Vladimir Nabokov: Pale Fire

[Sybarite]

Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov

Poet John Shade has been murdered, 999 lines into a 1,000-line poem in four cantos – the Pale Shade of the title.

So what we have here is Shade's unfinished final work, sandwiched between a foreword and extensive commentary from his editor and friend, Charles Kinbote.

The poem, in rhyming couplets, appears to be autobiographical, dealing greatly with issues such as mortality and the 'meaning of life', including a heart attack that Shade has survived, and the apparent suicide of his daughter.

But Kinbote's commentary shows us that, in fact, the poem is a largely disguised version of the heroic events in the eastern European nation of Zembla, where a revolution has just overthrown the monarchy; a story that Kinbote – a refugee from that country – has told Shade during their brief acquintance.

And it also becomes clear that Kinbote is, the deposed final Zemblan king, Charles Xavier.

But is all as it seems here? Who is Kinbote really? Is he the king in exile? Or is he a fantasist and, effectively, a thief of Shade's final work, both in terms of physically removing the text to edit it himself, and artistically, in terms of changing the meaning of the poem? Is he sane or is he mad? Is he dangerous?

And what of Vladimir Nabokov? Was he targeting literary critics and editors here? What is he saying about monarchy and revolution? Is Shade a poor poet and Kinbote the real genius?

Pale Fire is written in such a way, with Nabokov's usual scintillating use of language, that it plays with the reader. It's difficult, for instance, not to get really rather angry with Kinbote: a rude, crass, arrogant, delusional creation whose imagined neck one could quite happily twist – because it's so easy to read this as a real poem with Kinbote's contributions being equally real.

Indeed, it's difficult to imagine that Nabokov could have created a more unpleasant character than Lolita's Humbert Humbert – but in Kinbote he has achieved that.

There's a real sense of authorial mischief here. It's funny and frustrating and compelling and wildly inventive in the sheer nature of what it is.

Pick this apart – Pale Fire is a mind **** on a grand scale. And utterly brilliant.

 

[Sybarite]

PS: And not to forget the detailed 'index' at the end – amazing stuff.

 

[bren]

When I first read this a couple years ago, I was stunned by its complexity and the layers of activity. Despite this, it is more than just an intellectual exercise. The first tastes of Shade's poem have a beauty and depth, unbelievable from a novelist; I read the start of the poem many times over and the strength of that alone has led me to pace myself with Nabokov's work, that it should last me a long while.

 

[Sybarite]

Bren, like you, I wondered what on earth the poem itself would be like, but you're right; it's easy to read and there are some very fine moments in it and quite a lot of good ideas.

Obviously that all gets lost in the ensuing manipulation of it by Kinbote – but I suppose it has to stand on its own merits in order to make the subsequent editing even more offensive and more of an intellectual theft.

 

[Peder]

Hi Syb,
Quite apart from the colloquial way you characterize it in your last sentence of OP, many scholars regard the total novel as his finest work and even choose it over Lolita.

 

[Sybarite]

Hi Syb,
Quite apart from the colloquial way you characterize it in your last sentence of OP, many scholars regard the total novel as his finest work and even choose it over Lolita.

Hi Peder,

Glad you enjoyed the colloquialisation. :whistling:

It doesn't surprise me that it's so highly rated – indeed, as you say, over Lolita. Two things occur to me about that book:

• it's so famous because of the controversial subject matter, but most people only know that title of all Nabokov's work. So it's come to overshadow the rest of his output;

• I think it's very difficult to be completely objective about Lolita. The subject matter makes the reader uncomfortable. Personally, it was my first experience of Nabokov (this was my second) and I thought that the prose was absolutely stunning and the whole entity very witty, but I felt uncomfortable because I was enjoying a book about child abuse. So I think it's difficult to get over that.

On the other hand, as I mentioned in the OP, I think that there is mischief at work with Nabokov. On the basis of Lolita and Pale Fire, I don't think that he lectures about subjects – but I do think that he provokes in a mischievous sense; sees how far he can go. Again as I said in the OP, it's hard to imagine a less sympathetic character than Humbert Humbert and yet, in Kinbote, I think he achieves it. So, a mischievous attempt to get a rise out of his audience, perhaps?

 

[Peder]

Sybarite, There is certainly a sense of humor in much, if not all, of his writing, and also the idea of engaging the reader in a game . The Introduction to The Annotated Lolita is an excellent in-depth treatment of his writing style and intentions. It is a separate scholarly treatment that stands on it own feet and should be required reading for anyone who wishes to truly appreciate Nabokov's writing. In addition, in his own words in the Appendix to The Annotated Lolita, he asserts that he sets out the idea for each new novel as a carefully bounded literary problem and then writes the story while scrupulously staying within the original parameters. So, yes, it is easy to imagine him setting the goal posts a little further out in different challenging directions each time and, in a very real sense, challenging the reader to keep up with him. Furthermore, this method has created novels -- about 16 in all -- which are each quite different from all the others.
Pale Fire, with two interlocking stories and narrators, has kept the imaginations of its serious students quite busy with how to view it. An excellent book for delving much more deeply in that direction has been written by one of the Nabokov experts, his principal biographer in fact:

Nabokov's Pale Fire - The Magic of Artistic Discovery by Brian Boyd​

Reading that book will give you a stimulating mental workout and lead to amazing insights into the intellectual possibilities of Pale Fire itself. There, one can then begin to see why people call Pale Fire the greatest of his works.

 

[beer good]

Right, so, Pale Fire it is then. The story of an escaped king, a murdered poet, or possibly neither.

Man's life as commentary to obstruse
Unfinished poem. Note for further use.*

* If I correctly understand the sense of this succinct observation, our poet suggests here that human life is but a series of footnotes to a vast obscure unfinished masterpiece.

1. I put off reading this book for well over a year simply because I don't, as a rule, read poetry. Don't get me wrong: it's not a matter of principal... sorry, principle, but rather that I knew enough about what it was (an unreliable interpretation of a poem) to doubt my own ability to catch Kinbote in the act. I could catch Humbert because I knew the novel conventions he hid behind, the references he used to defend himself. Not being a fan of poetry, I thought I wouldn't be able to do the same here. I'm not sure whether or not I was right.

2. From that perspective, I can't help but be somewhat underwhelmed by John Shade, if he exists. "Pale Fire" strikes me as a rather prosaic poem, the odd glimmer of beauty (that first stanza!) and/or meaning notwithstanding. This may or may not be the point.

3. Kinbote, if he exists, is a despicable but fun character. Part overzealous critic (scoffing at critics who draw far-reaching conclusions even as he maintains that another man's autobiography is his own in code), part psycho stalker, part complete mythomaniac.

4. Zembla, if it exists, is an impossibility; like a never-russified Novgorod ("new town"), the language an occasionally hilarious mixture of Scandinavian, German and Slavic. As Nabokov has Kinbote (or has Shade or Botkin have Kinbote) point out, the name indicates both "land" and "mirror"; it is, or it just resembles that which is. It's explicitly said to not be Novaya Zemlya; does that make it the not-new, the old world? There's that "Lolita as metaphor for the old world falling for the shininess of America" theory again. Which, of course, Nabokov scoffed at.

5. This, of course, runs through everything. Pale Fire is full of shadow images (is that Plato's blasted cave again?), fairground mirrors, opposites, dark halves, colours, flowers - obviously metaphorical and symbolical language that comes together in a way that emphasizes its own artifice. In other words, there are things that are too obvious, too deliberate, to be true.

6. Kinbote cannot be telling the truth; his story is too absurd, he knows too much about everyone. This much is true, at least within the novel (which of course in turn is a lie by Nabokov, the wealthy Russian who emigrated to the US and whose father was murdered by accident.) What's more, it's doubtful whether Kinbote knows he's not telling the truth - because he might not even exist. There are points in the text (starting on page one, that "very loud amusement park") which seem designed to call his authenticity into question; who would actually write that? How could someone as intelligent (if deranged) as he clearly is be as blind as the story requires him to be in order to not notice his own fictional status? Not only is his narration unreliable - the very existence of a narration is itself unreliable.

7. Likewise, Shade himself - for all the biographical information both Kinbote and Shade himself give us - is, in name and deed, a shadow (or Shadow). He only speaks in poetry and in sarcastic putdowns. His last poem starts, continues, and ends with his own death, following shortly after the poem is (un)finished. Does that seem right to you?

8. So Shade writes a poem, Kinbote writes the footnotes. Or Shade writes a poem and invents Kinbote to tell a different story in the footnotes. Or Nabokov invents Shade and Kinbote. Or... etc. The text is an interpretation of itself that itself demands to be interpreted while mocking those who would interpret it. There's endless permutations, not one of them is completely improbable, and the word is indeed "mindfuck".

9. And yet. And yet. I find myself wondering what significance the story itself has to anything if there's not one fixed point, not one opening where we can say "OK, THIS really happened, if perhaps not quite in this way; now, let's see what that implies for everything else he says." For all we know, everything here is Kinbote's invention. For all we know, none of it is. Without any "real" (within the fiction) basis, we haven't got a leg to stand on. We're just turning in ever-narrower circles around a novel that may or may not have a centre, chasing our own tale.

10. That's not a huge complaint, and perhaps it's even the point, but it does lead me to admire the book more than I love it. Pale Fire is an astounding work; it's so full of tricks, trompe l'œils, hidden passages, masks and question marks that I could re-read it right now and probably come to a completely different conclusion about everything in it. It's funny as hell. It constantly undercuts itself and forces the reader to re-evaluate his/her opinion of what's going on. And somewhere underneath, there's serious issues to address. But unlike Lolita, it never captivates me - at least not this time around. I can't give it less than , though.

Now to decide where to go from here.

 

[Dogmatix]

I've always found this book to be a maddening combination of intimidating and incredibly seductive. It's been sitting on my shelves for a long time. I guess I finaly need to pick it up and crack it's spine.

 

[beer good]

Alright, here's a subject for discussion:

Should "Pale Fire", the poem, be published separately from Pale Fire, the novel? One publisher seems to think so:

Free "Pale Fire"! The next big Nabokov controversy. - By Ron Rosenbaum - Slate Magazine

Questions? Comments?

 

[Peder]

. . .
Questions? Comments?

Where to begin?

1) Oh, Ron Rosenbaum again. Does anyone write about him except himself? Or as much as he writes about himself?

2) This is the next big controversy? Will Ron's next next big controversy after this be: "Should Lolita be cleaned up?" Feh!

3) /yawning, hugely/ so far.

4) I'll be interested in seeing the defense of Pale Fire, the poem, as great poetry. The last time I said in an open forum that it was a great poem, one of the intellectual heavy hitters there reminded me that it really was quite mediocre. So what do I know about poetry?

5) Viewing it as a story, I find the poem very affecting.

6) Viewing it as a poem, I am more interested in other styles of modern poetry. And there are many. So, setting it as a standard to be reached by other poets strikes me as silly; there are many ways to write scintillating modern poetry, in my opinion. There is no 'right' way.

7) Publish it separately? Anyone is free to do what they wish. I don't see the attraction, however, since I can already read the poem by itself in the novel (and have done so) and make up my own mind about its poetic merit.

8) Shade or Kinbote or Botkin as author of the work? All of these, wrong! I see a fourth alternative, overlooked so far, which unfortunately is too far off topic for this post to contain.

 

[Pentoon]

I had to read this for one of my modules. Personally, I loved it, but quite a few of my class mates didn't. The thing that I found most maddening was the index, if you follow the reference to the crown jewels (I think, it's been a while) you end up going backwards and forwards in through the index until you come complete circle.

 

[Peder]

The thing that I found most maddening was the index, if you follow the reference to the crown jewels (I think, it's been a while) you end up going backwards and forwards in through the index until you come complete circle.

Yes, but I think that was intended to be Nabokov's sense of humor at work, and a parody of scholarly footnoting. So the reader should finally smile rather than frown, or at least so I think Nabokov thought.