Life Everlasting-Based On a Misprint!

There’s one misprint-not that it matters much;

Mountain, not fountain.  The majestic touch.”

Life Everlasting-based on a misprint!

           

            The mountain-fountain transformation is a quintessential clue towards a deeper appreciation of Pale Fire.  Nabokov’s perfect rhyme of fountain and mountain (this one consonant variation) can be employed as a thematic guide into a more mystical layer of his twisted design. 

           

            In Kinbote’s commentary, Jacob Gradus’ journey is mentioned in correlation with the revival of John Shades heart to a more “conclusive destination” (line 697). This occurred subsequently after a heart attack induced the vision of a white fountain during his slip out of consciousness.   By following this cue in the narrative, the reader can be navigated to the phrase “Gradus ad Parnassum” which in latin translates to "steps to Parnassus." 

Mt. Parnassus in Greece

            Parnassus is thus discovered to be a reference to Mount Parnassus, the mountain of Apollo and the home of the nine muses in Greek Mythology.  On this mountain, Orpheus is also presented with his golden lyre by Apollo and instructed on the methods used to create beautiful music upon its strings.  Mount Parnassus is now celebrated as a symbol of art, music, and learning through this inaugural enlightenment in music by Orpheus.  In Pale Fire, we are initially instructed by Kinbote to:

"accompany Gradus in constant thought, as he makes his way from distant dim Zembla to green Appalachia, through the entire length of the poem, following the road of its rhythm, riding past in a rhyme, skidding around the corner of a run-on, breathing with the caesura, swinging down to the foot of the page from line to line as from branch to branch, hiding between two words, reappearing on the horizon of a new canto, steadily marching nearer in iambic motion, crossing streets, moving up with his valise on the escalator of the pentameter, stepping off, boarding a new train of thought, entering the hall of a hotel, putting out the bedlight, while Shade blots out a word, and falling asleep as the poet lays down his pen for the night" (78)    

This gradual ascent of Gradus up the mountain of the muses is an allegory that corresponds with the progression of John Shade’s prose.  The poem that Shade hopes will be his vehicle of transcendence upon its completion with its achievement being analogous to the accomplishment of reaching the summit.  The succession of the two characters throughout the novel is a further emphasis of the congruent rhythm between the two. 

The fountain comes into play as the fountain of the Castalian Spring that is found on Mount Parnassus. Legend has it that by drinking from this spring or by listening to its tranquil music, the sacred waters will have the miraculous ability to excite the poetic genius in a human being.  In Greek myth, to escape the pursuit of Apollo, the naiade nymph Castalia threw herself into the spring and was consequently transformed into the fountain.  The water that flows into the springs originates at the top of the mountain, slips underground and rebirths at the source of fountain that is near the Oracle of Delphi.  For this reason, Castalia can be translated to mean "a sewing needle". The sewing needle operates by interweaving the natural elements of the landscape with the powerful enchantment of the muses.

Castalian Fountain at Delphi

  The fountain is also an allusion to Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s dream inspired poem "Kubla Khan":

 

The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!


A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me
That with music loud and long
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

            “Kubla Khan” illustrates the power of imagination and art through the medium of a “mighty fountain”.  This fountain feeds the sacred river Alph that runs alongside Kubla’s pleasure dome.  While encountering the fountain, a dream is revived in Kubla Khan of an Abyssinian maid singing of Mount Abora while playing a dulcimer.  The music enraptures Kubla and he muses upon the voice having the strength to raise his “dome in the air.”  The musical entity that he is envisioning may be an inference to Mnemosyne, the Goddess of Memory and the mother of the muses whom Kubla Khan calls to aid him in stimulating his senses to produce the poem from the dream. The mountain, in correlation could be a reference to Mount Parnassus; the source of all poetry and the fountain being the eruption of imagination in the spring of nature.  By calling upon this dream Kubla is capable of fabricating a greater more magical reality by using his imagination.  Kubla Khan's "dome in the air" can therefore be connected to Kinbote and his land of Zembla; both persons who "deliberately peel off a drab and unhappy past and replaces it with a brilliant invention" (238).  It is an act that John Shade associates with the mindset of a poet.       
 

The delusion of the fountain by Shade of the fountain essentially acts as a motif to Shade’s existence as an artistic entity but also acts as a catalyst to connect the characters of Shade, Kinbote or Charles the Beloved, and Gradus harmoniously throughout the text in the mountain-fountain misprint. 

A system of cells interlinked within

Cells interlinked within cells interlinked

Within one stem.  And dreadfully distinct

Against the dark a tall white fountain played

The reference to Mount Parnassus is evident everywhere throughout Pale Fire and is woven throughout Shade, Kinbote, and Gradus' stories.   

'"what were you writing about last night, John?  Your study window was simply blazing"

"Mountains," he answered.

The Bera Range, an erection of veined stone and shappy firs, rose before me in all its power and pride......He calculated that during the last twenty-four hours his brain had put in, roughly, a thousand minutes of work...and would I mind very much if we started to go home-so that he could plunge back into his chaos and drag out of it, with all its wet stars, his cosmos?

How could I say no?  That mountain air had gone to my head: he was reassembling my Zembla!"(260). 

(to be continued..... )