A poem annotated by the poet

Vladimir Nabokov, the Russian novelist and poet,is known around the world for his novel "Lolita", the story of a sordid affair between a middle-aged college professor and a 14 year old nymphet. However, not many know of his other masterpiece, "Pale Fire" which frequently makes the list of 20th century's most original piece of novel. And there is a reason for that. The novel is a mix of poetry, commentaries on the fictional poet who wrote the poem, and the very mysterious 999-line poetry which has references to time, place and people that is only understood when it is read after one goes over the commentary and thenre-read along with it.

The novel has four segments: 1)The foreword was written by Dr. Charles Kinbote who we learn was a neighbor and colleague of a celebrated poet John Shade, a college professor; 2)  The poet's last work, entitled "Pale Fire", which is organized in "couplets, of nine hundred ninety-nine lines, divided into four cantos"; 3) a commentary on "Pale Fire" by Dr. Kinbote which gives detailed explanation on the poem itself; and 4) an equally fascinating index.

The narrative begins with a Foreword by Charles Kinbote who offers the background to the poem, the life of the poet, and the reason Kinbote decided to undertake the effort to publish the poem and annotate it. In the foreword we learn that Shades' widow gave him the right to publish and provide commentary on the last poem by John Shade immediately after his death.Kinbote starts the Foreword as follows: 

"Pale Fire, a poem in heroic couplets, of nine hundred ninety-nine lines, divided into four cantos, was composed by John Francis Shade (born July 5, 1898, died July 21, 1959) during the last twenty days of his life, at his residence in New Wye, Appalachia, U.S.A. "

Kinbote then undertook the task of writing annotated background of Shade's poem and as a devoted admirer and commentator offers advice, at times self-serving, on how to study the poem, and knowing that it was written by Nabokov himself, gives the readers a fascinating clue to the sense of humor or parody of the real-life poet-novelist.

He writes, "Although those notes, in conformity with custom, come after the poem, the reader is advised to consult them first and then study the poem with their help, rereading them of course as he goes through its text, and perhaps, after having done with the poem, consulting them a third time so as to complete the picture." 

A word or two about the form of the poem itself is in order. A canto is a subdivision or part in a narrative or epic poem, an Italian term, derived from the Latin cantus or "song". The format of the poem "Pale Fire" is that of a heroic couplet, a "stanza consisting of two rhyming lines in iambic pentameter", which was used by Chaucer and 17th and 18th century poets such as Alexander Pope. 

After the "Foreword", we move to the Canto One which begins with one of the most quoted lines in modern literary history.

"I was the shadow of the waxwing slain

By the false azure in the windowpane

I was the smudge of ashen fluff--and I

Lived on, flew on, in the reflected sky"

The waxwing is a bird, and the opening line alludes to a dead bird beneath a window. The bird flew into the window having become a victim of the allure of the reflection of the sky on the glass and then after it fell, it rises like a phoenix.  To pursue life after death in the "reflected sky," the mirrored afterworld of art, and the next cantos take us into John Shade's thoughts on life and death.

The title of the book has brought about a flurry of speculations in the literary world.The two words "pale fire" have been traced to the poem "Ode to a Nightingale" by John Keats and more often found in Shakespeare's plays. Pale Fire featuresa two-word title that consists of an adjective followed by a noun which taken literally means light that is waning or a borrowed light.  Many have found Keat's Ode as an inspiration for the imagery found in Nabokov's "Pale Fire".

Shakespeare's plays "Timon of Athens" and "Hamlet" have had influence on the title and the theme of Nabokov's poem. In "Timon of Athens", Shakespeare wrote, 

I'll example you with thievery:

The sun's a thief, and with his great attraction

Robs the vast sea; the moon's an arrant thief,

And her pale fire she snatches from the sun;

The sea's a thief, whose liquid surge resolves

The moon into salt tears.

In "Hamlet", the ghost tells Hamlet why he wants to return to the underworld at dawn in the following terms:

"Fare thee well at once!

The glow worm shows the matin to be near,

And gins to pale his uneffectual fire …"

Vladimir V. Nabokov (1899-1977) was born into a rich aristocratic Russian family in St. Petersburg during the fading years of Tsar Nicholas' rule. His family escaped Russian after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 and Nabokov arrived in the United States in 1942. He was a prolific writer and equally competent in Russian, English, and French. Although he started out as a poet writing in Russian, he wrote in multiple genres and even published scientific studies of butterflies and chess problems. Nabokov taught at various American universities, and became a professor of Russian and European Literature at Cornell University (1949-1958). "Pale Fire" came out while he was living in Switzerland until his death.

In December 1999, in the London newspaper "The Observer" critic and writer Ron Rosenbaum proclaimed Pale Fire as the greatest novel of the 20th Century. I pulled out a passage from the article so you'll have an idea of the high esteem in which Rosenbaum regards Pale Fire.

"Before venturing further into the depths and delights of Pale Fire theories, I want to pause here for the benefit of those who have not yet tasted the pleasures of "Pale Fire". Pause to emphasize just how much pure reading pleasure it offers despite its apparently unconventional form… Please don't be intimidated by the poem's length or formality; it's a pleasure to read: sad, funny, thoughtful, digressive, discursive, filled with heart-stopping moments of tenderness and beauty."

Nabokov scholar Brian Boyd in his book "Nabokov's 'Pale Fire': The Magic of Artistic Discovery" wrote ,

"As we learn more about Shade's lifelong attempt to understand a world where life is surrounded by death, we realize the full resonance of these opening lines: that he is projecting himself in imagination into the waxwing, as if it were somehow still flying beyond death, and into the reflected azure of the window, as if that were the cloudlessness of some hereafter, even as he stands looking at "the smudge of ashen fluff" of the dead bird's little body."

His critics everywhere are in awe as they unravel the mysteries and beauty of "Pale Fire". However, he has managed to keep both his critics and his admirers in the dark. It is reflected in their ambivalence towards "Pale Fire" which might at one level be considered a poem annotated by the poet. But it is also a novel in the form of a literary jigsaw puzzle about art, afterlife, and existence. At a different level, "Pale Fire" could be considered "a parodistic novel written in the form of a 999-line poem, with a lengthy commentary by a demented New England scholar who turns out to be an exiled king of a mythical country."

Nabokov passed away on July 2, 1977. The irony is that "Pale Fire" was referenced only obliquely in the obituary written by Alden Whitman in the New York Times after his death on July 5, 1977. The headline announced, "Vladimir Nabokov, Author of 'Lolita' and 'Ada,' Is Dead". Fortunately, the Times made amends for this omission. On the occasion of the publication of the poem Pale Fire in the form of a stand-alone book in 2012, David Orr wrote in New York Times' Sunday Book Review,  

"Is "Pale Fire" a poem or can it stand as a poem? "Pale Fire" is a voice within a voice — a mirrored and thoroughly modern sensibility. And that sensibility, whatever name we give it, is one hell of a poet."

The reviewer is an economist and writer living in Boston, USA.