I did, in fact,

forget to blog yesterday. I managed to begin my close reading of Pale Fire, however, which consisted of going through the first Canto of the poem section and creating an outline of the catastrophic events and some supporting quotes. Pale Fire differs from the other two novels in that there are two first-person narrators, which I have to keep in mind because in my other readings of the novel, I've often neglected the poem by John Shade in favor of the commentary by Charles Kinbote for the simple reason that it does, in fact, take over the text. That's kind of the point.

A question about names: when I'm writing about different characters, when anyone is writing about them, how do we make decisions about what to call them? What I mean by that is that I refer to Merricat and Constance only by their first names, Jonah as well (we aren't told his last name), but the two men in Pale Fire are Shade and Kinbote. Yet it's Aunt Maud, Sybil, and Hazel - though they are all Shades as well. I wouldn't call Merricat "Blackwood," even if I kept with the pattern of the former example and referred all other Blackwoods by their first name. But John and Charles feels weird. Why is that? Well, for one thing, Kinbote refers to Shade as Shade, to Sybil as Sybil, etc. For another thing, this book was published in 1962, i.e., before the wave of feminism that followed shortly thereafter. Perhaps most importantly, critics have likewise referred to Shade as Shade, Sybil as Sybil, Kinbote as Kinbote, etc. But I find it rather repugnant to refer to Shade as Shade, Sybil as Mrs. Shade (Mr. and Mrs. Shade would be better, but Mr. Shade would get clunky, I think).

What's the responsible thing to do? Perpetuate the weird gendering of naming by following the authors' and critics' leads? Or risk confusing my reader by changing things up? After all, Jonah is a John as well, and we can't forget about the notorious Charles in We Have Always Lived in the Castle. Kinbote is ostensibly King Charles II, so I could refer to him as Charles II, but that would be even more clunky than Mr. Shade.

This is a nit-picky issue, and I am well aware of that, but it matters. What we call characters reflects what we call people, and how we refer to people affects how we think of them. The case of John Shade is the most indicative here, I think. By calling him Shade and the women in his life by their first names, we assume a greater familiarity with them, a more formal stance with him, a casual treatment with them, a show of greater respect for him. Because he is a main character or because he is male? Similarly, I don't want to refer to him by his profession - "the poet" - because I wouldn't do that with any other characters here. Is Constance "the cook" or "the gardener"? Certainly not. I wouldn't call Jonah the journalist or the writer. But because Kinbote refers to Shade as "the poet," critics (including myself) have done likewise and have carried this over to referring to Kinbote as "the commentator." It's insidious because it seems so trivial.

My adviser, in her dissertation, when using possessive pronouns for unspecified singular persons, consistently used "her," as in "the reader and her book" or "the critic and her analysis," that kind of thing. I found it to be a little off-putting, but only in the same way that referring to everyone as "he." What's ironic is that her dissertation is about silencing and by using only feminine pronouns, she is silencing the patriarchal tradition of silencing the female voice, but also thereby silencing the male voice.

I'll probably just footnote it, acknowledge that I'm following the convention in the novels and the criticism that has followed those conventions as well. That way it's not confusing but I'm still drawing attention to the issue. Have I put too much thought into this? or not enough?