Another flashback to high school: me and a group of friends listening to music. Chris P. was a huge Police fan, and he asked, \u201cSo, in \u2018Don\u2019t Stand So Close to Me\u2019 what\u2019s the book by Nabakov?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No one knew. We weren\u2019t into asking our English teacher, who I am sure would have known, and whipping out an iphone to ask Siri was not an option in 1980, so we shrugged and went on with our lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Of course, as an English major in college, I did discover Nabakov and Lolita<\/em>. I still wonder if my high school classmates ever figured it out. It was an interesting book, but this post is about the falling-apart paperback I recently rescued from its long-held position on the back of the book shelf: Pale Fire. <\/em>Nothing like Lolita<\/em>, this book begins with a poem and continues with the extremely strange and often rather dull explication of the poem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It wasn\u2019t until the reading was complete and I had gone back to several passages a second and third time that I actually marveled and giggled at the satire within. I\u2019m a little slow that way. Digging deeper, I found reasons to laugh at myself and at the incredibly self-absorbed nature of humans in general. I also just liked a few ideas that were presented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some passages that struck my fancy:<\/p>\n\n\n\n 1) Because I live half my life in a fantasy world \u2014 either reading or writing \u2014 this one rang true: \u201d . . . \u2018reality\u2019 is neither the subject nor the object of true art which creates its own special reality having nothing to do with the average \u2018reality\u2019 perceived by the communal eye.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2) Because I have been a \u201cteacher\u201d and have seen the work of many teachers in my children\u2019s lives, I loved this one: \u201cA Child should have 30 specialists to teach 30 subjects, and not one harassed schoolmarm to show him a picture of a rice field and tell him this is China because she knows nothing about China, or anything else, and cannot tell the difference between longitude and latitude.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I have known so many teachers (with masters degrees in education) who knew how to teach but did not know their subject matters. They know how to teach a math concept because a book told them what to say, but they don\u2019t understand the math concept. They presume to teach poetry, but they don\u2019t like poetry. If the answer given was not the answer on the answer key provided, there is no chance that creativity will be rewarded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 3) Because I studied literature and had to write so many papers on literature, it made me laugh when one of the main characters talked about how stupid his students sounded when pointing out symbols, etc. This idea from him is so perfect: \u201cFirst of all, dismiss ideas and social background, and train freshman to shiver, to get drunk on the poetry of Hamlet and Lear, to read with his spine and not with his skull.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ironically, satirically, this is the exact opposite of the \u201ccommentary\u201d section of the novel. Brilliant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 4) In this passage the narrator defends the desire of a believer in God to commit suicide: \u201cWhen the soul adores Him Who guides it through mortal life, when it distinguishes His sign at every turn of the trail, painted on the boulder and notched in the fir trunk, when every passage of the book of one\u2019s personal fate bears His watermark, how can one doubt that He will also preserve us through all eternity? So what can stop one from effecting the transition? What can help us to resist the intolerable temptation? What can prevent us from yielding to the burning desire for merging with God? We who burrow in filth every day may be forgiven perhaps the one sin that ends all sins.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n 5) And finally, there is this passage directed at the unbelieving character: \u201cWith no Providence the soul must rely on the dust of its husk, on the experience gathered in the course of corporeal confinement, and cling childishly to small-town principles, local by-laws and a personality consisting mainly of the shadows of its own prison bars. Such an idea is not to be entertained one instant by the religious mind. How much more intelligent it is \u2014 even from the proud infidel\u2019s point of view! \u2014 to accept God\u2019s Presence \u2014 a faint phosphorescence at first, a pale light in the dimness of bodily life, and a dazzling radiance afterward.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Okay, enough quotes. Pale Fire.<\/em> Strange, thought-provoking. Worthy of a permanent spot on my books shelf? Not this time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Another flashback to high school: me and a group of friends listening to music. Chris P. was a huge Police fan, and he asked, \u201cSo, in \u2018Don\u2019t Stand So Close to Me\u2019 what\u2019s the book by Nabakov?\u201d No one knew. We weren\u2019t into asking our English teacher, who I am sure would have known, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[103,104,105,62,106],"class_list":["post-407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","tag-education","tag-pale-fire","tag-poetry","tag-religion","tag-vladimir-nabokov"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/delynwagenknecht.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/delynwagenknecht.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/delynwagenknecht.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/delynwagenknecht.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/delynwagenknecht.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=407"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/delynwagenknecht.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":408,"href":"https:\/\/delynwagenknecht.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407\/revisions\/408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/delynwagenknecht.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/delynwagenknecht.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/delynwagenknecht.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}