''Vladimir Nabokov's Comic Quest for Reality' - Nottingham eTheses

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"Parents" (1,71), "my bedroom" (I, 80), "offer"
(I, 62), "address" (111,768) and many other words do
not call for explanatory notes. The very idea to
comment on them seems ludicrous. But for Kinbote
they are all significant: for him they carry a host
of implications which are quite alien to the poem
but very real to him, and which he desperately wants
the reader to see as well. As G. Highet points out,
Kinbote draws three stories from the "framework" of
the poem: "the story of his own lonely unhappiness
at Wordsmith College (relieved only by his admiration
for Shade), the outline of Shade's life while he is
working on Pale Fire (with flash-backs), and the
melodramatic flight-and-pursuit tale of King Charles
of Zembla and the murderer Gradus. "39 of these the
third story (in which it gradually becomes clear
first:, that Kinbote is himself the king, second:
that he only imagines this, and third: that he is
mad) forms the main bulk of the commentary. It can
be reconstructed from the numerous fragments, complete
with the revolution in Zembla, the king's hilarious
flight (part of which is said to have been inspired
by the Marx Brothers), and Charles' pursuit by the
rather repulsive Gradus; complete also with Charles'
sexual aberrations and his unsuccessful marriage
with Disa, Duchess of Payn.
Each of the innocent lines of the poem sings of
this for Kinbote. Each of them brings parts of it
crowding into his mind and from there into the notes,
forming fantastically disproportionate digressions of