Don't be terrified of Pale Fire
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It was suggested to me to read the intro first, then skip the poem and read the endnotes start to finish, then to go back and read the poem. The index is part of the fiction and must also be read.
I think the keys to really enjoying Pale Fire are 1) to realize that while the subject matter is ostensibly serious, Kinbote is really a comic figure, and you're meant to be laughing a lot of the time; and 2) the great puzzles to unravel are who is John Shade, who is Charles Kinbote, are any of them even real, and who wrote the poem? The book is so beautifully written that it can be argued that none of those questions have definitive answers - and thinking about them, and how Nabokov threads clues and possibilities throughout the novel, without any of them seeming to be contradictory, is the pleasure.
I read it with two copies open, so that I was reading the poem and the endnotes in parallel.
Seriously though, there is greater cognitive overhead in alt-tab than side-by-side
But if (I thought) I mentioned that detail
She’d pounce upon it as upon a fond
Affinity, a sacramental bond,
Uniting mystically her and me,
And in a jiffy our two souls would be
Brother and sister trembling on the brink
Of tender incest.I say this name in Christopher Lloyd's voice: "That's Kinbotay! Tay! Tay!!"
In my head, of course.
I will limit my criticism to saying that this is a trope adopted very often these days and it is not one to which my personality is suited. I like mysteries but I do not like treadmills, running without arriving.
It may have been more novel in 1962, but the commenter might still not enjoy it
Seven years before Pale Fire came out, Nabokov was working on his translation of Eugene Onegin. Often, people argue that a translated novel should have no end/footnotes, because a "good translation" should read "naturally" to a reader. Nabokov disagreed, and wrote an article that included the phrase:
> "I want translations with copious footnotes, footnotes reaching up like skyscrapers to the top of this or that page so as to leave only the gleam of one textual line between commentary and eternity." [1]
Quite a fun image, and one he took somewhat seriously, as his endnote commentary for Onegin is more than twice as long as the translation itself! [2]
So, for me personally, I can't imagine a world where he didn't reflect on his own zeal here, and realize "I think there's a novel idea in here somewhere!"
[1] "Problems in Translation: Onegin in English." Partisan Review 22, no. 4 (1955): 512.
[2] https://secondstorybooks.cdn.bibliopolis.com/pictures/136717...
At that point in his life, I think he knew well that a work like this would be devoured by his fans and vivisected by academics. He alone knew how deep the maze went and the layers of arcane tricks he was pulling. For example, see:
https://thenabokovian.org/classics/barabtarlo-fa84 via https://thenabokovian.org
Also, https://thenabokovian.org/forum/6 and https://thenabokovian.org/nabokv-l for 25+ years of a Nabokovian mailing list.
It's all imbued with a cruelty that some of the very brilliant enjoy displaying.
And obviously the lettering is a lyrical joy.
10/10
Только если вам не нравится Достоевский! Но мало кто может сравниться с Набоков.
The connection between Pale Fire and hypertext was stated soon after its publication; in 1969, the information-technology researcher Ted Nelson obtained permission from the novel's publishers to use it for a hypertext demonstration at Brown University.
Sounds absolutely fascinating. I just started the second Hyperion book, but I might have to put it down to prioritize this. It does seem like somewhat of an investment though; as if reading it in bed might not be the most optimal way to enjoy the experience. It might require some more dedicated reading sessions from what I'm seeing in the other threads.
They do take up a shitload less space, which is a pretty big advantage, though.
The e-reader UI is generally so much better than paper, if a book is not available for kindle, I'll usually find something else to read. Pale Fire is a special case book where you want two have bookmarks where you are currently working. I read Chuck Palahniuk's Diary on paper, and an e-reader would definitely have ruined it.
Technical books with a lot of charts, diagrams, monospaced code examples, etc can highlight the weaknesses of e-readers. PDFs are almost always better on a tablet.
But for like, words-in-a-row novels that don't mind being re-wrapped, there is no comparison, for me. e-Reader every time.
Which is 98% of novels. e-Readers are even great for books with lots of end notes or foot notes. It's great for flipping between those. I had no problem reading Infinite Jest, for example.
I guess if my copy of Pale Fire had hyperlinked all the poem line mentions, I would have been fine. :)
Now I'm wondering if I could write a quick script to annotate mine thusly...
I'm the kind of reader that goes back and forth when reading a novel. I like to go back and re-read when a character was introduced, or simply go back a few pages.
The UI of the Kindle sucks for this. It excels at finding a specific sentence, of course, but not for the kind of flipping pages I enjoy doing.
* Control of text size * Weight
I forget what it was, but at some point I was excitedly reading a new hardback -- and found it so heavy to read in bed that I bought the Kindle edition in addition to the paper one. This also applies for travel, doubly so.
What people who adopted e-readers often say is that e-readers can be more convenient and take less space.
But nobody says "paper sucks".
When you mix in the weight and the other issues with paper, it's not just inconvenient.
I'm happy to say that compared to eReaders, paper sucks. I just don't buy paper copies any more -- and I can access any new ebook in my library from any vacation hammock.
I read both on paper, using two bookmarks.
Anyways, if you've seen my cat please feed him.
For s&g I read "Nabokov's Pale Fire : The Magic of Artistic Discovery" by Brian Boyd, one of the aforementioned. It was interesting at first to see how literary criticsm and analysis work but eventually I had a Shatner moment.
I also found myself thinking “wait he can’t be serious about this poetry it’s not good”. And upon googling found that readers are split many many people think the poetry is seriously good.
Lolita is probably Nabokov's most accessible book, or at least the most accessible of his I've read, but I bet part of what you liked there is that you, the reader, don't interact with Humbert Humbert in quite the same way that Humbert thinks about himself, or might expect you would interact with him. Nabokov is profoundly good at this sort of authorial/editorial/linguistic misdirection.
On those terms, Pale Fire is a sort of 3d chess version of Lolita. Obviously the topic is different, at least, the surface topic is different. Obsession is still very much a topic.
Anyway, you might enjoy reading more Nabokov! Don't give up on him! To my mind he's one of the literary gifts from the 20th century. And you might enjoy Pale Fire on a re-read, but I'd recommend something else by him (or a few palate-cleansing/getting deeper on the Nabokov vibe choices) if it left you cold. It left me a little cold, too. I've been re-reading Ada or Ardor recently which I'd say is really outstanding, if longer and more florid than Lolita.
But I really love Invitation to a Beheading. he wrote in three languages!
By the false azure in the windowpane
I am the smudge of ashen fluff
And I lived on, flew on, in the reflected sky"
I am ashamed that I will never command my native language as well as a man for whom it was a second. I don't even know if whom is right there.
I liked "The svelte stilettos of a frozen stillicide" and
"How to locate in blackness, with a gasp,
Terra the Fair, an orbicle of jasp."
I was the shadow of the waxwing slain
By the false azure in the windowpane;
I was the smudge of ashen fluff—and I
Lived on, flew on, in the reflected sky.
I think I did alright for recalling it from several years ago. I will in fact, retract my agreement and classify your criticism as overly harsh.
I think the problem is some people expect to not have to do any work when reading literary novels.
Your initial premise: "I find that literature that requires work does not provide more food or insight into the human condition..."
Your conclusion from this premise: "If complexity is not what makes the work valuable, what purpose does it serve?"
And you answer your own question with a cynical take: "I posit that for some people complexity for the sake of complexity _is_ the appeal."
This makes me want to kick myself for reading Hacker News to be illuminated about the arts.
Still, I love user lermontov!
The point you might be missing is that some people might enjoy hard things not only because they are hard, but because only through their laborious efforts is the true brilliance of the work revealed.
(Edit: re-reading what I wrote earlier I can see how it can be read that way. My bad. )
And for what it's worth, there's plenty of modern-style "hard" novels that I've enjoyed immensely as well, including House of Leaves, Infinite Jest, Shogun, The Pillars of the Earth, and [pick any Neal Stephenson novel published this millennium].
Think of how different the world would be if all Beethoven composed were Für Elise-type pieces, and he never composed anything as complex--and inaccessible--as his Grosse Fuge.
In my experience, my favorite books have been the ones that required me to work a little.
also Pushkin's Queen of Spades
Personal share ... I had the same hesitance about getting into Tolstoy. I read The Death Of Ivan Ilyich -- it's short and has few characters. Absolutely loved it. That sealed the deal so I'm working through Anna Karenina now. I'm reading the Rosamund Bartlett translation and it's just superb so I don't really care about the torrent of names and characters. It's worth it IMO.
In fact, Pale Fire is quite a straightforward story, with a creative form with some puzzles to decipher if you feel like it. Or you can brush past them; the suspicious presence of contradictions is a delight in itself. It was fun for me at 22 but at 33 I would not go back and read it—I don't recall it being particularly deep, but it was a good time. I'm more interested in the other Russians now. Not that Nabokov, Tolstoy, or Dostoevsky have anything to do with each other. One would never think to group them at all if they hadn't written in the same language.
Nabokov's stories and reputation are intimidating, but if you drop your anxiety over missing the point, he's still a very entertaining, passionate writer. I definitely missed a lot when I read Pale Fire, but I still enjoyed it a lot, even being naive and taking everything at face value.
It seems like a book you have to read cover to cover in one sitting to jam it all in your head.
Now, from what I recall I did chuckle a couple times. But other than that it was a big shrug-fest to me. Just couldn't muster a care.
I never thought I'd admit to such base and earthen attitude, nay vulgar. But there we are.
I remember liking it at the time, but that's all. Now I'm going to go back and read it again. Must have missed something.
The Brocken is the highest peak in the Harz mountains of Germany and is where witches are said to gather on Walpurgis Night. So it was quite a subtle dig.
Much like a "skier's mountain" or a "band's band," is this the kind of book that only appeals to a narrow audience that likes to pick apart the mechanics of a book?
Or is this a book like Harry Potter, which was panned by the critics, but otherwise is awesome popular fiction?
If you like that idea, I think you'd like the book.
- The Third Policeman, Flann O’Brian. Fictional scholar of a fictional esoteric philosopher weaves his commentary on same philosopher into an account of his… journey.
- If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler, Italo Calvino. You(!) embark on an adventure to find the book you believed you purchased, which was If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino.
- The Princess Bride, William Goldman. This has a very different framing narrative from the film, and is very much worth a read.
(Setting aside epistolary novels like Dracula)
The narrative structure of Strange Manuscript is that of a story within a story. The frame story has four characters. Lord Featherstone, a British aristocrat, has fled the boredom of society to cruise the south seas in his yacht. He is accompanied by Dr. Congreve, a medical doctor who is knowledgeable in such fields as geography, botany, and paleontology; by Noel Oxenden, a Cambridge scholar who is an expert on philology; and by Otto Melick, "a littérateur from London". The four are becalmed in mid-Atlantic when they discover a copper cylinder containing a letter and a manuscript written on an unusual material which the doctor later identifies as papyrus. To while away the time, they take turns reading the manuscript aloud, pausing between turns to discuss its contents and debate its authenticity.
The author seems to have been a rather cool dude
Among the books from his library presented by the family to Dalhousie College are hymnologies of the Greek Church, a beautiful set of Euripides, works in modern Greek, Sanskrit, and Persian showing signs of use, as well as French, German and Italian classics with pencilled marginalia, all attesting the breadth of his intellectual interests. Since his death, his best book, A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder has been published by Harper's. It anticipates such romances as King Solomon's Mines, being a tale of wild adventures in an Antarctic Topsy-turveydom where lovers fly about on tame pterodactyls, and utter unselfishness is the chief aim in life of the highly civilised (but cannibal) inhabitants. [...] De Mille was a tall, handsome, dark man, an excellent teacher, a good conversationalist, best in monologue, an amateur musician, an adept at caricatures and comic verses; in short, a most unusual personality.
The Book of the New Sun
Soldier of the mist
In both, the author presents himself as a translator for a text he came across which was written by the main character of the story. In the first, the text came from the distant future. In the second, ancient Greece. They are both incredible.
Gene Wolfe really outdid himself, it's always incredible to me to reread the series and find that the books are written in a way that's not only engaging and interesting on a first read through, but equally captivating and enjoyable in new ways when you reread them and appreciate all the subtleties.
It's one of those old paperbacks I know I wouldn't have tossed, but darned if I can find my copy to reread. Maybe I loaned it and it found a new home. Maybe you have it.
(Do remember, he is a 55 year old man writing this in the '80s. Some of his world view is… archaic?… in the greater society today.)
You want the Tor version from 1989, not the Laser version from 1976.
https://michiganlawreview.org/journal/pomobabble-postmodern-...
It could be described as many things, but popular fiction it will never be.
If you like Borges or Gödel, Escher, Bach you will enjoy this.
It sounds like the best analogy to the book are abstract paintings. There are people who can appreciate them, but it is an acquired taste...
But popular fiction it ain't.
> Let me state that without my notes Shade's text simply has no human reality at all, since the human reality of such a poem as his ... has to depend entirely on the reality of its author and his surroundings, attachments and so forth, a reality that only my notes can provide. To this statement my dear poet would probably not have subscribed, but, for better or worse, it is the commentator who has the last word.
Final exam questions:
1. To what extent did Nabokov agree or disagree with this approach to literary criticism?
2. Did Nabokov personally identify more with Shade or with Kinbote?
2 feels simplistic to me as well, when asked about one of the great masters of characterization. If you ask who did he sympathize with more, then I’d say possibly ‘neither’.
I'm not particularly sharp witted when it comes to books, would it be a good idea to read it in parallel with some sort of an analysis or commentary?
Should I read it translated into my native language (Polish)? I could get through it in English probably, by looking up some of the words. I wonder how much is "lost" when a book like this is translated.
Hilary Mantel is very good. I haven't read the Wolf Hall books, but A Place of Greater Safety is beautiful and deserves to be better known.
I would also nominate Gene Wolfe, especially The Book of the Sun. Fits very well with the subject matter of Nabokov, as it is also a clever metatextual puzzle, albeit a very different kind.
I’d recommend “All the kings men” by Robert Penn Warren. It sounds like a political book but it’s not. It’s more like The Great Gatsby in that the structure is as much about the narrator. Also the writing lapses into “overly poetic” like McCarthy.
Yeah, nevertheless, the book is great fun and i have read it three times. I read that Pale Fire is even more of a puzzlebox than Ada or Ardor, and i dont think i am ready for that yet. But maybe someday, when i am feeling adventurous.
The only reason I knew this was because I read the Wikipedia article after I finished the book. It was a strange experience to enjoy the prose even though I had no idea what was happening.
It's called "Lost Cat".
I highly recommend it. Ironically, it might be an approximate opposite of Pale Fire. It's very short, with simple yet beautiful prose, filled with intense, raw emotions.
https://unherd.com/2022/06/the-death-of-literature/
The link contains audio of her reading from a favorite passage of the novel.
(The comments, otoh, always good)
What?
> Pale Fire is one of the greatest books I’ve ever read. It is so great it is terrifying to write about. This is not something I would normally confess, but in this case it seems better to just come out and say it, lest the reader feel the awful stammering of suppressed terror quavering through my words without knowing what they are feeling. It is terrifying!
The sentence fragment then means, "I wouldn't have mentioned that it's terrifying to write about, except I worry that the reader could tell that something was wrong by the way I wrote, but not know what."