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Loading... Pale Fire (1962)by Vladimir Nabokov
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![]() Pale Fire falls into that category of books I've read that are clever but that don't tell a good story. Unfortunately that tends to make them a bit tedious. Professor Kinbote/Botkin here is annotating a poem by an allegedly major American poet with the fantastical creations of his own raving mad mind. There's more than a touch of parody to these creations, as Kinbote's kingdom of Zembla is obviously a stand in for the Russia that Nabokov fled from; the Zemblan Extremists serving as Soviet Communists. As elsewhere in Nabokov's works, the workings of these types of governments are portrayed as more farcical and incompetent than truly evil. The KGB would not have appreciated the insulting parody of themselves seen in the Zemblan Shadows. Probably the source of my problem is that when I read a novel I want the world of that novel to be "real". I grant the world of the imaginary work reality because that makes it meaningful. I can't do that for the imaginary world of an imaginary world. It's the same problem I have with reading about the dreams of characters in a novel. They're unreal even in the context of this unreality I've granted reality, so I don't care. And even so, the story told of Zembla isn't that good. It's mostly an opportunity for Nabokov to create some odd characters and have a little fun with them, and to mock and attack the Soviet state, which you know, he's done before. So, before long, tedium. The poem that Kinbote is annotating is the best part of Pale Fire I think, where Nabokov's wit and playfulness work best. It's nothing to do with Zembla of course, just a biographical sort of work of a poet in rhyming couplets, in which he explores his thoughts and feelings on death and the afterlife, through his childhood to the suicide of his daughter. Nabokov's interest in this topic is maybe one of his more subtle themes that are present throughout his body of work. While certainly not one of the great poems of the century, as I'm a bit astonished to find a claim being made for in certain Nabokovian quaters, it's not bad! I was looking forward to this given its reputation, and was disappointed - undeniably clever, literary, and innovative, it is nevertheless missing something... Soul? Heart? Significance? It feels like a book written for intellectuals buried deep in the English Department, and by all accounts it is excellent fodder for them. Belongs to Publisher SeriesIs contained inIs expanded inHas as a studyAwardsDistinctionsNotable Lists
Classic Literature.
Fiction.
Literature.
HTML: In Pale Fire Nabokov offers a cornucopia of deceptive pleasures: a 999-line poem by the reclusive genius John Shade; an adoring foreword and commentary by Shade's self-styled Boswell, Dr. Charles Kinbote; a darkly comic novel of suspense, literary idolatry and one-upmanship, and political intrigue. No library descriptions found. |
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![]() GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage:![]()
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