Saturday, July 19, 2008

Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov

When I read Nabokov's books, I can't help but feel that the whole thing is a big joke somehow and I'm at the butt of it. I said that to someone the other day and they sort of twisted up their face like the thought of reading such a book was disgusting, but I don't really mean it in a bad way; in fact, to the contrary, I love the way Nabokov plays games with his reader's minds.

Pale Fire might be, at its heart, a colossal bait-and-switch, but that doesn't make it any less awesome: The heart of the book is a 999-pp. poem supposedly written by one John Shade, poet and professor at Wordsmith College in a town called New Wye. The commentary, which takes up the bulk of the book, is by his friend and colleague Charles Kinbote, who, instead of providing any meaningful commentary on the poem (which is a solid but unspectacular autobiographical treatise focusing on death and loss), finds any slight excuse to go off on tangents about the story of exiled Zemblan king Charles Xavier, a story which he claims provided the inspiration for the poem. King Charles Xavier, we come to understand quite quicky, is actually Kinbote, and the recent death of John Shade has occurred at the hands of the king's would-be assassin.

Schools of thought have cropped up about the novel; Shadeans believe that Kinbote is a creation of Shade, and Kinboteans vice versa. Some believe that the whole thing is made up by a minor character in the book, a Professor Botkin (whose name anagrams nearly to Kinbote), a theory that Nabokov himself has supported. But of course, this is the bait and the switch: Shade and Kinbote aren't creations of each other; they're fictitious--they are creations of Nabokov. The whole argument is the perpetuation of Nabokov's joke, because at no meaningful level can one claim that either character is more "real" than the other.

Pale Fire has been called Nabokov's masterpiece. While it certainly provided some excellent mental calisthenics, it's hard to speak of it in the same breath as Lolita when it lacks so much of that book's haunting beauty. There's a lot of depth in Shade's work and in his depiction as a character in the commentary, but--true to the book's central questions concerning surface realities--it is difficult to extricate Shade's wisdom from the kind of academic pretension that pervades his relationship with Kinbote. Pale Fire may be one of a kind, but Lolita is the better book.

7 comments:

Amanda said...

I love Nabokov. He's absolutely brilliant, probably my favorite author of all time. I have yet to tackle Pale Fire, simply because I'm terrified of the poetry (I've never been able to understand poetry, despite my extensive literature background), but I swear I will get to this book, and hopefully soon. I have plans for August.

Synesthesia is supposed to have huge amounts of influence on the subject matter in this book. I'm not sure how, but the premise is fascinating. Nabokov was quite a synesthite.

Christopher said...

There are parts that deal explicitly with synesthesia, yes (which, coincidentally, also appeared in the last book I read, The Echo Maker).

The poetry in Pale Fire is pretty tame and only takes up 1/8 or so of the book. The commentary is where the action is.

Amanda said...

Yeah, I didn't know that for a very long time, that the poetry isn't much of the story. Someone told me that about a year ago, and I've been trying to gather up the courage to try it since.

I'll have to look into the Echo Maker. I have synesthesia but never knew until about 2 years ago that the condition had a name, but since I found out, I've been studying it like mad and I love to hear people's takes on it. I prefer to hear it from people who experience it, though, rather than from people who just study it.

Carlton Farmer said...

Check out Born on a Blue Day by Daniel Tamet. He is a savant with syynethesia. Interesting read.

Amanda said...

Well I finally just finished Pale Fire and went back to discover that the wikipedia article that talked about synesthesia in this book has been changed and now says The Gift is his synesthetic work.

I agree with you - Lolita is far more spectacular than this one.

Anonymous said...

aligns just bedding providerno chief lesser pairs content okcontent photoblogs acquisition
servimundos melifermuly

Anonymous said...

seat caution ntkz phoaks dummy aravind itemmany plagiarism glenmark arteries fourth
servimundos melifermuly