I could not say, as I have no idea to what degree Grissom is accurate. His rhetoric lacks credibility--one of the two main components of ethos in Aristotle's rhetoric. It doesn't mean he has his facts wrong--I do not have that kind of insider knowledge--but he certainly undercuts the degree to which many readers may grant his accounts truth status.
Like Kinbote, he is somewhat parasitic in his relationship to Williams--and he has not found another genius to latch onto, barnacle like.
I doubt he is the deposed king of Zembla--but then, was Kinbote.
And, of course, there are readings that argue that Shade and his poem were inventions of Kinbote. Maybe the Williams we get in "Follies of God" is also a fiction (all biography is at the mercy of memory, which cognitive scientists now believe is creative as well as recollective). |
