/lit/ - Literature

Went to Foyles in London yesterday, bought this nice edition of Pale Fire, The Left Hand of Darkness, and some Shushaku Endo books. Great place, I'd go regularly, but I live in the country.

I'm a fan of this one, although I don't think a perfect edition has ever been relesed

Is Charles Kinbote the most insufferable cunt in literature? I hate the "the narrator sucks so I won't read the book" meme, but this is almost too much.

just read this. conclusions? kinbote the unreliable critic as madman, exile, or assassin?

ironically i feel the need to comment and project my own meaning onto this work

I get that the storytelling is superb and an early example of postmodernism (I found Kinbote especially hilarious), but did he really have to write a novel critiquing those who critiqued him? And it's not like there were a whole lot of Russians to relate to the Soviet exile theme.

Am I missing something, /lit/?

how do I go about reading this? Do I flip to the commentary while reading it like endnotes?

Can we trust anything Charles Kinbote tells us in this book? If we assume that in the universe of Pale Fire Zembla does not exist then how is it possible that Kinbote is able to have discussions about Zembla with his peers at the school.

And also John Shade seemed to recognize that Kinbote was the last Zemblan king, but that could've all been delusional lying by Kinbote because he is the only narrator we receive. I feel like I need to read the whole book again to try to piece together the real reality in the novel.

>pic related

Wtf I'm reading ?

I'm reading Pale Fire and I'm a bit confused of what's happening right now.

First we have a preface and then Shade's poem Pale Fire. After follows the commentary of the poem when most of the book is contained.

I've read the commentary up to line 162 and I fail to realize why is the author talking about it and why is it happening.

At first the commentary of the poem were about the relation between the author of the book, Charles Kinbote, and his neighboor John Shade. Not knowing exactly how, from a few reference here and there, the commentary went to describe the story of a King (apparently because of a reference of Shade's poem Pale Fire to some character with certain relation with the King's wife).

Later the King is running away and has become an ex-King for reasons I'm unaware. There was a single mention of a crown, that maybe the King has stolen?, but that wouldn't make any sense.

The person often refered as King is also called Charlie a few times, which implies that the King is also Charles Kinbote author of the preface and commentary of Pale Fire?

As I said, I've read up to the commentary of line 162 (115/220 pages of the book). Please avoid spoilers whenever possible.

Hey y'all, I just finished Pale Fire, and really enjoyed it. However, I don't really know anyone who's read it, so I can't get a gauge on what other people think of it. Basically, what does /lit/ think about Pale Fire?
>tl;dr Pale Fire, y/n and why?

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