Vladimir Nabokov
1962
Around 315 pages
Nabokov is so strange with his plots that it was only a matter of time before things got weird with his structure too. This was definitely not my cup of tea, but it didn't shake my belief that Nabokov is a genius, so that's something.
Pale Fire is presented as a 999 line poem penned by John Slade, with a foreword, commentary, and index written by Slade's neighbor and colleague Charles Kinbote. Charles Kinbote clearly isn't playing with a full deck, and thinks he is the exiled King Charles.
So we have two very unreliable narrators, and a kind of choose your own adventure style for reading. You can follow the annotations as you go along, or save them for after an initial read through of the poem. I can't ignore a footnote, so I kept halting the flow to follow Charles' part. And while I recognize this disjointedness is intentional, I think it does take a toll on the rhythm, which I think is crucial for enjoying poetry.
An interesting experiment, but I didn't really connect with the text or the characters.
RATING: ***--
Interesting Facts:
Interesting Facts:
In Blade Runner 2049, the device performing a "Post-Trauma Baseline Test" on Ryan Gosling's character, "K", quotes lines 703–707 of the poem. The other List made me watch that movie, which I didn't like either.
UP NEXT: A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
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