Pale Fire

[jbor]

on 17/6/03 3:12 AM, James Kyllo wrote:

> Well..  I bought, and read, PF yesterday; with a policy (adopted because of
> the talk
> of spoilers here) of not following links forward into the book.
> 
> While undoubtedly I did miss a lot along the way, and will read it again
> soon, I'm
> glad not to have read the end in the beginning, and to have let things
> become
> apparent more gradually

Yes, I guess only readers who pick up the book and "believe" (in) Kinbote
would try to follow his instructions, and even then only for a little time.
But I wonder if anyone has ever really picked up the book and truly believed
(in) him. Apart from the fact that it does present itself as a novel written
by Vladimir Nabokov, which certainly provokes certain expectations, the
alarm bells start to ring on the very first page of the Foreword where
Kinbote suddenly writes "There is a very loud amusement park right in front
of my present lodgings." Not that you mightn't jump ahead on occasion,
particularly when reading the poem, but I don't think the illusion of
Kinbote as a reliable narrator exists, or is meant to exist, for anybody
except Kinbote himself.

It'd be difficult I think (for anyone, at any time) to read this text
"innocently", to not know something was up.

best