Pale Fire
Nabokov's 1962 novel told through a 999-line poem and its unreliable commentary.
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Pale Fire is a novel by Vladimir Nabokov, published in 1962. It takes the form of a 999-line poem, also called "Pale Fire", by the invented poet John Shade, framed by a foreword, a long commentary and an index from Shade's neighbour and fellow academic Charles Kinbote.
Out of these pieces a story emerges in which both supposed authors are the main characters. Many critics rank it as Nabokov's greatest achievement even though Lolita is better known; Brian Boyd and Harold Bloom both praised it highly. It is widely discussed as a key work of metafiction and an early, print-based forerunner of hypertext fiction.
Background
Nabokov wrote the book in 1960–61, once the success of Lolita had freed him from teaching and let him move back to Europe. He started it in Nice and finished it in Montreux, Switzerland. The action is set in the invented college town of New Wye, Appalachia, where Shade and Kinbote live across a lane from one another from February to July 1959, and Kinbote later writes his notes in a cabin in Cedarn, Utana. The title of Shade's poem comes from Shakespeare's Timon of Athens, in a passage about the moon stealing its pale fire from the sun, often read as an image of creative borrowing.
Did You Know?
- Kinbote claims the poem lacks only line 1000.
- In 1995 Pekka Tammi counted more than 80 critical studies of the novel.
- The index contains an entry for "Botkin, V.", a clue to one popular reading.
- Nabokov said in an interview that Kinbote killed himself after finishing the book.
More in British Literary Classics
Sources
Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.
- Wikipedia: Pale Fire (CC BY-SA 4.0).
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