Pale Fire

[Steerpike]

I started re-reading Nabokov's Pale Fire, which I've only read once (unlike Lolita, which I've read three times). The novel is interesting as it is set up as an publication of a fictional poem "Pale Fire," by a fictional poet named Shade. The narrator is an academic presenting the poem and providing a Foreward and Commentary (in which the story of the novel takes place). The narrator is unreliable, and it seems to me Nabokov makes a commentary on literary criticism with it. The narrator finds evidence of himself in the poem and even asserts that he contributed to the inspiration and language of portions of it, basically re-casting his analysis of the poem in his own image.

One passage that caught my attention tonight is the narrator finding references to a man named Gradus, who he claims is alluded to throughout the poem. When the narrator first mentions Gradus and his appearances throughout the poem (which seem often speculative at best) he writes:

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 rhyme, skidding around the corner os 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, reappearing on the horizon of a new canto, steadily marching nearer in iambic motion, crossing streets, 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.

It's the type of word play Nabokov likes, and he's also having a bit of fun at the expense of the narrator, who is a bit of a frustrated poet in his own right.

If you've never read Nabokov, I'd start with Lolita, but Pale Fire is well worth moving on to next.