rechtsstaat wants to read Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov
news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40575615:
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acabal 11 days ago | parent | context | favorite | on: Don't be terrified of Pale Fire
Pale Fire has been my favorite book for a long, long time, ever since I read it as part of a course in university. After all these years I haven't read a better, more intricately-constructed book.
It was suggested to me to read the intro first, then skip the poem and read the endnotes start to finish, then to go back and read the poem. The index is part of the fiction and must also be read.
I think the keys to really enjoying Pale Fire are 1) to realize that while the subject matter is ostensibly serious, Kinbote is really a comic figure, and you're meant to be laughing a lot of the time; and 2) the great puzzles to unravel are who is John Shade, who is …
news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40575615:
"
acabal 11 days ago | parent | context | favorite | on: Don't be terrified of Pale Fire
Pale Fire has been my favorite book for a long, long time, ever since I read it as part of a course in university. After all these years I haven't read a better, more intricately-constructed book.
It was suggested to me to read the intro first, then skip the poem and read the endnotes start to finish, then to go back and read the poem. The index is part of the fiction and must also be read.
I think the keys to really enjoying Pale Fire are 1) to realize that while the subject matter is ostensibly serious, Kinbote is really a comic figure, and you're meant to be laughing a lot of the time; and 2) the great puzzles to unravel are who is John Shade, who is Charles Kinbote, are any of them even real, and who wrote the poem? The book is so beautifully written that it can be argued that none of those questions have definitive answers - and thinking about them, and how Nabokov threads clues and possibilities throughout the novel, without any of them seeming to be contradictory, is the pleasure."