Pale Fire
by Vladimir Nabokov(1962)
Novelc. 300 pages
“I was the shadow of the waxwing slain by the false azure in the windowpane.”
One great work, every day
by Vladimir Nabokov(1962)
“I was the shadow of the waxwing slain by the false azure in the windowpane.”
Vladimir Nabokov(1962)
A 999-line poem by a dead American poet, with a commentary by a possibly mad European scholar who may be a deposed king. Nabokov's 1962 novel is a puzzle box, a parody, a tragedy, and a love story, depending on which path you follow through its labyrinth. The relationship between poem and commentary is never stable; each undermines and illuminates the other. It is also very funny. Nabokov worked on it for years, fitting the pieces together with a watchmaker's precision. You can read it many times and never read the same book twice.