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.