Elevator pitch:

Pale Fire is, for my money, the best written story in the English language (different than best story written in the English language).

The premise is that a Soviet emigre, Dr. Kinbote, living in New England gets his hand on the manuscript of the poem authored by his neighbor, John Shade, commemorating the loss of his daughter. The story consists in the commentary provided by Kinbote as he woefully misinterprets the poem to, in fact, be about him – not Shade's daughter.

The novel is inherently experimental in form, consisting of a foreword, Shade's poem itself, and then Kinbote's commentary which carries the reader through a web of cross references, delusional fantasies about Kinbote's flight from the made up land of Zembla, conspiracies of assassination, nobility, and the dreadful mores of Western academia.

Widely and incorrectly praised as one of the best pieces of post-modern literature due to its unreliable narrator and labyrinthian plot which unfolds by way of endnotes to the poem – Pale Fire, according to Nabokov's son and his biographer, is NOT a work of post-modernism (a movement which Nabokov loathed). There is a "correct" interpretation of the story which is devised like a chess puzzle, with pitfalls and redherrings that can only be sidestepped by trusting that the composer of the puzzle wanted you to misstep and be dissuaded by exactly the daunting challenge of hunting down cross-references, and tagging along with Kinbote's seemingly-irrelevant tirades about Zembla, and pursuing the clever solution. Precisely like a chess puzzle, the author rewards the faithful reader for trusting him and indulging in such tirades and roundabout means of storytelling.

Pale Fire is simultaneously a mystery novel, an impressive and touching poem, a love letter to the english language and the art of the novel. This is the closest thing to a grand slam I've ever experienced in book form.

Foreword: 9

Holy fuck this is refreshing. 30-odd pages of immaculate prose – interweaving character, plot, and depth. Setting the stage for –of all things– a poem. There's already an air of mystery and dark personality and humor. This is my first foray into this genre of Ergodic texts, and this is sick so far

The Cantos themselves: 10/10

These are the best prose I've ever read, hands down. Granted, they're not actually prose as the titular body of work is a 999-line long poem, but goddamn is it stellar, elevated by the ~context in which it exists and all that came before it.

Broken up into four parts, the first describes Shade's childhood and encounters with Death. The second about his daughter, an odd-ball who kills herself; the third about the afterlife, and the fourth a weirdly humorous description of his morning routine and how it coincides with his creative writing process.

Having read some interviews of Nabokov after reading the first two Cantos (trying to avoid spoilers for this novel), I'm delighted to see glimpses of the real author bleed through the verses.

The rest of the novel: 10/10

I've had to google several words to digest this book, which for some is tiresome, but his dude is a master of language which is doubly incredible because he's not a native speaker (Ruski). I'll prolly make a list of all the $10 words he uses for my own snobbish references when I want to sound like an asshole. But he pulls them off w/o seeming aloof. Nabokov is clearly operating at an echelon above, and the fact that the foundation for the meta-fiction of the story itself is already so good is what pushes this novel on the whole into a class of its own in my opinion

Overall it's a front to back masterpiece.

Elite Diction: probably 50 or so words I had to lookup, but I’m so glad I did.

Best book I’ve ever read (yet). Fun, clever, dripping with irony, and thrilling.

Theres several layers of mystery present in this novel, and its encouragement of anachronistic reading (“see comment to line X, see NOW”, etc.) each beckoning the reader to take a second glance at the details they glean from the misdirection that is Kibote’s commentary.

I finished the book and thought i’d hatched a theory, then I read the index and had to double back through several passages and my jaw dropped. This might sound tedious, but even the “filler” bits about zembla enrich both the character of Kinbote, and also reveal his relationships to the other characters which he also provides direct color commentary on throughout the novel.

I was so impressed by this novel - it’s the kind of thing that you just stare in awe at, wondering how Nabokov conceived the idea let alone managed to pull it off.

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