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From: nobi@mtuxo.UUCP (m.juliar)
Newsgroups: net.books
Subject: Re: Pale Fire
Message-ID: <1433@mtuxo.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 21-Mar-86 12:43:43 EST
Article-I.D.: mtuxo.1433
Posted: Fri Mar 21 12:43:43 1986
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Re: Pale Fire poem and critics reactions to it

I wasn't aware that some critics were looking at the poem, Pale Fire,
with lighter blue pencils.  Who are they?  I am curious.  What
does Vivian Bloodmark think of it?

Me?  What do I think of it?  It's been too long since I've read it.
But I wouldn't judge it too harshly after only one or two or three
readings.  I wouldn't judge ANYTHING of Nabokov's too harshly
after only a few cursory examinations.  There are always traps, snares,
delusions, illusions, allusions, bombs, smirks, and a total underlying
solidity and wholeness to everything he writes.

That's the problem with the public perception (for those who perceive
at all) of Nabokov.  He's considered too hard, or obscure, or cold.
Hard he often is (he says to the effect that art isn't simple, it's 
complex and hard); obscure he never is (he's very specific, very
controlled, crystal clear); and, to call him cold is to throw a very
old, emaciated, and inaccurate tomato.  For instance, look at his
handling of Humbert Humbert standing on the hill, looking down at
a valley from which the sounds of children playing gently float up
to remind him of the worst crime he committed: removing Lolita from
that galaxy of childhood.

Nabokov is an original and has to be read again and again to appreciate
what he was trying to do in his books, what he was trying to make his
reads SEE and HEAR and PERCEIVE.  He sometimes "made strange" so that
we, one of the true antagonists in his books, could stop seeing the
world through the prism of old habits and get a glimpse of it through
another, fresher, clearer window.

I think it's time to reread Pnin.