Brain Pain discussion

Vladimir Nabokov’s novel, Pale Fire, was written in English and first published in 1962.


Wikipedia page for Pale Fire:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Fire



Feel free to use this thread to ask questions and post links to resources for Vladimir Nabokov and Pale Fire.

Also, if you’ve written a review of the book, please post a link to share with the group.

*edited into a resources post - links will be added regularly, so check back from time to time - WARNING - some pages might contain spoilers, so if that's an issue for you, consider yourself fairly warned*

Zembla - Nabokov site that contains a great many essays and research on Pale Fire - https://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov...

The Stanford Connection: Was John Shade based upon this guy? - http://news.stanford.edu/thedish/?p=8249

Freeing the poem from the Commentary: Massive Slate Mag article filled with stuff about Pale Fire. Spoilers abound! (if such things really exist for PF) - http://www.slate.com/articles/life/th...


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I'd like to encourage anybody on the fence to join this discussion. There's far more going on in Pale Fire than many people realize without a closer look. It's also spawned more critical writing than most any novel, with a wealth of hidden references and narration which stretches the word unreliable to the breaking point.

I'm kind of just chugging through this one, but it's a lot of fun so far. There is a ton going on below the surface, but I haven't really had the time to dig into it deeply. It'll be interesting to see what what folks have to say.

I highly recommend Brian Boyd's book, Nabokov's Pale Fire: The Magic of Artistic Discovery. I also recommend reading it after you finish Pale Fire so that you have the fun of discovering the clues and references for yourself before reading Boyd and seeing how many you missed :-)

I found Boyd to be so all-encompassing and convincing that I will probably not participate much in this book discussion, as I would mostly be aping his interpretation.

I have his book, but there are many other takes on the work... Nabokov himself felt there were many mistakes in critiques of his intentions for it, and I believe there may yet be surprises...

Will wrote: "I have his book, but there are many other takes on the work... Nabokov himself felt there were many mistakes in critiques of his intentions for it, and I believe there may yet be surprises..."

Absolutely! I look forward to reading the discussion for that very reason. I didn't mean to imply that Boyd is the end-all-be-all of Nabokov interpretation and that therefor there is no point in further discussion! I meant that I found him so persuasive I essentially adopted his opinions as my own.

Joining in the discussion and pointing out various connections between characters and events would be largely fraudulent on my part, since I'm aware of 95% of them based on reading Boyd. I still intend to lurk, and possibly offer a (hopefully) original comment or two.

Whitney- Readers like myself would greatly benefit from your discussion since I won't get around to reading Boyd. Feel free to join in, or it could get very quiet in the discussions.

Whitney wrote: "I highly recommend Brian Boyd's book, Nabokov's Pale Fire: The Magic of Artistic Discovery. I also recommend reading it after you finish Pale Fire so that you have the fun of discovering the clues ..."

Whitney, thank you for the recommendation of Brian Boyd's book.

Once again, Brain Pain offers yet another book that has been on my "I should read this, and I really want to read this, but I have not been able to get to it" list, along with Lolita, 1Q84, Master & Margarita, To the Lighthouse, Faust, and some others, ALL OF WHICH I have finally read this year, thanks to Jim.

So, I am really looking forward to reading Pale Fire. I'm going to pick it up no later than this weekend so I don't fall behind (as I have with some of the other reads).

I saw the Boyd book on my Nook, and I downloaded the free sample, but now that Whitney has given it the "thumbs up" I will definitely get it (but, as suggested in Whitney's post, I will not read it until I'm finished reading the novel).

Whitney, I hope you join in on the discussion!!

Will and James and Jim -- I look forward to seeing you there. (in the discussion!)

Are there different translations and/or different editions of this book? I'm going to pick up a paperback edition this evening or tomorrow. Is there one that's better than others?

Unless you're looking for a translation FROM English, don't worry, as msg#1 says, it was written in English. As for edition, the average edition will contain the four pieces that make up the work, the Forward, the poem itself, the commentary, and the index. I only say average because there are some recent versions that put the poem as a standalone work, and for this read you'll want the full treatment in all it's unreliable narrator glory. Personally, I'm using this version Pale Fire, Published 1992 by Everyman's Library but again, I'm pretty sure any edition will do just fine.

Will wrote: "Unless you're looking for a translation FROM English, don't worry, as msg#1 says, it was written in English. As for edition, the average edition will contain the four pieces that make up the work, ..."

Thank you, Will!! I'm really looking forward to reading Pale Fire and discussing it here. I've been curious about this book for a long time.

I'm sorely tempted to join in on this one, but it seems like the Pale Fire Kindle edition is not a great way to read it, based on some of the reviews I've seen. Anyone here have experience with the Kindle version? Does it work or is it more of a pain than just picking up a paper copy and two bookmarks?

I don't have personal exp with Pale Fire on Kindle, but I'll see if I can get some later today. But no matter what, there's more than one way to skin a cat so to speak, and I would suggest not letting this be the reason you don't join in on reading one of literature's great books.

Ok, so I have my library copy and I am ready to go!! I hope I can keep up as this will be my first try at joining a read-along/discussion with this group. (I have been 'lurking' for a while now.)

Also I have a question. I found out that my friend's daughter had to read "Pale Fire" for Gr. 12 English last year. Does anyone know if this is common curriculum material for an upper level high school English? (I do not believe it was an AP or IB course.)

Not to my knowledge, but many districts (depending on state) give leeway to teachers in choices of literature, within guidelines ranging from vague to specific. It would be more surprising if she had to read something in translation that wasn't from an author considered by most to be world class. I suspect the thing about Pale Fire is the furor of all sorts that accompanies a famous book such as Lolita (or Catcher in the Rye, for that matter) tends to overshadow the same author's (IMHO) superior works. (Franny and Zooey or 9 Stories, for example)

Jane from BC wrote: "Ok, so I have my library copy and I am ready to go!! I hope I can keep up as this will be my first try at joining a read-along/discussion with this group. (I have been 'lurking' for a while now.)..."

Welcome to the party Jane! Pale Fire reads quickly, but there's a lot to talk about, so we'll likely all be reading it twice during the discussions. I read the Foreword and the Poem yesterday and enjoyed them immensely. Looking forward to next week's discussion.

Jane from BC wrote: "Ok, so I have my library copy and I am ready to go!! I hope I can keep up as this will be my first try at joining a read-along/discussion with this group. (I have been 'lurking' for a while now.)..."

Maybe they had a list of books to choose from?? My class did that my senior year.

Otherwise, that sounds pretty unlikely. (Not saying it didn't happen, of course!) My class had some difficult reads, but it was pretty standard stuff - Crime and Punishment, Shakespeare, Moliere, Ibsen, various poetry... Nothing quite like the difficulty or obscurity of Pale Fire. I've gained the impression that meta-fiction is for the college curriculum - yet even in my Survey of American post-Civil War lit., I don't remember discussing it. Only in fiction classes.

edited msg #2 into a resource post. Writing this to bump the thread so somebody could find that out if interested.

whilst catching up with various arts and music industry news this morning, I ran across a discussion over why a documentary about the composer Benjamin Britten will not be aired in the UK, and this review popped up:
http://www.standard.co.uk/goingout/fi...
The London Evening Standard reviewer pans the film, saying:

"The voiceover (delivered by John Hurt) is beyond parody, so old-fashioned, pompous and laboured it might be the work of Nabokov’s Pale Fire creation, Kinbote."

*by the way, if anybody IS interested in B. Britten, I highly recommend Benjamin Britten: A Life for Music which just came out, and in full disclosure Henry Holt and Co. gave me a copy to review before publication...that said, it really is quite good!

Jim and all,
Darn! I have missed the discussion since I am new to Goodreads. Anyway, I wanted to ask if anybody listened to the audiobook. I wrote a review which includes comments on the audiobook. Here it is:
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Do you enjoy reading the poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Keats, Lord Byron and William Butler Yates? If so, then Vladimir Nabokov might be your favorite novelist, since this master prose writer's feel for language and precision of words is equal to any of these great poets. However, if you are like most readers of novels, what keeps you turning the pages isn't necessarily the poetic precision of language. Alas, there is still a way for you to enjoy Pale Fire. You can experience the beauty and stunning perfection of Nabokov's language, even if poetry isn't your thing. Take my word for it here: the audiobook is an entranceway to the novel. Robert Blumenfeld speaks the words of Charles Kinbote with a charming, easy-to-understand international European accent, a mix of French-German-Eastern European, and Marc Vietor reads the John Shade poem --- Vietor does a fine job with the poem but Blumenfeld as Kinbote is exceptional, listening to his voice is like listening to a virtuoso perform a baroque score - you will want to listen and listen and listen some more. Order yourself both the book and the audiobook and read and listen concurrently --- you will have one of the most rewarding and aesthetically satisfying literary experiences of your life.

Turning to the novel itself, we have Kinbote's forward at the beginning and index at the end, and the actual John Shade poem, entitled `Pale Fire', and the extensive Charles Kinbote commentary on the poem, which turns out to be not only a commentary in the conventional sense of the term, but a benchmark for a subject of Kinbote's prime interest - his dear distant northern land, Zembla, and a subject even more dear to his heart - himself. Indeed, Charles Kinbote. What a man! Many critical essays could be written (and undoubtedly many have been written) on his character, enough to fill a thick leather-bound volume, but here is one quick observation: he is a study in contrast : a highly erudite man of letter (he might even be a king of an Eastern European country) with an ability to fashion language like Vladimir Nabokov, yet when it comes to interpersonal and social skills, he has a blind spot as large as Kazimir Malevich's black circle. But I hesitate to make too hasty a judgment, since after reading the novel a second time, my understanding and assessment of Dr. Kinbote is completely different from my first-time reading. I wouldn't be surprised if I encountered a different Charles Kinbote with each and every future reading. Ah, the richness of this most Nabokovian of Nabokov novels! Below are two quotes taken from Kinbote's commentary, complete with cross-reference notes, to whet your literary pallet and serve as an incentive (I hope) to engage with the high art of Nabokov's novel:

"We shall accompany Gradus in constant thought, as he makes his way from distant dim Zembla to green Appalachia, through the entire length of the poem, following the road of its rhythm, riding past In a rhyme, skidding around the corner of a run-on, breathing with the caesura, swinging down to the foot of the page from line to line as from branch to branch, hiding between two words (see note to line 598), reappearing on the horizon of a new canto, moving up with his valise on the escalator of the pentameter, stepping off, boarding a new train of thought, entering the hall of a hotel, putting out the bedlight, while Shade blots out a word, and falling asleep as the poet lays down his pen for the night."

"How much happier the wide-awake indolents, the monarchs among men, the rich monstrous brains deriving intense enjoyment and rapturous pangs from the balustrade of a terrace at nightfall, from the lights and the lake below, from the distant mountain shapes melting into the dark apricot of the afterglow, from the black conifers outlined against the pale ink of the zenith, and from the garnet and green flounces of the water along the silent, sad, forbidden shoreline."

Reading Vladimir Nabokov can be like playing chess against an international chess master. For certain you will be the one who is checkmated, but, still, you gain a deep satisfaction from playing every move.