Pale Fire
Ratings96
Average rating4.3
There was a time in my demented youth
When somehow I suspected that the truth
About survival after death was known
To every human being: I alone
Knew nothing, and a great conspiracy
Of books and people hid the truth from me.
Upon the course of life, we consume various pieces of art, and naturally we are made to react to them in various different ways. Such is the beauty of art. Whether we dislike, enjoy, become infuriated, feel disgust or joy; we are allotted some emotional reaction towards the artistically crafted. Occasionally, be it once or twice in the stretch of our lives, we find something so transformative, so immaculate, and so masterfully crafted that it feels like the artist re-wrote the neural paths in one's brain, and shaped the man into a new person. Pale Fire is one of those works of art for me, in fact, I would call it my favourite piece of art ever. The utter mastery of Nabokov's craft of the English language has created a creative, thought provoking, engaging, funny, beautiful work of utter genius that has transformed me.
Pale Fire's structure is unlike anything else I have ever seen, and pioneered the art of meta-fiction. Pale Fire is presented as a poem with the selfsame title, with a forward and commentary much like any other. However, the genius is that the forward and commentary are as fictitious, and both describe the events around the fictitious poet, John Shade, as he write Pale Fire in the last days of his life. The forward and commentary are provided by the equally fictitious editor and friend of Shade, Charles Kinbote, who the reader is quick to find isn't completely sane, and will switch almost on a dime to from genuine analysis of Shade to rambling about a seemingly unrelated story about exiled kings, revolution and murder. All of this comes together beautifully at the end, and makes the experience of reading unforgettable.
Though Nabokov disliked analysis of his stories, it is necessary to talk about the themes of Pale Fire. Pale Fire invokes many wide ranging themes, sometimes even with the delicate subtlety of a falling snowflake, and tackles them exceptionally. At the surface level, it deals with loss, fear of the afterlife, religion. When you dig deeper into the narrative, and meta-narrative, you also find themes about mental illness, identity, and the nature and originality of art. Pale Fire presents a beautiful poem full of these themes, and allows you to come to your own conclusion about them. Such themes gives one a buffet of literary meat to feast upon, and extenuate the already exalted work to new empyrean heights.
Nabokov's prose makes for the best advertisement for the English language. Though he was a native Russian, his use of the English lexicon can only be compared to the Sistine Chapel with words. The line of his poetry and the text of his stories punctuate far past the skin of most authors, and resonate inside of the reader. Take this excerpt from the prosal half of the book: "If I correctly understand the sense of this succinct observation, our poet suggests here that human life is but a series of footnotes to a vast obscure unfinished masterpiece". Nabokov paints beautiful paintings with words, and one cannot help to get oneself completely absorbed in his oil and canvas.
Pale Fire is a transformative masterpiece, and never before has anything blown my mind to the level that it has. I could continue this review for an indefinite length simply gawking at it's marvel, but I am not equipped to do so. If I could give it 6 stars, I would. It has been endlessly debated, adored and praised ever since it came out in 1962, and I think that in the future it will only crescendo into being recognized as one of the greatest work of our language.
really interesting book, fascinated by the mind that could write it... brilliant beyond belief.
it's worth a read just to experience it, but the experience is worth more than the words on the page.
A monument to self deception. Incredibly well executed bizarre concept. I feel like Nabokov was rubbing his belly and patting his head while he was writing it. Too damn long though. My god the middle of the notes were a slog.
A mad, confused, masterful work. It's hard to find anything to compare this to. Nabokov intimidates with his inventiveness and his mastery of a language that is not even his first tongue.
Pale Fire makes all the writers in the world look bad. One part beautiful poetry, the other part a manic analysis of it.
Nabokov is able to create a beautiful poem that meditates upon death, the afterlife, and the fear of being forgotten that is authentic enough to be from himself rather than from the point of view of a fictional character. The poem itself is heartfelt and touching as it is existential about what it means to have lived a meaningful life that has experienced tragedy in-between. It's heartfelt. It's worded soundly, with such profound lines such as:
“I was the shadow of the waxwing slain
By the false azure in the window pane”
But Nobakov manages to find a way to make this even better in a way that comically mocks scholarly literary criticism; through careful deliberation of every line in the 999 line cantos, through the point of view of an insane fan, he annotates the poem to find meaning that doesn't exist. The reason why the book is so long is that the rest of the pages following the poem are footnotes that analyze the poem that tell a story in itself, through connections. The connections are tangible at best and rambling and comically wrong at its worst. Through the extensive use of footnotes, he manages to tell multiple stories that are spurred off a few lines of poetry that barely connect - one a random kingdom that may not exist, another about his experiences with the author himself, and what leads to the author's demise.
He is able to defile an “autobiographical” poem in a way that enhances the reading experience without taking away the brilliance of the former. If the poem was anything less than okay or even slightly tongue in cheek, the book would have lost its impact. For the book to work as a whole, every part had to be great. It is through the critique of literary analysis that the book's nature shines: creating a memorable poem first that could be read on its own and a memorable experience that pokes fun at what was written.
I am not usually a fan of poetry - having read much of Shakespeare and having taken a chance on Sylvia Plath's poems as well, much to my disappointment. Pale Fire's poem was one of the few to actually move me emotionally, as well as impress me. He made a poem that is touching in his third language (with difficult vocabulary) and may as well have been a joke. This book has multiple layers to it - the forward, the poem itself, the annotations (which make the bulk of a novel), and the index - all equally brilliant in of itself.
Nobakov is able to make every sentence dense with allusions, such rich vocabulary, and a poetic structure. It is not an easy book to read, but it is a rewarding experience to have read. It may be a book that I appreciated more than I enjoyed, but those feelings are incredibly close together.
I LOVED this book. Good grief. I am such a sucker for an unreliable narrator.
Pale Fire is an unfinished Poem by the recently deceased John Shade, and is presented here with an introduction, commentary, and exhaustive index by his friend, Charles Kinbote.
Or is it? Who knows.
I was aware that this book was held in very high regard but I had no idea how funny it would be! The pompous and witty Kinbote keeps us entertained throughout with his unbelievably far reaching footnotes and his direct appeals to the reader to do his research for him because he just doesn't have the time or the resources. I particularly enjoyed his bizarrely detailed discourse on committing suicide ‘successfully'.
This has been in my bookcase for years and I just never got around to it. Having now (finally) read it, I'm sure it was bought as a post-HoL recommendation because there is definitely an air of the House about it. I was also very much reminded of A Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro, and Poor Things by Alasdair Gray throughout.
I will be absolutely amazed if this book isn't in my top five at the end of the year.
Five stars. No, six! Ten!
i read the notes first, then stanza. if there were references to other notes in that note i jumped to the referred note and read that. suffice to say i was jumping around quite a bit. pretty fun.
Definitely a challenging read, but well worth it. The narrative layers between Shade, Kinbote, and Nabokov himself are incredibly interesting and complicated.
Also, I would suggest following Kinbote's references to subsequent notes so you get to the story's hook quicker!
