Cat Stickler’s Reviews > Pale Fire > Status Update

I'm obsessed with this format, and there are so many layers to this that I'm reading slower than I need to be. The poem feels like it’s exploring how we never really “see” reality directly. We just see reflections, memories, and interpretations layered on top of it, and not even memory is stable because it keeps reshaping itself.

I literally laughed out loud (in public) at this:

"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. ...for better or worse, it is the commentator who has the last word."

"But let me not pursue the tabulation of nonsense" is one of the most wildly chaotic things for Kinbote to say.

I saw this book was due back to the library yesterday, so I only have one day. Let's see if I can get through it while not completely ignoring work.

Also, I only have 3 colors of tabs I'm working with to annotate, and one is designated as "unreliable"/"distorted." I'm getting nervous I'll run out of that color before finishing the book lol.