Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov

Title: Pale Fire

Author: Vladimir Nabokov

Publisher: Penguin Classics

Originally published in 1962

Pages: Either 27, 97, or 334

Genres: Poetry, poetic commentary, criticism, 

Format: Paperback

The famous American poet John Shade was murdered in 1959. This book contains his last poem, Pale Fire, together with a foreword, a lengthy commentary and notes by Shade’s editor, Charles Kinbote. Known on campus as the ‘Great Beaver’, Kinbote is haughty, inquisitive, intolerant, but is he - can he possibly be - mad, bad, even dangerous? As his wildly eccentric annotations slide into the personal, he reveals perhaps more than he should about ‘the glorious friendship that brightened the last months of John Shade’s life’. 

I was the shadow of the waxwing slain 

By the false azure in the windowpane; 

I was the smudge of ashen fluff - and I  

Lived on, flew on, in the reflected sky.

This is a book that appears different from every single angle. The poem, by the character John Shade, is beautiful, moving and intensely sad. It is the grief in verse of a father who lost his daughter to suicide, and can be appreciated as a stand-alone piece. If one reads the commentary and notes by the character Kinbote we begin to see Nabokov’s criticism of literary critics emerge. Kinbote hijacks the poem entirely, making it a history of his so-called home country Zembla. There’s a dark humour here, a bitter reflection held up to those who read literature with a pre-set agenda, to those who re-write the book according to their own bull-headed interpretation. 

The title of the book, Pale Fire, is taken from Timon of Athens (Act 4) 

… the moon’s an arrant thief, and her pale fire she snatches from the sun. 

With this in mind it’s almost necessary to view Kinbote as the thief, taking Shade’s poem and redirecting the light for his own purposes.  

Pale Fire is, in my opinion, a literary middle finger held up to the criticism levelled at the artist. It is entertaining, it is grotesque, it is marvellous. The two characters live beyond their written words, coming to life in the mind of the reader as two men. Shade: the artist, the grieving father, patiently humouring his nutty neighbour. Kinbote: the eccentric professor, obsessively seeking validation for his powerful delusions. 

This is a book that you can dip in and out of. If you enjoy literary puzzles, and often approach a book like Sherlock Holmes would approach a murder investigation, then this is totally your bag. If you’re looking for a poem rich in imagery and pathos, then this is also your bag. If you are up for reading a book that you can laugh along with in the face of human absurdity, then again, this is for you. 

Personally I enjoyed reading about Pale Fire as much as I enjoyed reading the book itself. This is not what I would call a holiday-pool-side-read.