Book detail: Pale fire is presented as a focused source page for quotations connected with this book, collection, transcript, or source record.
Pale Fire is a 1962 novel by Vladimir Nabokov written as a long poem in four sections followed by a detailed commentary. The poem titled Pale Fire is attributed to the fictional poet John Shade, while the extensive notes are attributed to Charles Kinbote, a neighbor and self-proclaimed friend of Shade. The narrative structure creates profound ambiguity about what actually occurred, as the commentary increasingly reveals biases, inconsistencies, and personal preoccupations that conflict with the poem's surface meaning. The book explores themes of artistic creation, the nature of interpretation, exile from a lost homeland, and the fragility of meaning-making in the face of death. It is considered one of the most innovative novels of the twentieth century.
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