...there is nothing pale about this one. Igor Stravinsky "pushed the edge on the envelope" with pre-World War I orchestral works such as "The Firebird" and the "The Rite of Spring." The latter literally caused a riot when it was first played in Paris in 1913. As Richard Rorty notes in the Introduction to "Pale Fire" (and perhaps my only complaint about this particular edition is that Rorty's Intro should have been an "Afterword") the critical reception greeting this book when it was first published in the early `60's was mixed to negative. Dwight MacDonald, a "high priest" of culture, and author of
Against the American Grain (A Da Capo paperback)
as well as others, called the work "unreadable." Mary McCarthy, of
The Group
fame, on the other hand was far more enthusiastic, recognizing that Nabokov was making a "dent" in the orthodox "reality" of acceptable literature, just as Stravinsky did in the musical field, half a century earlier.
There is no question that you have to be at "the top of your reading game" to tackle this work, and then, STILL, the "bookmarks will measure what you lost." McCarthy called it a "centaur-work," half poem, half prose. It is that, but it is also far more akin to a game of three dimensional chess, as Nabokov plays (and you can sense his joy in writing this) along numerous planes, vectors, and assorted intersections. The author is a master of allusion and illusion.
Nominally there is the 1000 line poem (or is it only 999?) written by John Shade which his wife has bequeathed to his somewhat friend and academic colleague Charles Kinbote for safekeeping, editing, and eventual publication. The rest of the book takes the form of a meandering "Commentary" by Kinbote on the poem, and much else about life. The poem itself is dense and rich, rhyming couplets commencing with what will now always be memorable for me: "I was the shadow of the waxwing slain, By the false azure in the windowpane..." Before the poem turns back upon itself, at line 1000 (or is it 999?), there are ample eschatological musing, including an unloved daughter who takes the Ophelia exit. Yes, Nabokov anticipates that the reader is familiar with Karamazov, and how Marat died, for literary and historical allusions abound. There are also "svelte stilettos" and "And our best yesterdays are now foul piles, Of crumpled names, phone numbers and foxed files..." As with much of Nabokov, both the poem, and the commentary can serve simply as a vocabulary builder.
Matryoshka is that unique Russian art form: nested dolls, one inside the other. Nabokov writes in a similar fashion, with one story inside another. He has created (or is it a character's imagination?) the Kingdom of Zembla, a mythical northern European country where a coup occurred, and the King has had to flee for his life. There are the inevitable petty rivalries in academia (of which Nabokov must have had much first-hand experience). There is a section involving the secret passages of youth that seemed to be straight from
The Lost Estate (Le Grand Meaulnes) (Penguin Classics)
.
There is his playful approach towards language; no doubt one of the reasons why MacDonald says that he is "self-indulgent." Consider from the poem: "A proud and happy linguist: je nourris, Les pauvres cigales - meaning that he, Fed the poor sea gulls! Lafontaine was wrong..." and as Kinbote states in his commentary on this passage, refreshingly so, that generations of translators have mistranslated "cigale" as "grasshopper" in the tale of the Grasshopper and the Ant. Even more astonishingly, Nabokov cites a translator's dilemma of in the confusion of a misprint between "mountain" and "fountain." Then, in a virtual statistical impossible thrice, between the English "crown-crow-cow" and the Russian "korona-vorona-korova." "Self-indulgent" may be the last defense of the threatened academic in the face of such humbling erudition. For the rest of us though, we can simply enjoy and be amazed, and even learn a bit.
As with all excellent literature, there are numerous penetrating insights into the human condition, from the personal behavior of an assassin on his "mission" to the snubs and counter-snubs in academia. If one is not invited to a party, where else is it appropriate (and understood) to give the host a Pleiades edition of Proust's most famous work, with a similar passage bookmarked?
Speaking of publishers, "Everyman's Library" has produced an outstanding edition, complete with the cloth bookmark, which serves to supplement your own, as you flip back and forth between poem and commentary. And it will easily make it through the obligatory re-read. In the meantime, beware of the false azure in a windowpane. 5-stars plus.
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Reviews with images
Lovely
A lovely book that you can re-read many times. Complex and different story. Intriguing. I believe I liked it more than Lolita! Book arrived in excellent condition, as it was brand new.
Top reviews from other countries
Martin Jones
An Internet Rabbit Hole From 1962
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 16, 2020
Amazon Customer
this book is as good, but much of the story is in poetic ...
Reviewed in Canada on March 22, 2018
