I liked Shelby’s use of the mandala as an image for working with Pale Fire, as the idea of concentrically nested shapes fits well with the multiple levels of interpretation of the text. It seems that with Pale Fire, each time a new level of understanding is uncovered, many additional pathways open up which in turn lead to deeper levels of comprehension. This is similar to the concept of the mandala in which an individual may enter inside the realm of one shape, but there will still be innumerably more shapes that have yet to be penetrated. In Pale Fire, there is no center of the mandala, as the concentric shapes and levels of understanding continue on into infinity. Perhaps this is why Nabokov preferred the image of the spiral to that of the circle, as a circle is limited – eventually one will end up where he or she started. A spiral, on the other hand, is endless, and even though one’s path may pass near a previously visited locale, no one place is ever visited twice. It seems that the mandala, then, can be interpreted as another representation of the spiral, a fractal pattern in which one shape, one pathway, ultimately leads to a multitude of others. This is part of the beauty with Pale Fire, as no matter how closely the text is read, there will always be more discoveries to make.
As a final note, I just like to again thank Dr. Sexson and all of my classmates for making this seminar such a challenging and rewarding experience. This class has shown me that “reading in” to a text is really all we can do, and that making connections to other works and our own life experiences is ultimately what makes the reading of difficult works so enjoyable. I believe that this class has given me a greater ability to think critically about things that at first may seem to be beside the point. It is, after all, the details that have the greatest ability to influence us and to the shape our way of thinking. Thanks again everyone for a great semester!
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