in to unmask]>
Sender:       Vladimir Nabokov Forum <[log in to unmask]>
From:         "[log in to unmask]" <[log in to unmask]>
Subject:      Re: Brian Boyd responds to Ron Rosenbaum re "Pale Fire"
In-Reply-To:  <[log in to unmask]>
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;

In response to Ron Rosenbaum’s two messages:

First, on the Arion Press edition and the Gingko edition. Mo Cohen of Gingko was disturbed about the claim in the booktryst blog copied to Nabokv-L, and asked me if I knew about the Arion edition. I answered him:

Yes, I knew it, and was even consulted for it, and for my pains was sent a copy. But the Arion Press edition of Pale Fire was quite different from Gingko’s John Shade’s Pale Fire: a limited edition of novel and poem, without the focus on the poem that's the distinguishing mark of our edition. The separate booklet of the poem was on paper, of index-card proportions, and black-ruled, to suggest index cards, but set in type, not in handwriting, and bound, so that the whole playful conceit of our edition that the poem has come straight from Shade’s index cards to the reader, bypassing Kinbote and any other editorial intervention, is missing. And the focus entirely on the poem in the essays by R.S. Gwynn and me, supporting and expanding on this conceit, is absent from the essay Andrew Hoyem wrote to accompany his edition (which mostly references my old interpretation of Pale Fire, since retracted). So I don't think any of us, Jean Holabird, you, me, Ron Rosenbaum, is wrong to single out the Gingko edition as a breakthrough in the perception of the poem. The Hoyem edition is a gorgeous example of fine-bookmaking for the collectors who could afford $600, but it does nothing for the perception or evaluation of the novel, let alone the poem.

I have never read and never expect to read Pale Fire in the Arion edition: it's too precious-looking to risk defiling by leaving greasy fingerprints on page after page as one slowly reads through. But we have designed the Gingko edition to be read and savored, as if we were Shade's first friends and confidantes--or just admirers of his poetry, and Nabokov's.
I wouldn't have wanted to run with your project if I hadn't thought it completely new.

Second, on the interpretation of Pale Fire. My essay to appear in the Gingko edition was entirely focused on the poem, as Shade’s and Nabokov’s. It ignores the Commentary because the whole point of the Gingko edition is to restore the poem to the attention it deserves as a poem, as the product of the poet John Shade and of the Nabokov who created him and his masterpiece. The essay treats the poem seriously, lovingly, as on a par with Shakespeare in his best poems, in the sonnets. Had Ron Rosenbaum not been reading my essay only for evidence of the relation it has to the interpretation of the novel as a whole I advanced in my 1999 book, he might have noticed this.

The evidence in my book that I suggest points to Nabokov’s wanting to allow readers to infer the dead Hazel’s role in poem and commentary comes overwhelmingly from the 90% of Pale Fire signed by Kinbote. The case could certainly not be made from the evidence of the poem alone. Since in the Gingko project I was working with poem alone, as if straight from Shade’s hands, the question of Hazel’s role simply does not arise.

Whether or not Nabokov wanted to suggest that Hazel had influenced Shade’s composition of the poem, and in order to do that, had prompted Kinbote’s Zembla fantasy and his insistently importuning Shade to immortalize Charles the Beloved in his verse, he wanted Shade to be taken seriously as a poet. Even if Hazel was able to influence live people after her death, she would not have sought to inspire, say, her mother to write a poem with her suicide at its center. She could only influence to write a poem someone whose mind was a poet’s.

In a similar way, Nabokov suggests, has Fyodor suggest, that Fyodor may be influenced by the spirit of his father, and the spirit of Pushkin, both in writing his aborted biography of his father, and in writing The Gift itself. Fyodor does not see these as any diminution of his artistry or responsibility.

And Nabokov also wrote to his mother that he thought, after his Cambridge exams, that his dead father had somehow inspired him in writing those exams. I think he implies, in the shape of The Gift and elsewhere, a sense that his own work comes from regions beyond, where his dead father and dead Pushkin somehow live on, as he implies, in Pale Fire, a sense that his own work comes from regions beyond where his dead parents and dead Shakespeare somehow live on. He also knows how much hard labor, how much research and painstaking revision, he put into these and other compositions, how much responsibility he has for every creative decision. If his work does put him in touch with, even allow him to channel, mysteries beyond, they remain mysteries, and his work remains his, just as within the fictive world he inhabits, John Shade’s poem remains his, whatever else Nabokov may or may not imply lies behind it.
Brian Boyd

On 5/08/2010, at 8:23 AM, Nabokv-L wrote:


-------- Original Message --------
Subject:        from Ron Rosenbaum re "Pale Fire"
Date:   Wed, 4 Aug 2010 12:33:43 -0700
From:   palefire30 <[log in to unmask]><mailto:[log in to unmask]>
To:     <[log in to unmask]><mailto:[log in to unmask]>


Dear List members,

  I want to thank A. Bouazza for bringing to our attention the sale of the Arion Press <Pale Fire>.

From the Abe Books website description of what was sold, it is clear that this is <not> a "stand alone" edition of the poem "Pale Fore" but rather a two volume edition of the whole novel, something quite different, in form and purpose from the forthcoming Gingko Press edition that I wrote about in <Slate>  <http://www.slate.com/id/2261520/><http://www.slate.com/id/2261520/>


  Here is the Abe Books description from their website describing the record sale price of what they call "the book" (not "the poem" (I wonder why the record sale, coming a week or so after my column?):

"Other items of particular note include a Nabokov book that is not Lolita. Coming in at number five we have his Pale Fire, a fascinating and unusual novel which takes the form of a 999-line poem, along with notes, commentary and editorial by a fictional friend of the (also fictional) poet throughout. This copy was #44 of a 266-copy limited edition."

    While the poem may have occupied the first volume, clearly what is being described is a "book" of two volumes in which the poem is embedded. The Gingko Press edition is of the poem alone, purposely designed so that the poem will be considered separately from the book.

  I wonder if the author of the triumphalist post here ("Ron Rosenbaum was wrong") who made such a issue of the Arion Press being a stand alone "Pale Fire" will have the grace to concede his error.

   I'm somewhat disappointed by the tone the moderators of the list have allowed, in which I have been accused of "shilling" for Gingko Press, and described as "strange". Particularly  when my own civil disagreement with Brian Boyd on whether he has "abandoned" (my version) or merely ignored (his version) his theory of the authorship of "Pale Fire"  (it was somehow dictated by the ghost of John Shade's dead daughter Hazel Boyd contend in 1999) was not posted. I hope we're not protecting favorites here.  I merely asked whether any other List members believed Boyd's theory. I re iterate the question now: does anyone else believe Hazel Shade's ghost somehow dictated "Pale Fire"?

Ron Rosenbaum


EDNote: the "Triumphalist post" ("Ron Rosenbaum at Slate is Wrong . . .", July 28) mentioned above was not written by a Nabokv-L subscriber, but rather copied to the list by Sandy P. Klein from its original location, a blog at "booktryst.com."  The original post is at: http://www.booktryst.com/2010/07/ron-rosenbaum-at-slate-is-wrong-about.html
The unpleasant tone, which RR is correct to note would not be allowed in direct comments by list subscribers about other subscribers, was part of that off-list post, reproduced here for documentary purposes.  As for the missing RR post (July 24)--my apologies: I did not suppress it intentionally; an email glitch caused it to escape my notice and so I failed to forward it.  I'm pasting it in below, in hopes that it will still spark some interest and response.
Please be aware that our policy is never to suppress a subscriber-authored post without communicating about it with the contributor.  If a post is merely a reproduction of other web content, sometimes we do silently suppress. Feel free to contact us if ever your posts don't appear; glitches occur regularly, and our in-boxes can be hectic places. Thanks for your patience.
~SB

---
Subject:        from Ron Rosenbaum in regard to B.Boyd's theory of the authorship of "Pale Fire"
Date:   Sat, 24 Jul 2010 06:13:10 -0700
From:   palefire30 <[log in to unmask]><mailto:[log in to unmask]>
To:     <[log in to unmask]><mailto:[log in to unmask]>

   As an admirer of Brian Boyd, I must say I am entertained by his fancy footwork in his recent communication to the list about his theory of the authorship of the poem "Pale Fire" in the novel <Pale Fire>.

   After writing an entire book centered on the conjecture that the poem was not written by ostensible author John Shade (<Nabokov's Pale Fire: The Magic of Artistic Discovery> Princeton University Press, 1999) but by the ghost of Shade's dead daughter Hazel, he now writes a 30 page essay for the forthcoming stand-alone edition of the poem, in which he fails to mention this daring but far-fetched theory. I do not say he "repudiates" his theory in my <Slate> essay, I just wonder why what was once a central issue to him (and all readers of what we both agreee is probably Nabokov's greatest work) is absent now. What happened to Hazel's shade?

   Indeed throughout his essay he refers to "Shade's ideas" and tells us that inthe poem "Shade expresses these realizations lucidly" (both on p. .

   Mr. Boyd tells us: "Rosenbaum is wrong to imagine my essay repudiates my Pale Fire book. It just looks at a different flank of the elephant, a different point of the starfish".

    Is he then, elephant and starfish aside, still willing to assert that he believes the poem "Pale Fire" was meant by VN to be taken as written by the ghost of John Shade's dead daughter? I think this is an important question for the foremost Nabokov biographer to help us clear up.

And I'd be interested to see if anyone else on the list subscribes to this theory of the poem's authorship.

[Lhoffman]

See also; Brian Boyd, Shade and Shape in Pale Fire.

http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/forians.htm

----------------

Link doesn't go directly to the essay.   Once at the site, click on criticism, then scroll down until you come to it.

[pugetopolis]

Brian Boyd, Nabokov’s Pale Fire: The Magic of Artistic Discovery, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999.

This is the Boyd book we were discussing on the phone, Laurie. I’m sure that Rosenbaum has done his research & read it. At least I hope.

I still have Rosenbaum’s "The Shakespeare Wars" moiling around in my bookcase—but I wasn’t very impressed by his so called “bardolatry”—holding the poet up as somehow more than human.” (See the reviewer’s notes below). It was rather disappointing when we read it in a Book Discussion somewhere. I forget where now. The NYTimes Book Discussion Group? Ho-hum. I hope Rosenbaum’s study of Vladimir’s Pale Fire is somewhat more intelligent.

One advantage of these Nabokov Wars—is that perhaps somebody is going to make some big bucks on the next Pale Fire book to published outta this hoity-toity literary bitch fight.  

How about “The Nabokov Wars: Clashing Scholars, Public Fiascoes, Palace Coups” a la Ron Rosenbaum like he did with Shakespeare? 

“The journalist Ron Rosenbaum is best known for his 1998 book Explaining Hitler, which, as its subtitle declares, is about a “search for the origins of [the dictator's] evil.” Those tapes took him from the contemplation of one abyss, the Hitlerian “genius for destruction,” to the contemplation of another, the Shakespearean “genius for creation.” If Hitler's moral evil was so exceptional as to seem beyond the continuum of ordinary human wickedness, Shakespeare's literary greatness seems no less off the charts, so exceptional that “bardolatry”—holding the poet up as somehow more than human—has since the 18th century been an occupational hazard for scholars, critics, and ordinary readers alike.”

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/the-shakespeare-wars-by-ron-rosenbaum-10141

[nnyhav]

Twas the List that first pointed me to the NYTBookForum, the late lamented Nabokov forum, which was the first (perhaps only) citation of bookchat to appear in the lit, Nabokov Studies #6, after Boyd (participating as brainbody) gleaned some of the interplay in discussion of his book on Pale Fire in a follow-up article, "Azure Afterimages" (and Kurt Johnson similarly [and also participating] in the same issue on "Nabokov's Legacy in Science" credited teddy and the lately late lamented goliard).

Rosenbaum's entry onto the list is to be lamented. So too the exodus here.

[pugetopolis]

http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2010/0730/Monkeys-hate-flying-squirrels-report-monkey-annoyance-experts

=

http://forums.escapefromelba.com/index.php/topic,9.msg217152.html#msg217152


 

Well, Flying squirrels come & go—macaque monkeys get annoyed & display their muy macho for their female species girlfriends. The NYTimes comes & goes as well—all things on the Net are transitory & temporary. Very much like life itself—to lament the Flow of the River Blog down to the Net Sea is a really just a waste of time. Is it not as Heraclitus said? "All things are flowing." Including Melba, the NYTimes & the Nabokov forums? As well as our own day-to-day mundane lives. Flying squirrels, macaque monkeys…

[Lhoffman]

I am able to read the Boyd book at Questia.  Thanks for the suggestion, Pugetopolis.

(Rosenbaum on Shakespeare...if ever a book was meant to be thrown.....)

Nabokov Studies #6....I don't find this on the site, and no reference to the writing.   Would you know the year of this volume?

[nnyhav]

[...] Nabokov Studies #6....I don't find this on the site, and no reference to the writing.   Would you know the year of this volume?

2000/2001. online (muse) I think begins with #8 (2004). (cf My take on #10).

[Lhoffman]

[...] Nabokov Studies #6....I don't find this on the site, and no reference to the writing.   Would you know the year of this volume?

2000/2001. online (muse) I think begins with #8 (2004). (cf My take on #10).

Good stuff there...took me on a trail of links through your blog.   I'd forgotten the allusion to Eliphaz in that Canto, and his relation to the idea of secret sin and justice being meted out by God.   It's a nice piece of writing...a secret within a secret, so to speak.

The Nabokov Studies #6 is interesting in that I can find #1-4 at Zembla, and #8-11 at various journals.   

[madupont]

This being a fiction forum and all, my two favorite Missionary novels are A Burnt Out Case and At Play in the Fields of the Lord.[/quote][/color]
                         After-thoughts

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101373/
                                                      Mine too, as film. Made me pay attention to: Kathy Bates as a bigger than life actress.

Martin and Hazel Quarrier(Kathy Bates) are small-town fundamentalist missionaries sent to the jungles of South America to convert the Indians...

Director:              
Hector Babenco                                                                             The  Kiss of the Spider  Women,  starring William Hurt and Raoul Julia

Writers:                         Carriere for -- The Return of Martin Guerre
Hector Babenco (writer)
Jean-Claude Carrière (writer)                                      Gerard Depardieu