Reading 1001 discussion

December 2020 BOTM discussion of Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov.

Reviews go here; https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Perspective and Narrator
Pale Fire consists of a long poem by a fictional poet, John Shade, and a foreword, commentary, and index by the narrator, Charles Kinbote.

Tense
Most of the novel Pale Fire is told in past tense, but parts of the poem are in present tense, and Kinbote remarks on his situation in the present tense.

About the Title
The title Pale Fire comes from a play by English playwright William Shakespeare, Timon of Athens (1605–08): "The moon's an arrant thief,/And her pale fire she snatches from the sun." The lines refer to the fact the moon emits no light of its own—only the glow of the sun. Similarly, commentator Charles Kinbote borrows the reflected glory of the poet John Shade. However, the relationship is sometimes reversed, since the novel's compelling narrative of an assassination appears in Kinbote's commentary.

Prequestion.
1. Have you read other books by Nabokov? Which one(s)? Are you looking forward to reading this book or wary?

Other items to ponder/discuss
1. What is the novel trying to tell us about story-telling in the post-modern world?

2. Where is Charles Kinbote when he writes his commentary to "Pale Fire"? Who and what is Charles Kinbote? How much should a commentator put themselves into the commentary?

3. Discuss the style or layering in the book?

4. Themes;
Identity, Delusion, and Loneliness. ...
Death, Mystery, and the Afterlife. ...
Patterns, Fate, and Coincidence. ...
Loss and Longing. ...
The Nature of Art.
Themes are not just a word they are a sentence. Explore the themes found in Pale Fire. What is the author saying about any or all of the themes?

5. What are some symbols that you find in the novel and what is being symbolized?

6. Discuss Robert Frost in relationship to Pale Fire? Or is there no relationship?

7. There are many scholarly articles out there on this book. You can research those and respond/comment here.

8. Do you think this book belongs on the list. Are you glad you read it before you died?

1. I have read Lolita. I love Nabakov's ability to nail a description of a fleeting emotion, so I was looking forward to listening to Pale Fire, despite not knowing much about it.
1. There are several stories here, to which critics give different degrees of validation. Some say the poem is the real story and is worthy of attention in its own right, others dismiss King Charles of Zembla as the fantasy of a madman. The wildly imaginative commentary is a parody of literary criticism either written by the self important Kinbote, or by the poet Shade himself. Telling a story is complicated!
2. Charles Kimbote is in a ramshackle ranch in the north-west of the U.S. when he writes his commentary. He is the pushy neighbour of the poet John Shade who believes the poet is writing about the escape to exile of King Charles of Zembla, presumably Charles Kimbote himself. He steals the poem, written on index cards, and then appoints himself to comment on the poem, but instead writes about himself. Nabakov is parodying literary criticism in the commentary and it is often very funny.
3. The structure is original. First there is an introduction by Charles Kimbote, then John Shade's poem, then the infamous annotation of the poem and finally a crazy index, which is at the same time overly conscientous and quite meaningless. I presume that the reader is supposed to check the references and cross references against the poem, which could lead to actively approaching the work in a variety of ways. Had I known this I think I would have made the effort to get an actual copy of the book itself. Instead I listened to an Audible version, which meant that my introduction to the book was utterly linear. I still found it very enjoyable.

4. So many themes! I am going to choose the nature of art. By taking the art of the novel and transposing it into something like literary criticism, the reader is forced to contemplate what is art? Is this actually a novel at all?
6. Robert Frost's poem is mentioned at one point, but then there are so many literary references that I am not sure that his relationship is particular.
7. I have read a few and am grateful to have discovered that Nabokov's father was assassinated by mistake. I would not have fully understood the reference to Chapman's Homer (homer) or how slyly Nabokov showed Kimbote knew nothing about baseball without reading reviews. I prefer not to read too many because I think I am too easily influenced by them.
8. I certainly do. It has apparently influenced later writers.

I have read Lolita and am looking forward to the author’s masterful language.

Pip wrote: "1. I have read Lolita. I love Nabakov's ability to nail a description of a fleeting emotion, so I was looking forward to listening to Pale Fire, despite not knowing much about it.
1. There are seve..."

I’m not surprised that you loved this one!
Of Nabokov’s books that I’ve read, this one is by far my favorite. Kinbote’s head is an interesting place to be.

Great book! I read this about three years ago, and it is one of my favorites by Nabokov (second to Lolita). Kinbote was such a disturbing character!

1. What is the novel trying to tell us about story-telling in the post-modern world?

The only other Nabokov I have read was Lolita so I was not prepared for the format or formats of this book. At first I struggled a bit with the nature of exactly how to read it....Do I follow the notes in the commentary and flip back and forth with the poem? Do I just plow on through? In the end, I did a combination, turning the whole reading adventure into a bit of a puzzle. So this is what I gleaned from this kind of reading, you bring yourself to the book and read it how it works best for you. The author constructs an incredible jungle jim for the reader to climb on but it is up to the reader to do the climbing.
In the end, I loved the fact that I had read many of the comments 2 or 3 times and completely out of "order" by following the "see note 249" kind of directions and that the poem, which I did not care for in my chronological reading began to become more interesting when constantly returning back to it. Of course, Kinbote's commentary did not help the understanding of the poem.

2. Where is Charles Kinbote when he writes his commentary to "Pale Fire"? Who and what is Charles Kinbote? How much should a commentator put themselves into the commentary?

Charles Kinbote is a character in the book. That sounds simple but it is not. The character Charles Kinbote teaches at a small college with the famous poet Shade and lives next door to him. Charles believes that he is the king of a foreign country and that he escaped that country after a communist style revolution. He wants Shade to write his daring story. He is also a homosexual and is not ashamed of that. He more or less stalks Shade.
Now is Charles Kinbote, a narrator that Nabokov invented to tell this story really meant to be believed by either Shade or by the reader? Certainly Kinbote is not a reliable narrator, but he is also probably not even Kinbote. He is probably a crazy Russian teacher who is having trouble keeping his imagination in check. There is probably no assassin after him and Shade was probably attacked by another mad man who really had escaped from a mental institution, as the assassin himself admitted. Does it matter to us, the reader, exactly who Kinbote is? Not really. He is a piece of the puzzle, a delightfully unlikeable character, and clearly a fill in for Nabokov to express some of his own political, religious and philosophical views OR at least to posit some interesting views.

3. Discuss the style or layering in the book?

Oh boy. The fact that one is reading back and forth, reading the ending when only about half way chronologically through the book and reading the beginning again when 3/4's of the way through the book is a style I have not experienced. It is done without the usual modernist obtuseness in that there is a way in which everything is a comedy, the reader is meant to laugh and to participate in the puzzle. The characters are all interesting even if they are not "themselves". The poem's style is very old fashioned as it is based on heroic couplets and strains against that convention.

4. Themes;
Identity, Delusion, and Loneliness. ...
Death, Mystery, and the Afterlife. ...
Patterns, Fate, and Coincidence. ...
Loss and Longing. ...
The Nature of Art.
Themes are not just a word they are a sentence. Explore the themes found in Pale Fire. What is the author saying about any or all of the themes?

Yes, too many themes to address. As Pip wrote, Nabokov plays with the Nature of Art, the nature of the reader and the critic participating in that Art and often setting up a contrary premise than what the author intended. Shade's poem (is it Shade's poem or Nabokov's poem? ) is very much about Death and the possibility of an Afterlife. He speaks to his daughter's struggles and the possibility of finding hope, not necessarily an afterlife but some reason to continue to live and to look forward to something beyond life. Kinbota contrasts the poem with his much more Catholic belief in a supreme being.


6. Discuss Robert Frost in relationship to Pale Fire? Or is there no relationship?

There are so many references to poets throughout the book. Shakespeare obviously is a big one, Pope, but also Byron, Browning, Keats and more. Frost is really only a poet to think about in regards Shades' personality. Frost experienced the death of his children, largely kept to himself when he was able to, channeled a New England tight lipped and colloquial language and taught to make a living on occasion. The style of Shade's poem is not at all like Frost.

7. There are many scholarly articles out there on this book. You can research those and respond/comment here.

You can really go down a rabbit hole here. There are scholars who have worked out the puzzle down to the smallest detail, published and then have changed their mind. There are people who have written articles about whether Shade's poem is really a great poem in its own right and should be read without the commentary as a stand alone work of art. The puzzle of the book invites many people to write about it and that makes me think that Nabokov accomplished his aim. On the other hand there are many articles out there about how the whole book is pure self indulgence and isn't worthy of scholarship. I didn't even get beyond the first layer....I am happy to take the book as I came to it..

8. Do you think this book belongs on the list. Are you glad you read it before you died?

Yes, very happy to have read it and yes it belongs on the list but it isn't Lolita, which is a purer marvel.

Prequestion:

1. I’ve read Pnin and Lolita, was meh about the former and really was impressed by the latter. Was looking forward to this one.

Other items to ponder/discuss
1. I thought the book got at an interesting point about the value of intertextuality and how the meaning of stories has become very largely dependent on context and outside understanding.

2. Kinbote is living incognito and claims to be the ex-king of the fictional Zembla. He is writing from a rural fictional cabin. Nabukov has endorsed the reading some critics have done that he is the insane professor Botkin mentioned in the book, and the whole Zembla thing and the name Kinbote are fabrications. It seems he overly inserts himself into the commentary as a way of fostering this death of the author type scenario via death by the editor.

3. I found in audio, the style of the poem canto’s interrupted by footnotes of Kinbote’s actually worked quite well and gave an organic flow to the layering that I quite enjoyed.

4.To pick out one of these, I felt like there was a lot in there about how identity is largely based in construction, and sometimes this is fostered by delusion.

5. The “Pale Fire” of the title itself appears in the lost “Timoneon Cave” play, and refers to a Shakespeare line about thievery, which seems appropriate to how Kinbote appropriates Shade’s poem.

6. I liked Gail’s answer for this one.

7. I’ve read that it is implied that Kinbote dies by suicide after finishing the book: also stated by Nabokov in a “word of god” type revelation. I feel like that is consistent with the text.

8. I thought it was masterful in a lot of ways, and a prime example of post-modern fiction and metafiction/hyperfiction. Yeah I’d keep it on the list and I’m glad I’ve read it.

1. Lolita so I was looking forward to this.


1. I think it is telling us that there are no rules and each reader brings their own ideas to what they are reading.

2. Charles is in the US living next door to the poet. He may or may not believe he is an escaped King. His literary criticism is mainly an excuse to discuss himself and how wonderful he is.

3. The layout is interesting as we move back and forward throughout the commentary building up a story about Kinbote and Shade.

4. Themes;
Identity, Delusion, and Loneliness. ... Fiction as reality?
Patterns, Fate, and Coincidence. ... Assassination?
Loss and Longing. ... Exiled King longing for home?
The Nature of Art. The poem and the poet?

5. So much can be interpreted as a symbol I wouldn't know where to start.

6. Not sure why Frost specifically there are a lot of other poets/writers mentioned including Nabokov himself.


8. Yes and Yes. This definitely meets the criteria of a new way of storytelling or development of the novel.