Read the poem first, without any context whatsoever. It’s a beautiful piece of work that in my opinion is worth as much as the rest of the novel, where a man corrupts it with his own interests
>and index (yes, really and carefully)
I wouldn’t say the whole thing has to be read carefully, just the ones concerning Kinbote and the Shade family. There are some Easter eggs, though: one part in the book discusses how the professors played “word golf” and went from “lass” to “male” in four, and the index entry for “lass” refers to “mass,” which is defined as “see Mars, mare, male”
When kinbote says “see note on page x” immediately flip to that page. DO NOT READ IT LINEARLY
>When kinbote says “see note on page x” immediately flip to that page
Please don’t do this. You will end up getting lost in the commentary in what Nabokov intends to satirize in critics who add so many comments and references to comments that anyone trying to follow them will forget about the work at hand
Might be interesting to follow the internal references in the commentary. Like this paper that compares Pale Fire to a blideo blame: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/textcult.8.1.101
IIRC Boyd wrote about that option too. It would change the experience. But nobody does it. I didn't.
If in doubt, go in order.
the thing that keeps bothering me about pale fire is how botkin doesnt fit into the narrative at all. what the hell does he add? i dont know how well acquainted you are with the hidden stuff (the possibility of kinbote being john shades cope with grief, koboaltana, all the allusions to suicide, god, the lone king chess move...) but whatever your reading is, botkin seems to be an unnecessary addition.
Can you get trapped in a loop that way?
there is a loop trap in the index
2 years ago
Anonymous
>botkin doesnt fit into the narrative at all. what the hell does he add?
What do you mean? The mere fact that Kinbote goes by another name?
It takes up very little space and adds a decent amount of charm. Can elaborate but I feel I'm missing something. >the possibility of kinbote being john shades cope with grief
Nabokov rejected this one, FWIW. I'm not aware of any problems it resolves and on the whole feel it would diminish rather than elevate it.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Nabokov loved ghost stories and this is exactly that. John’s “shade” is possessing kinbote to complete his work
2 years ago
Anonymous
>It takes up very little space and adds a decent amount of charm
does it? and is it ever even internally confirmed? also botkin isnt necessarily just kinbote with a different name. i feel like he needs to be substantially different from botkin, as different as kinbote is from the king, for his inclusion to be justified. >I'm not aware of any problems it resolves
theres a lot of symbolic implication suggesting they are two sides of the same coin. the waxwing crashing onto its reflection, kinbotes first appearence in shades life coinciding with shades strokes, kinbote coming to america using his preferred suicide method, both kinbote and shade ruminating in their respective sections about suicide and god, the kings relationship in his dreams mirroring shade and sybil, their birthdays all being the same... its hard to elaborate without writing a wall of text, but all of this hints at, though doesnt confirm, the possibilty that shade has turned to god and distracted himself while the "shadows" (the shade) and gradus (gradual, a slight degree, shade) are fighting over power for the same personality. all this works thematically on other layers too of course
Nabokov loved ghost stories and this is exactly that. John’s “shade” is possessing kinbote to complete his work
this is my preffered reading also. i still dont know how botkin plays into it tho. also isnt it too similar to an inversion of quiltys role in e-girlta? but thats another rabbit hole id rather not get into.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Kinbote casually expresses Botkin's opinion about one of his colleagues. That all but confirms it in my mind, the line makes little sense otherwise. (Will find and quote when I'm home.) The few times Botkin is mentioned Kinbote is very concerned with his not being slighted.
Kinbote is exactly as different from Botkin as from the King. Botkin is who he is, Charles is who he wants to be. Botkin pretends to be Charles pretending to be Kinbote. It's symmetrical all the way through.
The charm it adds is that an extra layer of pretense and a suggestion that he was playing a role in his day to day life (depending on how wholly fabricated his academic anecdotes are).
Boyd convincingly deduces Botkin's area of origin and dates the invention of the Kinbote persona to after his arrival in New Wye. (His alphabetical ancestors mirror Goldsworth's alphabetical daughters.)
Some of the synchronicities are explained by Kinbote modeling his invented life's story after Shade's life but I'm going to dwell on this.
2 years ago
Anonymous
I see. Why exactly does he reject botkin as a personality though? Is he more of a failure than kinbote? Does kinbote ever express embarrassment over botkin? Just too wierd and slight. But the triad is there
Isn't everything 'about' God?
Its not about god as in God but characters do speculate about the intentions of Nabogod, the god of the book. And since the book has clear intent behind it from the pov of a reader, kinbote ends up being right that (Nabo)god exists.
2 years ago
Anonymous
The quote: >Speaking of the Head of the bloated Russian Department, Prof. Pnin, a regular martinet in regard to his underlings (happily, Prof. Botkin, who taught in another department, was not subordinated to that grotesque "perfectionist"): "How odd that Russian intellectuals should lack all sense of humor when they have such marvelous humorists as Gogol, Dostoevski, Chekhov, Zoshchenko, and those joint authors of genius Ilf and Petrov."
Why else would Kinbote care about the temperament of Botkin's boss?
I don't think he hates Botkin. He might have pragmatic reasons for wanting to escape him, Boyd suggests he had to flee Sweden or Norway because of his pedophilia.
It seems to me that the wants to be more than Botkin. Charles Xavier is not a persona you invent to be merely inoffensive.
i remember that one guy coming here who only read the poem and didn't know about the metafictional frame narrative and then was really confused as to what the hype was about
One word after the other.
Commentary, introduction, poem and index (yes, really and carefully).
this is the worst imagina8le sequence. just read it in order
Read the poem first, without any context whatsoever. It’s a beautiful piece of work that in my opinion is worth as much as the rest of the novel, where a man corrupts it with his own interests
>and index (yes, really and carefully)
I wouldn’t say the whole thing has to be read carefully, just the ones concerning Kinbote and the Shade family. There are some Easter eggs, though: one part in the book discusses how the professors played “word golf” and went from “lass” to “male” in four, and the index entry for “lass” refers to “mass,” which is defined as “see Mars, mare, male”
>When kinbote says “see note on page x” immediately flip to that page
Please don’t do this. You will end up getting lost in the commentary in what Nabokov intends to satirize in critics who add so many comments and references to comments that anyone trying to follow them will forget about the work at hand
Might be interesting to follow the internal references in the commentary. Like this paper that compares Pale Fire to a blideo blame: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/textcult.8.1.101
IIRC Boyd wrote about that option too. It would change the experience. But nobody does it. I didn't.
If in doubt, go in order.
Read it in order, flip between commentary and the poem for whatever line or section is being discussed. It's my favourite novel, hope you enjoy it.
>It's my favourite novel
WHERE ARE YOU PEOPLE WHEN I TRY TO DISCUSS IT IN DEPTH???
Poast discussion topic and I'll attempt a reply
the thing that keeps bothering me about pale fire is how botkin doesnt fit into the narrative at all. what the hell does he add? i dont know how well acquainted you are with the hidden stuff (the possibility of kinbote being john shades cope with grief, koboaltana, all the allusions to suicide, god, the lone king chess move...) but whatever your reading is, botkin seems to be an unnecessary addition.
there is a loop trap in the index
>botkin doesnt fit into the narrative at all. what the hell does he add?
What do you mean? The mere fact that Kinbote goes by another name?
It takes up very little space and adds a decent amount of charm. Can elaborate but I feel I'm missing something.
>the possibility of kinbote being john shades cope with grief
Nabokov rejected this one, FWIW. I'm not aware of any problems it resolves and on the whole feel it would diminish rather than elevate it.
Nabokov loved ghost stories and this is exactly that. John’s “shade” is possessing kinbote to complete his work
>It takes up very little space and adds a decent amount of charm
does it? and is it ever even internally confirmed? also botkin isnt necessarily just kinbote with a different name. i feel like he needs to be substantially different from botkin, as different as kinbote is from the king, for his inclusion to be justified.
>I'm not aware of any problems it resolves
theres a lot of symbolic implication suggesting they are two sides of the same coin. the waxwing crashing onto its reflection, kinbotes first appearence in shades life coinciding with shades strokes, kinbote coming to america using his preferred suicide method, both kinbote and shade ruminating in their respective sections about suicide and god, the kings relationship in his dreams mirroring shade and sybil, their birthdays all being the same... its hard to elaborate without writing a wall of text, but all of this hints at, though doesnt confirm, the possibilty that shade has turned to god and distracted himself while the "shadows" (the shade) and gradus (gradual, a slight degree, shade) are fighting over power for the same personality. all this works thematically on other layers too of course
this is my preffered reading also. i still dont know how botkin plays into it tho. also isnt it too similar to an inversion of quiltys role in e-girlta? but thats another rabbit hole id rather not get into.
Kinbote casually expresses Botkin's opinion about one of his colleagues. That all but confirms it in my mind, the line makes little sense otherwise. (Will find and quote when I'm home.) The few times Botkin is mentioned Kinbote is very concerned with his not being slighted.
Kinbote is exactly as different from Botkin as from the King. Botkin is who he is, Charles is who he wants to be. Botkin pretends to be Charles pretending to be Kinbote. It's symmetrical all the way through.
The charm it adds is that an extra layer of pretense and a suggestion that he was playing a role in his day to day life (depending on how wholly fabricated his academic anecdotes are).
Boyd convincingly deduces Botkin's area of origin and dates the invention of the Kinbote persona to after his arrival in New Wye. (His alphabetical ancestors mirror Goldsworth's alphabetical daughters.)
Some of the synchronicities are explained by Kinbote modeling his invented life's story after Shade's life but I'm going to dwell on this.
I see. Why exactly does he reject botkin as a personality though? Is he more of a failure than kinbote? Does kinbote ever express embarrassment over botkin? Just too wierd and slight. But the triad is there
Its not about god as in God but characters do speculate about the intentions of Nabogod, the god of the book. And since the book has clear intent behind it from the pov of a reader, kinbote ends up being right that (Nabo)god exists.
The quote:
>Speaking of the Head of the bloated Russian Department, Prof. Pnin, a regular martinet in regard to his underlings (happily, Prof. Botkin, who taught in another department, was not subordinated to that grotesque "perfectionist"): "How odd that Russian intellectuals should lack all sense of humor when they have such marvelous humorists as Gogol, Dostoevski, Chekhov, Zoshchenko, and those joint authors of genius Ilf and Petrov."
Why else would Kinbote care about the temperament of Botkin's boss?
I don't think he hates Botkin. He might have pragmatic reasons for wanting to escape him, Boyd suggests he had to flee Sweden or Norway because of his pedophilia.
It seems to me that the wants to be more than Botkin. Charles Xavier is not a persona you invent to be merely inoffensive.
GABBOKOB
Skip the poem and only read the commentary
Index only.
Spangled
When kinbote says “see note on page x” immediately flip to that page. DO NOT READ IT LINEARLY
Can you get trapped in a loop that way?
No actual it’s quote entertaining+ it helps you be able to point out the inconsistencies in kinbote narrative
Some fires can be invisible!
eXITS
GO!
best read in order but i guess you can also skip the poem and just read the commentary and skim-read the index, if you're that lazy
i remember that one guy coming here who only read the poem and didn't know about the metafictional frame narrative and then was really confused as to what the hype was about
Isn't everything 'about' God?
With their eyes.