Brain Pain discussion

For the second half of the commentary, and the index, which in this case, isn't JUST an index...

I'd love to see some opinions before I post yet more stuff...anybody have a thought as to WHO the narrator is? Kinbote? Is Kinbote really Kinbote? Is this all an elaborate ruse of Shade? Who's Gradius? Who's alive and who's dead by the end?

The commentary to line 680, referencing Hurricane Lolita is of course a reference to Nabokov's most notorious work, and is often used to refer to the furor and whirlwind surrounding the publication history of Lolita...however, an examination of retired hurricanes around the time Shade is supposed to have written the poem reveals one of use to us, which is Hurricane Hazel! After noticing this I dug around and did find that someone else had noticed this as well, and noted that Hazel still might hold wind speed records for New York City.
https://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin...
Did anybody notice other references to Nabokov works? Did you notice Professor Pnin?

Will wrote: "Did anybody notice other references to Nabokov works? Did you notice Professor Pnin?.."

I did. I haven't finished my reading and so can't comment too intelligently yet.

Did anyone make note of the Shade and Sybil names?

"the shades" were the names for the newly dead souls waiting to be taken across the River Styx.

Sybil is a variant of "Sibyl", the ancient oracles.

Seems like a not particularly hidden thing so I'm guessing the Nabokovians have commented on it somewhere.

I meant to come back here and comment, but like many of us, I've been reading other things.

Overall it was a very rewarding read, and I could go back to my many notes and see tons of funny and interesting things. The book was a laugh a minute.

It was also affecting. I thought that, even though Kinbote's delusion was so patently absurd from the beginning, after a while one feels some sympathetic desire for there to be some element of truth to his delusion, or something to perhaps redeem him in some way. One starts to believe some of his tale when he tells of certain comments by the Shades and the other University faculty, which suggest that they don't completely dismiss him as a madman, that he might have some kind of friendship or friendly acquaintance with Shade, that some might have actually noticed a resemblance between him and an actually extant "King of Zembla," or that they acknowledge the existence of such a land, and that there may actually be a department within the university where he can teach the Zemblan language, and so forth. But then, since everything comes through his report, and he even contrives a way that in the end everyone can deny the conversations that have occurred and the whole thing could be (correctly) mis-construed... well, our hopes for him are frustrated, but it's awesome that the author could inspire hopes for this pathetically delusional individual.

Will wrote: "I'd love to see some opinions before I post yet more stuff...anybody have a thought as to WHO the narrator is? Kinbote? Is Kinbote really Kinbote? Is this all an elaborate ruse of Shade? Who's Grad..."

I was reading with another group, so late to the discussion here. Also, I mentioned before that I’ve read other sources on Pale Fire, so felt like my jumping in early wouldn’t exactly be ‘honest’, as much of my knowledge has come from other sources.

I really do recommend rereading Pale Fire, and reading it the second time following the trail of references to references to references instead of straight through. Many of the connections become obvious when read this way. Another hint that I found invaluable was that when Nabokov passes over something quickly or mentions it in a seeming aside, it’s probably something important.

For the question of who Kinbote really is, here are some possible hints from the commentary:

In the note to line 172, Kinbote writes “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”):” Why should the self-centered Kinbote care that Botkin, a minor professor who doesn’t play any part in the rest of the narrative, is not subordinated to Pnin?

Line 894: "Professor Pardon now spoke to me: “I was under the impression that you were born in Russia, and that your name was a kind of anagram of Botkin or Botkine?” "

And line 347-348: “I am quite sure it was I who one day, when we were discussing “mirror words,” observed (and I recall the poet’s expression of stupefaction) that “spider” in reverse is “redips,” and “T. S. Eliot,” “toilest.” But then it is also true that Hazel Shade resembled me in certain respects.” Which implies Kinbote is fond of wordplay.

There are a few seemingly random references to the term 'botkin' as well, which appear to be cryptic clues to something. So, is Kinbote really Botkin, a minor professor in an unnamed department? (Speaking of which, does anyone know what department Kinbote is in?)

Also relevant, Kinbote says the head of his department in Oscar Nattochdag. There are characters named Prince Oscar and Nat-og-Dag in two of the stories in Isak Dinesen's Seven Gothic Tales . "Nat-og-Dag" means night and day. I haven't read the stories, but from the site Waggish.org:

"The two greatest stories in Seven Gothic Tales are the two longest: The Deluge at Norderney and The Dreamers. Both involve people telling tales of themselves and others in nested layers, a la Jan Potocki’s The Manuscript Found in Saragossa. Both feature characters who, through an act of pretending, become greater than they otherwise would be...."

For further evidence that Zembla was created whole-cloth, many of the things mentioned in New Wye have their counterparts in the Zembla story. For example, Goldsworth has four daughters, Alphina , Betty, Candida, and Dee. The royalty of Zembla is Alfin, Blenda, Charles and Disa (that bit I got from Brian Boyd :-) .