/lit/ - Literature

Is this just “>filtered” the book?

wtf does botkin add to the story??

you do not read enough if you think nothing is original. all creation is com8ination, 8ut there are amazing com8inations out there that definitely are more than what they are com8ining

Are there any other books like this one?

I adored Lolita but could only detachedly admire Pale Fire because it felt more like an intellectual exercise devoid of Lolita's emotional force. Based on this info what other Nabokov books should I read?

>>19710988
>Are thet more elegant?
vintage international series for nabby

Did you read front to back or skip back and forth between the poem/commentary? (I'm assuming a lot of people who went front to back revisited segments of the poem as they were reading the commentary--this counts as front to back).

What did you guys think of this book? Personally I enjoyed it, especially the first 50 pages. However, I do somewhat quibble with it. Parts of the prose are underwhelming and I didn't really understand what Nabokov was doing with...wait. What's that smell? WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT SMELL? *sniffs air* *sweats profusely* Dare I say that our le memester john lü green is coming HOME XD from his war in iraque?
*John lü Green enter le epic room full of SHIT (hahha I said shit lol)
Green: Wait...What's that smell? what the fuck id thazwhat is that what os t hta what id that FUCKING SMELL LISA?!!!!!!"
*Jumpcut to teletubbies*
Chatting Now
GACHI de KASHIMASHI Never Ending Girls' Talk
shuugyou CHAIMU made matenai
chikoku wa shite mo soutai wa Non Non Non!
seiippai Study After School

>Now I shall try what none
>Has tried. Now I shall do what none has done.
>And speaking of this wonderful machine:
>I'm puzzled by the difference between
>Two methods of composing
come on now

Since there is some discussion going on, heres a better thread. Also I hope the drunk anon from last thread >>18694645 (I advise you to check out) responds.

Who is who, who wrote the sections, and what really happened, considering these clues about the "three main characters," K, G, and S:

>All three characters have the same birthday
>Gradus being sent by the Shadows, being a bad glass maker as opposed to Sudarg of Bokay (Jackob Gradus backwards, who is a master mirror maker), "I was the smudge of ASHEN fluff", Shade having "abundant gray hair", "my gray-haired friend", "you bad gray poet, you!" and whom Kinbote describes, at the moment he is shot at by Grey or de Grey, as "gray-locked", Shade having a name that can mean the same as Gradus's other alias, Degree?
>Kinbote being Botkin? The allusions to suicide, throughout the book and in Botkin's name, implying the main murder is a suicide? Nabokov says Botkin kills himself, but the only one who kills himself at the end for certain is Jack Grey.
>The king having dreams where he loves his wife Disa
>Kinbote being a mirror-inversion of Shade (exile rather than stay-at-home, lonely homosexual rather than happily married man, vegetarian rather than meat-eater, bearded rather than clean-shaven, left-rather than right handed, theistic rather than atheistic-at least in the debates)
>Kinbote and Shade having very similar opinions on literature, which are in turn, similar to Nabokov's
>Shade being epileptic like Odon's half brother Nodo (Odon backwards)

They seem to fall neatly into the image of a waxwing crashing into his own reflection if we take Kinbote as Shade's reflection and Gradus as the glass. But then where does that leave the connections between Gradus and Shade? There is a theory that Gradus is Shade's ghost (which he influenced Kinbote to include in the commentary to make his death poetic and finish his unfinished poem in the afterlife) but where does that leave the connections between Shade and Kinbote? Where do they all leave the whole Botkin thing? What about Nodo and Shade? What does it all mean for the plot or themes? If they are all the same person, which one is it? Might it be Jack Grey in the asylum (like in Signs and Symbols, which would make all the references to him make sense, since the kid had referential mania)

And what about the Sound and the Fury connections?
>both books have a title from Shakespeare
>both segmented books with different narrators
>Index instead of Appendix
>Zembla instead of Yoknapatawpha
>"Mr. Faulkner's" books at Shade's doorstep

Let's solve this chess puzzle once and for all. Who is who, who wrote the sections, and what really happened, considering these clues about the "three main characters," K, G, and S:

>All three characters have the same birthday
>Gradus being sent by the Shadows, being a bad glass maker as opposed to Sudarg of Bokay (Jackob Gradus backwards, who is a master mirror maker), "I was the smudge of ASHEN fluff", Shade having "abundant gray hair", "my gray-haired friend", "you bad gray poet, you!" and whom Kinbote describes, at the moment he is shot at by Grey or de Grey, as "gray-locked", Shade having a name that can mean the same as Gradus's other alias, Degree?
>Kinbote being Botkin? The allusions to suicide, throughout the book and in Botkin's name, implying the main murder is a suicide? Nabokov says Botkin kills himself, but the only one who kills himself at the end for certain is Jack Grey.
>The king having dreams where he loves his wife Disa
>Kinbote being a mirror-inversion of Shade (exile rather than stay-at-home, lonely homosexual rather than happily married man, vegetarian rather than meat-eater, bearded rather than clean-shaven, left-rather than right handed, theistic rather than atheistic-at least in the debates)
>Kinbote and Shade having very similar opinions on literature, which are in turn, similar to Nabokov's
>Shade being epileptic like Odon's half brother Nodo (Odon backwards)

They seem to fall neatly into the image of a waxwing crashing into his own reflection if we take Kinbote as Shade's reflection and Gradus as the glass. But then where does that leave the connections between Gradus and Shade? There is a theory that Gradus is Shade's ghost in the commentary (which he influenced Kinbote to include in the commentary to make his death poetic and finish his unfinished poem in the afterlife) but where does that leave the connections between Shade and Kinbote? Where do they all leave the whole Botkin thing? What about Nodo and Shade? What does it all mean for the plot or themes? If they are all the same person, which one is it? Might it be Jack Grey in the asylum (like in Signs and Symbols, which would make all the references to him make sense, since the kid had referential mania)

And what about the Sound and the Fury connections?
>both books have a title from Shakespeare
>both segmented books with different narrators
>Index instead of Appendix
>Zembla instead of Yoknapatawpha
>"Mr. Faulkner's" books at Shade's doorstep

WTF did he mean by this??

I just didn't have the time or fucks to give to put into reading this book. I'm sure it's great and I'll get around to it one day, but it's probably the "hardest" book I've tried to read.

Is it true that Pale Fire is supposed to be a "bad" poem? I thought it was nice.

What the fuck was Charles Kinbote's problem?

just finished pale fire. Is any writer better at writing rational madmen than Nabokov?

Post your favorite book of all time. Other anons guess things about you.

why is it so good bros

Should I read the whole poem, then the endnotes, or read it like IJ?

I've been enjoying the recent Nabokov covers Vintage has come out with.

Any good?

https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/27579248-lorenzo

Post a book you think is either over or underrated you.