Jump to content

Pale Fire: Difference between revisions

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Browse history interactively
← Previous editNext edit →
Content deleted Content added
VisualWikitext
RobotG (talk | contribs)
86,515 edits
m Bot: Removing Category:Modern Library 100 best novels per CFD, see Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2007 February 25
m →‎Allusions and references: Finally found the Royal Mirror!
Line 65: Line 65:
*[[James Joyce]]
*[[James Joyce]]
{{ColBreak}}
{{ColBreak}}
*The ''[[Konungs Skuggsjå]]'' or ''Royal Mirror''
*The ''[[Konungs skuggsjá]]'' or ''Royal Mirror''
*[[Krummholz]]
*[[Krummholz]]
*[[Franklin Knight Lane]]
*[[Franklin Knight Lane]]

Revision as of 05:03, 7 March 2007

Pale Fire
File:Palefire.jpg
Penguin Classics edition of Pale Fire
AuthorVladimir Nabokov
LanguageEnglish
GenreLiterary
PublisherG. P. Putnam's Sons
Publication date
1962 (corrected edition first published by Vintage International, 1989)
Publication placeUnited States
Pages315
ISBNISBN 0-679-72342-0 (Vintage) Parameter error in {{ISBNT}}: invalid character

Pale Fire (1962) is a novel by Vladimir Nabokov, his fourteenth and his fifth written in English. The Nabokov authority Brian Boyd has called it "Nabokov's most perfect novel".[1] It has drawn a great deal of critical attention, with commentators offering a wide variety of interpretations.

Plot summary

Template:Spoiler At first glance, Pale Fire is the publication of a 999-line poem in four cantos ("Pale Fire") by a famous American poet, John Shade. The poem digressively describes many aspects of Shade's life. Canto 1 includes his early encounters with death and glimpses of the apparent otherworldly. Canto 2 is about his family and the death (possibly by suicide) of his daughter, Hazel. Canto 3 is about his search for knowledge about an afterlife, culminating in a "faint hope" in higher powers "playing a game of worlds" as indicated by apparent coincidences. Canto 4 includes many personal details and Shade's thoughts on his poetry, which he finds to be a means of somehow understanding the universe.

The poem appears with a Foreword, extensive Commentary, and Index by Shade's self-appointed editor, Charles Kinbote, Shade's neighbor in the small college town of New Wye. According to Kinbote, Shade has been murdered and the poem remains unfinished. Kinbote takes it upon himself to oversee its publication, telling readers that it lacks only one line.

In the Foreword, Commentary and Index, Kinbote explicates the poem surprisingly little. Instead he tells his own story, notably including his friendship with Shade, and the story of Charles II Xavier, the deposed king of the "distant northern land" of Zembla who picturesquely escaped imprisonment by Soviet-backed revolutionaries. The reader soon realizes that Kinbote is Charles Xavier, living incognito—or, though he builds an elaborate picture of Zembla complete with samples of a constructed language, that he is insane and that his identification with Charles and perhaps all of Zembla are his delusions. A third story told by Kinbote in his Commentary is that of Gradus, an assassin dispatched by the new rulers of Zembla to kill the exiled King Charles.

Nabokov said in an interview that Kinbote committed suicide after finishing the book.[2] The critic Michael Wood has stated, "This is authorial trespassing, and we don't have to pay attention to it,"[3] but Brian Boyd has argued that internal evidence points to Kinbote's suicide.[4] Template:Endspoiler

Kinbote's critical apparatus, especially his Commentary (in the form of notes to various lines) and Index, is full of cross-references and narrates his stories in a highly non-linear way. (The book has been cited by Ted Nelson as an archetypal proto-hypertext.)

Explanation of the title

As Nabokov pointed out himself,[5] the title of John Shade's poem is from Shakespeare's Timon of Athens: "The moon's an arrant thief, / And her pale fire she snatches from the sun" (Act IV, scene 3), often taken as a metaphor about creativity and inspiration. (Kinbote quotes the passage but doesn't recognize it, as he says he has only a Zemblan version of the play.) Some interpreters have noted a secondary reference to Hamlet, where the Ghost remarks how the glow-worm "'gins to pale his uneffectual fire" (Act I, scene 5).[6]

Interpretations

Some readers concentrate on the apparent story, focusing on traditional aspects of fiction such as the relationship among the characters.[7][8] They may make a case that Kinbote is parasitic on Shade, or that Shade's poem is mediocre and Kinbote, the inventor of Zembla, is a true genius.[citation needed] In 1997, Brian Boyd published a much-discussed study[9] arguing that the ghost of John Shade influenced Kinbote's contributions. He later expanded this essay into a book, in which he also argues that Hazel's ghost induced Kinbote to say things to Shade that inspired Shade's poem.[4]

Other readers see a story quite different from the apparent narrative. "Shadeans" maintain that John Shade wrote not only the poem, but the commentary as well, having invented his own death and the character of Kinbote as a literary device. According to Boyd,[9] Andrew Field invented the Shadean theory[10] and Julia Bader expanded it;[11] Boyd himself espoused the theory for a time.[12] "Kinboteans", a decidedly smaller group, believe that Kinbote invented the existence of John Shade. Boyd[9] credits the Kinbotean theory to Page Stegner[13] and adds that most of its adherents are newcomers to the book. Some readers see the book as oscillating undecidably between these alternatives, like the Rubin vase (a drawing that may be two profiles or a goblet).[14] [15] [16]

Though a minority of commentators believe that Zembla is as "real" as New Wye, most assume that Zembla, or at least the operetta-quaint and homosexually gratified palace life enjoyed by Charles Xavier before he is overthrown, is imaginary in the context of the story. The name "Zembla" (taken from "Nova Zembla", a former anglicization of Novaya Zemlya) may evoke popular fantasy literature about royalty such as The Prisoner of Zenda, signaling that it is not to be taken literally.[citation needed] As in so many of Nabokov's books, however, the fiction is only an exaggerated or comically distorted version of his own life as a son of privilege before the Russian Revolution and an exile after,[citation needed] and the central murder has resemblances (emphasized by Priscilla Meyer[17]) to Nabokov's father's murder by an assassin trying to kill someone else.

Some readers, starting with Mary McCarthy[18] and including Boyd, Nabokov's annotator Alfred Appel,[19] and D. Barton Johnson,[20] see Charles Kinbote as an alter-ego of the insane Professor V. Botkin, to whose delusions John Shade and the rest of the faculty of Wordsmith College generally condescend. Nabokov himself endorsed this reading, stating in an interview in 1962 (the novel's year of publication) that Pale Fire "is full of plums that I keep hoping somebody will find. For instance, the nasty commentator is not an ex-King of Zembla nor is he professor Kinbote. He is professor Botkin, or Botkine, a Russian and a madman."[5] In this interpretation, the "Gradus" who kills Shade is an American named Jack Grey who wanted to kill Judge Goldsworth, whose house Kinbote is renting. Goldsworth had condemned Grey to an asylum from which he escaped shortly before mistakenly killing Shade, who resembled Goldsworth.

Still other readers de-emphasize any sort of "real story" and may doubt the existence of such a thing. In the interplay of allusions and thematic links, they find a picture of English literature,[17] criticism,[14] or some other topic.

Allusions and references

Like many of Nabokov's books, Pale Fire alludes to others. "Hurricane Lolita" is mentioned, and Pnin appears as a minor character.

The book is also full of references to culture, nature, and literature. Some have been greatly emphasized by critics; others may be trifles. Many feel the book is more enjoyable if the reader deciphers or pursues these references independently. Template:MultiCol

| class="col-break " |

Template:EndMultiCol

References in other media

  • Zembla, an international literary magazine (now defunct), was named after the fictional land from the novel. The magazine adopted Nabokov's playful approach to language and tried to combine literary interests with the characteristics of a style magazine. Zembla's motto was 'fun with words,' and among its innovative ideas were interviews with dead people (usually authors) and the 'DIY Review' where authors and artists were asked to review their own work. Nine issues were published before antiquarian bookseller Simon Finch, the publisher of the magazine, went into receivership.
  • A band from Detroit called "The Waxwings" named themselves after the first line of the poem, as they stated (incorrectly) in an interview:
It's from a book called Pale Fire, by Nabokov. It's a reference to a bird called Waxwing – there's a poem about the bird at the beginning of the book. [22]

External links

References

  1. ^ Boyd, Brian (2002). "Nabokov: A Centennial Toast". In in Jane Grayson, Arnold McMillin, and Priscilla Meyer (eds.) (ed.). Nabokov's World. Volume 2: Reading Nabokov. Palgrave. pp. p. 11. ISBN 0-333-96417-9. {{cite book}}: |editor= has generic name (help); |pages= has extra text (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link)
  2. ^ Nabokov, Vladimir (1973). Strong Opinions. New York: McGraw-Hill. p. p. 74. ISBN 0-679-72609-8 (Vintage reissue, 1990). {{cite book}}: |page= has extra text (help)
  3. ^ Wood, Michael (1994). The Magician's Doubts: Nabokov and the Risks of Fiction. Princeton University Press. p. 186. ISBN 0-691-00632-6. Retrieved 2006-09-28.
  4. ^ a b c Boyd, Brian (2001). Nabokov's "Pale Fire": The Magic of Artistic Discovery. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-08957-4.
  5. ^ a b Dolbier, Maurice (June 17, 1962). "Books and Authors: Nabokov's Plums". The New York Herald Tribune. p. 5.
  6. ^ Grabes, Herbert (1995). "Nabokov and Shakespeare: The English Works". In in Vladimir Alexandrov (ed.) (ed.). The Garland Companion to Vladimir Nabokov. Garland Publishing, Inc. pp. 509–510. ISBN 0-8153-0354-8. {{cite book}}: |editor= has generic name (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help) See also references therein.
  7. ^ Alter, Robert (1993). "Autobiography as Alchemy in Pale Fire". Cycnos. 10: 135–41.
  8. ^ Pifer, Ellen (1980). Nabokov and the Novel. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. pp. 110–118.
  9. ^ a b c Boyd, Brian (1997). "Shade and Shape in Pale Fire". Nabokov Studies. 4. Retrieved 2006-09-26.
  10. ^ Field, Andrew (1967). Nabokov: His Life in Art. Boston: Little, Brown. pp. pp. 291–332. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
  11. ^ Bader, Julia (1972). Crystal Land: Artifice in Nabokov's English Novels. Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 31–56.
  12. ^ Boyd, Brian (1991). Vladimir Nabokov: the American Years. Princeton University Press. pp. pp. 425–456. ISBN 0-691-06797-X. Retrieved 2006-09-25. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
  13. ^ Stegner, Page (1966). Escape into Aesthetics. New York: Dial.
  14. ^ a b Kernan, Alvin B. (1982). The Imaginary Library: An Essay on Literature and Society. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Reprinted as "Reading Zemblan: The Audience Disappears in Pale Fire" in Bloom, Harold (ed.) (1987). Vladimir Nabokov. New York: Chelsea House. pp. 101–126. ISBN 1-55546-279-0. {{cite book}}: |first= has generic name (help)
  15. ^ McHale, Brian (1987). Postmodernist Fiction. London: Routledge. pp. 18–19. ISBN 0-415-04513-4.
  16. ^ See also the archives of NABOKV-L for December 1997 and January 1998.
  17. ^ a b Meyer, Priscilla (1989). Find What the Sailor Has Hidden: Vladimir Nabokov's Pale Fire. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press. ISBN 0-8195-5206-2.
  18. ^ McCarthy, Mary (June 4, 1962). "A Bolt from the Blue". The New Republic. Revised version in Mary McCarthy (2002). A Bolt from the Blue and Other Essays. New York: The New York Review of Books. pp. pp. 83–102. ISBN 1-59017-010-5. Retrieved 2006-09-25. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
  19. ^ Appel, Alfred Jr. (ed.) (1991). The Annotated Lolita. New York: Vintage Books. ISBN 0-679-72729-9. {{cite book}}: |first= has generic name (help) Appel's annotations to Lolita also address Pale Fire, and "in place of a note on the text", Appel reproduces the last two paragraphs of Kinbote's foreword, which discuss poetry and commentary.
  20. ^ Johnson, D. Barton (1985). Worlds in Regression: Some Novels of Vladimir Nabokov. Ann Arbor, Mich.: Ardis. ISBN 0-88233-908-7.
  21. ^ Sisson, Jonathan B. (1995). "Nabokov and some Turn-of-the-Century English Writers". In in Vladimir Alexandrov (ed.) (ed.). The Garland Companion to Vladimir Nabokov. Garland Publishing, Inc. pp. p. 530. ISBN 0-8153-0354-8. {{cite book}}: |editor= has generic name (help); |pages= has extra text (help)
  22. ^ Mclean, Fiona. Soulshine interview (2004)
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pale_Fire&oldid=113249307"