Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov

If I had known anything about this book ahead of time, other than that it was #53 in the Modern Library's Top 100, I probably would have passed it by. It is certainly unique and inventive in its method of telling a story, and that's a plus. It held my attention, and that's a plus. It is satirically humorous, and that's another plus. But it is very labor-intensive to read, and after finishing, I still don't know what really happened, or if anything really happened at all.

Pale Fire begins with a forward, which is not the usual kind that the reader can skip. This forward is actually part of the story, introducing one of the two main characters--Dr. Charles Kinbote, who is supposedly the editor of a 999-line poem written by the poet John Shade, the other main character.

The second part of the novel is the poem "Pale Fire," Shade's poem, which covers about 36 pages. It concerns Shade's meditations on death and the suicide of his daughter, as well as details of his daily life. Here I encountered my first problem: the poem seems mediocre to me, certainly not an authentic effort by Nabokov. It is written in rhyming couplets, much in the style of Robert Frost (he is referenced in the poem), has some arresting images, but then turns mundane and silly in spots. Not knowing whether to perceive the poem as satirical or serious really bothered me.

The third and longest part of the novel consists of the "commentary" on the poem by Kinbote, with the customary line-references back to the poem for each entry. Now, for 230 pages, the reader turns back and forth from the poem to Kinbote's references to lines from the poem. Many times the poetry has nothing to do with the commentary, as Kinbote begins to tell his own story. He is an undependable narrator, for sure, obviously egocentric and most probably insane. But he is entertaining and it's fun to see how Nabokov leaves little clues all over as to what really happens in the book.

But then, the reader never really knows. Did John Shade write both the poem and the commentary? Did Kimbote write both the poem and the commentary. Was the assassin (spoiler alert) really Professor Botkin? Was the assassin really Gradus, send to kill an ex-king? Was the assassin really an escapee from a mental institution? Was Kimbote really the dethroned king of Zembla?

I broke a self-imposed rule during the reading of this book: I never read commentary (other than the book-seller's) or critical essays before or during the reading. I want to form my own opinions, without input from "experts." But the question of the poem bothered me so much that I googled up Wikipedia, the expert on all things. I read that more than 80 major interpretations had been written about the novel. So I figured that it was OK to be puzzled, since I surely wasn't the first. I think Nabokov wrote a puzzle-book on purpose, and probably derived great amusement from scholarly-types trying to figure it out.

Coincidentally, I recently read What the Shadow Told Me, which tried to be much the same kind of puzzle book, much less successfully. I wonder if they consciously had this book in mind.

Despite the problems, I am really glad I read this.