Pale Fire

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Pale Fire (1962) is a novel by Vladimir Nabokov, his fourteenth in total and his fifth written in English. The Nabokov authority Brian Boyd has called it "Nabokov's most perfect novel".<ref>Boyd, Brian (2002). “Nabokov: A Centennial Toast”, in Jane Grayson, Arnold McMillin, and Priscilla Meyer (eds.): Nabokov's World. Volume 2: Reading Nabokov. Palgrave, p. 11. ISBN 0-333-96417-9.</ref> It has drawn a great deal of critical attention, with commentators offering a wide variety of interpretations.

[edit] Plot summary

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 as he left it 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 his identification with Charles and perhaps all of Zembla are his delusions. A third story in Kinbote's Commentary is that of Gradus, the assassin dispatched by the new rulers of Zembla, who intends to kill the exiled King Charles but kills Shade by mistake.

Nabokov said in an interview that Kinbote committed suicide after finishing the book.<ref>Nabokov, Vladimir (1973). Strong Opinions. New York: McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0-679-72609-8 (Vintage reissue, 1990).</ref> The critic Michael Wood has stated, "This is authorial trespassing, and we don't have to pay attention to it,"<ref>Wood, Michael (1994). The Magician's Doubts: Nabokov and the Risks of Fiction. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-00632-6. Retrieved on 2006-09-28.</ref> but Brian Boyd has argued that internal evidence points to Kinbote's suicide.<ref name=magic>Boyd, Brian (2001). Nabokov's "Pale Fire": The Magic of Artistic Discovery. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-08957-4.</ref>

Kinbote's apparatus criticus, 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.)

[edit] Explanation of the title

As Nabokov pointed out himself,<ref name=NYHT>Dolbier, Maurice. "Books and Authors: Nabokov's Plums", The New York Herald Tribune, June 17, 1962, p. 5.</ref> 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).<ref>Grabes, Herbert (1995). “Nabokov and Shakespeare: The English Works”, in Vladimir Alexandrov (ed.): The Garland Companion to Vladimir Nabokov. Garland Publishing, Inc, 509–510. ISBN 0-8153-0354-8. See also references therein.</ref>

[edit] Interpretations

Some readers concentrate on the apparent story, focusing on traditional aspects of fiction such as the relationship among the characters.<ref> Alter, Robert (1993). "Autobiography as Alchemy in Pale Fire". Cycnos 10: 135-41.</ref><ref>Pifer, Ellen (1980). Nabokov and the Novel. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 110–118.</ref> 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<ref name=Shadeshape>Boyd, Brian (1997). "Shade and Shape in Pale Fire". Nabokov Studies 4. Retrieved on 2006-09-26.</ref> 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.<ref name=magic/>

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,<ref name=Shadeshape/> Andrew Field invented the Shadean theory<ref>Field, Andrew (1967). Nabokov: His Life in Art. Boston: Little, Brown, pp. 291–332.</ref> and Julia Bader expanded it;<ref>Bader, Julia (1972). Crystal Land: Artifice in Nabokov's English Novels. Berkeley: University of California Press, 31–56.</ref> Boyd himself espoused the theory for a time.<ref>Boyd, Brian (1991). Vladimir Nabokov: the American Years. Princeton University Press, pp. 425–456. ISBN 0-691-06797-X. Retrieved on 2006-09-25.</ref> "Kinboteans", a decidedly smaller group, believe that Kinbote invented the existence of John Shade. Boyd<ref name=Shadeshape/> credits the Kinbotean theory to Page Stegner<ref>Stegner, Page (1966). Escape into Aesthetics. New York: Dial.</ref> 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).<ref name = Kernan>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, 101–126. ISBN 1-55546-279-0.</ref> <ref>McHale, Brian (1987). Postmodernist Fiction. London: Routledge, 18–19. ISBN 0-415-04513-4.</ref> <ref>See also the archives of NABOKV-L for December 1997 and January 1998.</ref>

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<ref name=Meyer>Meyer, Priscilla (1989). Find What the Sailor Has Hidden: Vladimir Nabokov's Pale Fire. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press. ISBN 0-8195-5206-2.</ref>) to Nabokov's father's murder by an assassin trying to kill someone else.

Some readers, starting with Mary McCarthy<ref name=McC>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. 83–102. ISBN 1-59017-010-5. Retrieved on 2006-09-25.</ref> and including Boyd, Nabokov's annotator Alfred Appel,<ref>Appel, Alfred Jr. (ed.) (1991). The Annotated Lolita. New York: Vintage Books. ISBN 0-679-72729-9. 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.</ref> and D. Barton Johnson,<ref>Johnson, D. Barton (1985). Worlds in Regression: Some Novels of Vladimir Nabokov. Ann Arbor, Mich.: Ardis. ISBN 0-88233-908-7.</ref> 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."<ref name=NYHT/> (Some may regard this as another example of "authorial trespassing".^{[citation needed]})

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,<ref name=Meyer/> criticism,<ref name = Kernan/> or some other topic.

The only consensus is that the book is unique.

[edit] 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 (known in the literary world as intertextuality). 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.

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