Nabokov and Vonnegut

While reading Pale Fire, there were several instances in which I could not help but drawing parallels between Nabokov’s novel and some of the works of Kurt Vonnegut, specifically Slaughterhouse Five. For example, in the poem Pale Fire a “gauzy mockingbird” is described as making the sound “to-wee, to-wee,” (line 66). Additionally, a few lines later is the couplet “Upward hop-flop, and instantly (to-wee!)/ Returning to her perch—the new TV,” (lines 69-80). The bird song that the poem evokes reminded me of the last sentence in Slaughterhouse Five, in which a little bird sings “Poo-tee-weet.” Vonnegut uses the bird song to illustrate how it is impossible to intelligently respond to the atrocities of a massacre such as the Dresden firebombing, and how all there is to say after witnessing such an event is “Poo-tee-weet.” The off-handed, isolated nature of “to-wee!” in line 70 of Pale Fire is similar to the way that Vonnegut uses “Poo-tee-weet” as its own standalone sentence at the end of Slaughterhouse Five, and may likewise be attempting to portray John Shade’s difficult and spontaneous emotional response to the suicide of his daughter.

The other occurrence in which I was reminded of Slaughterhouse Five was in Kinbote’s commentary to the poem’s line 627. In reference to “The great Starover Blue,” the note reads “This Sinyavin migrated from Saratov to Seattle and begot a son who eventually changed his name to Blue and married Stella lazurchik, an Americanized Kashube. So it goes. Honest Starover Blue will probably be surprised by the epithet bestowed upon him by a jesting Shade,” (page 236). The use of the phrase “So it goes” invokes Vonnegut’s employment of an identical line after the mention of any character dying in Slaughterhouse Five. Vonnegut used “So it goes” to portray the stark inevitability of death as well as the Tralfamadorian idea that one is dead in some moments but alive in others. Nabokov’s use of this simple, three word phrase would seem to be a direct allusion to Slaughterhouse Five, but some quick research will show that Pale Fire (1962) was written seven years before Slaughterhouse Five (1969). Thus, Nabokov could not have drawn from Vonnegut’s novel for the two instanced discussed above, as Slaughterhouse Five was not yet written. It is possible that Vonnegut’s initial inspiration to use the phrase “So it goes” came from Pale Fire, as he likely would have read some of Nabokov’s work after Nabokov became famous by writing the novel Lolita. Of course, these connections between Pale Fire and Slaughterhouse Five could be nothing but coincidences, but as we discussed in class, pure coincidences are rare in Nabokov’s writing.

Aside from the aforementioned “reminders” of Slaughterhouse Five in Pale Fire, there are some broader connections between the two works. Both plots center around a mentally unstable character (Charles Kinbote in Pale Fire and Billy Pilgrim in Slaughterhouse Five) who finds comfort in an imaginary place (Zembla in Pale Fire and Tralfamadore in Slaughterhouse Five). Both main characters appear to retreat into their imaginary worlds at times of conflict, and other characters tend not to believe the stories that Kinbote and Pilgrim tell from Zembla and Tralfamadore. Though their friends and family see these characters as crazy for their tales of fantastical lands, Kinbote and Pilgrim are heavily dependent on their respective ultima thules for defining who they are. Additionally, Pale Fire and Slaughterhouse Five both deal with themes of immortality. In Pale Fire John Shade sees butterflies as proof that Hazel’s spirit is alive, and in Slaughterhouse Five the Tralfamadorians believe that death is but one moment in the continuum of life and that death can occupy one moment and life the next. Indeed, it is almost uncanny how well the plots and themes of these two stalwarts of 20th century literature correspond, and I am sure there are other connections that I am missing. All the more reason to keep digging deeper and to keep making discoveries!