Pale Fire

by Vladimir Nabokov

Book Overview

A darkly comic novel of suspense, literary idolatry and one-upmanship, and political intrigue from one of the leading writers of the twentieth century, the acclaimed author of Lolita.

"Half-poem, half-prose...a creation of perfect beauty, symmetry, strangeness, originality and moral truth. One of the great works of art of this century." --Mary McCarthy, New York Times bestselling author of The Group

An ingeniously...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0679723420
• ISBN13: 9780679723424
• Release Date: April 1989
• Publisher: Vintage
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.3" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

Nabokov's Best Ever?

Pale Fire -- Vladimir NabokovIt is arguable, and debatable, whether this title or Lolita is Nabokov's masterpiece, but what is certain is that Pale Fire is once of the tightest, best-structured books of the 20th century.Pale Fire is laid out in three parts: a Foreward written by Charles Kinbote, a Poem written by John Shade, and Commentary, also written by Kinbote.What is prefigured in the Foreword and then made explicit in the Commentary is Kinbote's strange relationship with Shade and his equally strange past. The story is told completely through the device of the Foreword and Commentary, and in them Kinbote paints himself as a refugee from a despotic regime in a faraway land known only as Zembla. He takes up residence in New Wye, right across the street from professor and poet John Shade.Once settled in New Wye, Kinbote embarks on an obsessive, mutedly homoerotic relationship with his poet neighbor, courting him when they are together and spying on him the rest of the time. Although Kinbote has fled his native Zembla, he dearly loves his homeland with the pain of one who knows he can never return to the land he has forsaken, and it is his dream that Shade will immortalize Zembla in a poem.But just as Kinbote reaches for Zembla, so does Zembla reach for Kinbote. In the Commentary Kinbote brings forth a character called Gradus, who is an assassin sent from Zembla to search him out and kill him.If the Foreword and Commentary tell the story of Kinbote, then the Poem tells the story of Shade. In only 999 lines, Shade paints a vivid picture of his past, taking us through his idyllic life in New Wye, its sudden destruction one night by death of his daughter, and his subsequent coping. In more ways than one it is the ideal complement to Kinbote's text, providing a clear, beautiful counterpart to Kinbote's unsteady rants and digressions.However, what takes this book from mere postmodern game and transforms it to a dynamic, engrossing title is Kinbote's unreliability as a narrator and the questions surrounding who the real author of the Poem, Foreword, and Commentary is. Does Zembla really exist and has Kinbote really fled it? Is Gradus's climatic appearance the result of a government plot against Kinbote, or just another of the strange coincidences that pervade Pale Fire? Finally, is Shade's poem really Shade's, or has Kinbote written it for his own purposes? Vice versa, is Kinbote the real creative force behind the Foreword and Commentary, or is it the work of some different, other-worldly presence?Nabokov masterfully spreads the information needed to answer these questions throughout Pale Fire, yet he does so in such a way that nothing is ever made completely explicit. Just as in all of Nabokov's best books, it is up to the reader to make that final conceptual leap, to take that final step after being carried along by Nabokov's poetic narrative.Thus, Pale Fire is not a book that should be read only once, or quickly. It is a book that hides hints in t

Please please read Pale Fire

Oh, there is no fanatic like a convert. And Nabokov's writing in the English language bestows his found tongue with rapture. This is Nabokov's finest (I suppose in this 21st century, I just don't find Lolita shocking! shocking! the way its rookie readers must have) and one of the top ten novels of the 20th century.Surprisingly, you'll find that this book composed of a 999-line poem and the commentary written on that poem by a colleague, has a plot. It is ingenious, twisted, brilliant. One of the most finely crafted works of art ever. I've picked up the word "replete" in relation to art from Steven Pinker, and this work is repleteful. The words, the language, the structure, the social criticism, and most of all, the beauty, as I contemplate and re-contemplate this work, grow ever more replete.I love this poem. "I was the shadow of the waxwing slain/ In the false azure of the windowpane" and its delicate rhymes and trips and footfalls are savored with every single re-reading. He brings an outsiders perspective to the language with rhymes we don't "see" but hear: "Come and be worshipped, come and be caressed / My dark Vanessa, crimson-barred, my blest" and it sometimes feels like he's introducing you to a new English language.So who wouldn't like this book, I suppose, should be a question the reviewer should try to answer. Well, I just can't imagine anybody that's ever bought a novel not liking this one, so I suppose if you're a pure non-fiction reader, this ain't for you. And Nabokov is a bit bloodless at times, you won't find the wild, sloppy joy of a Kerouac, or the brawny aggressiveness of a Hemingway, but finely finely crafted and turned and polished words delivered impeccably, perfectly.Please, please, read Pale Fire. The more of us that carry Nabokov's masterwork in our hearts, the more he will have "lived on, flew on, in the reflected sky"

A fictional literary critique that entertains on many levels

This novel is a brilliantly conceived profile of two humorous literary characters, one whom we never meet but know only through a 999-line poem called "Pale Fire" he composed in the last twenty days of his life, and the other his unwelcome colleague, an eccentric man with delusions of grandeur and persecution mania, who annotates the poem. Although the novel consists of only the poem and the commentary, rest assured there is a plot, but its development is quite unconventional.The poet is a reclusive college professor named John Shade, and his colleague is another professor named Charles Kinbote, who comes from a fictitious northern European country called Zembla. Kinbote, long an admirer of Shade's work, had rented a house adjacent to Shade's five months prior to Shade's death. Kinbote has a voyeuristic obsession with Shade, spying on his house with binoculars and prying into his work. Convinced that he and Shade had some kind of exclusive rapport during Shade's final months, Kinbote believes that much of the text of "Pale Fire" refers to information he had disclosed to Shade about recent political events in Zembla, when it is obvious that Shade's poem is strictly personal, expounding on important times in his life: his childhood, his courtship with his wife, the death of his daughter, his heart attack. The "narration" of the novel takes place a few months after Shade's death, with Kinbote living in a motel room disturbed by noisy neighbors and writing his commentary about the poem. His commentary tends to go off on comical tangents about the political intrigue in Zembla. We learn that the last King of Zembla was imprisoned in his palace during a quasi-Bolshevik Revolution but managed to escape via a secret passage and travel incognito to America, where he was given a new identity. After the escape, the King was stalked by a heavily aliased assassin who resourcefully discovered his quarry's whereabouts, resulting in a confrontation whose outcome did not go exactly as planned. The plot construction is diabolically clever in the way Nabokov reveals information little by little throughout Kinbote's commentary; you may have to read the book twice to see which details you missed the first time, but Nabokov's prose is so colorful and ebullient that doing so is a pleasure. Even more interesting is the doubt established by Nabokov as to whether Kinbote's revelations are reality or delusions; his sanity is questionable. Every now and then I come across a book that's so wildly creative and so much fun that it reminds me why I love to read -- "Pale Fire" is easily one of those books.

Nabokov's Tour de Force

Pale Fire is the name of a 999-line poem in four cantos by the "distinguished American poet" John Shade, published posthumously in a lovingly prepared edition with a foreword and detailed commentary by the Zemblan literary scholar Charles Kinbote. Pale Fire is also the name of the novel by Vladimir Nabokov in which the poem is written by Shade and annotated by Kinbote, who are Nabokov's creations. The novel is actually written in the form of poem and scholarly apparatus, not omitting a thorough index. It is a perfect and perfectly original union of form and meaning. It is also wickedly, outrageously funny. The poem itself is a complicated, beautiful, mysterious achievement. It reveals the character of John Shade so completely and movingly that we have to keep reminding ourselves that it was actually written by Nabokov, himself. The poem is the heart of the novel, literally and figuratively, although the commentary no doubt constitutes the most interesting reading. Pale Fire is Shade's final work; possibly his greatest work. It is the product of every thought and experience in a long, thoughtful life, and it also contains that entire life: childhood, adolescence, marriage, fatherhood, old age and death. The title refers to the "pale fire of time," and is taken from a poem by Yeats and not from Shakespeare, as Kinbote confidently suggests. Or is Nabokov simply leading us on a merry chase? Better check Timon of Athens to be sure.And Kinbote is frequently wrong in his confident suggestions in the commentary. He identifies allusions where none exist; fails to recognize those that are actually there (he is writing his notes in a remote cabin in the Rockies and complains that he has no books to check his references), and suggests interpretations which are clearly, hilariously, wrong. The hapless Dr. Kinbote has got it into his head that Pale Fire (the poem) is really about himself, and his commentary is an audacious attempt to demonstrate this. So, almost ignoring what is actually present in the poem, he proceeds through the commentary to give a detailed history of his own life and times, often revealing far more than he really means to do. And it turns out to be quite a good story, because Kinbote, a native of the remote northern European country of Zembla, has had quite an adventurous past. It is only a pity that it is quite irrelevant to Shade's poem. Kinbote just happens to be a man who doesn't do anything by halves; even the most innocuous phrase of the poem is "demonstrated" to be a cryptic reference to some event in Kinbote's life. Pale Fire is nothing if it is not great fun. But Pale Fire is not merely amusing and inventive. Kinbote's commentary seems to be everything literary criticism should not be; but it is actually only an extreme, exaggerated version of what literary criticism truly is. Kinbote attempts to rewrite Shade's poem in his own image and likeness, but this is true to a greater or lesser extent--or a more or le

A Brilliant Rollick

Pale Fire is a wonderfully enjoyable work of fiction, although it is not in the form of a traditional novel. The story unfolds in an introduction to, and commentary to a 999 line poem. It appears that Nabakov had great fun constructing this masterpiece and I think the reader will have fun deciphering it. The introduction and commentary are "written" by a slightly insane, slightly delusional professor, Charles Kinbote, who is perhaps a deposed king on the run, perhaps not. He believes he has inspired the poet to construct a poem about his former kingdom, but alas, the poem is about the poet's life. Kinbote is greatly disappointed, but in his commentary manages to find allusions to his former kingdom and rambles on and on about it. The results are often hilarious and always thought provoking. Nabokov has such a good time writing in English and because it is not his native toungue, he sees things in the words that native English speakers wouldn't. It's fun to watch him play with the words, as it's fun to watch him play with our conceptions of reality. The whole book plays around with what is reality, who is the narrator. Is it Nabokov pretending to be Kinbote, is it just Nabokov. One wonders what really happened in the story. Kinbote tells one version, the characters he speaks of tells another, as does our poet, John Shade, Nabokov is telling yet another. There are so many layers of story and illusion. I found myself wondering what really happened, but it's fiction, nothing happened, or everything happened. I really enjoyed this book a great deal. It even took my mind off of being in the dentist's chair. I highly recommend this book to anyone who isn't afraid of slightly experimental fiction. Fans of Infinite Jest and House of Leaves will certainly enjoy Pale Fire.