“I have a certain liking, I admit,
For Parody, that last resort of wit…”
Charles Kinbote, professor, neighbor and supposed friend of the late, great poet, John Shade, here presents Shade's last poem, Pale Fire, which Kinbote has edited, provided with commentary and notes, and has personally seen through to publication, fending off all protests to the contrary.
The book is written in four sections: Foreword; Pale Fire: A Poem in Four Cantos; Commentary; and Index. In the foreword, Kinbote explains how he rescued the hand-written stanza notes on Pale Fire on the very day the poet was murdered, and obtained permission from the grieving widow to edit and publish said poem. Although Charles Kinbote claims to be a great friend of the Shades, he soon reveals himself to be a demented stalker and pest. Shades' wife describes Kinbote as: "an elephantine tick; a king-sized botfly; a macaco worm; the monstrous parasite of a genius."
Next the 999-line poem itself is presented, which is largely autobiographical and very interesting; followed by Kinbote's commentary, which at first purports to explain certain lines from the poem but soon turns into a fantastical tale of Zembla, Kinbote's native country, telling the story of the beloved, deposed king and the assassin obsessed with killing him. Kinbote has told his story to Shade on several occasions and fully expected the old poet to compose a poem based on his tale so the actual poem comes as a huge disappointment to Kinbote. Perhaps his revenge is to include his own story in the publication of Shade's last poem. Lastly, the index contains notes mainly on the Zemblan tale rather than the poem itself.
Imagining what the future holds for himself, Kinbote speculates that: "I may pander to the simple tastes of theatrical critics and cook up a stage play, an old-fashioned melodrama with three principles: a lunatic who intends to kill an imaginary king, another lunatic who imagines himself to be that king, and a distinguished old poet who stumbles by chance into the line of fire, and perishes in the clash between the two figments.”
This is a delightfully tongue-in-cheek parody of a learned work told by an insane narrator. Very different!

Pale Fire = Cold Fire

Well, I have read Nabokov's unique novel of an undescribable genre, consisting of the the poem comprising four cantos, a long commentary and the confusing index. The poem on the one hand and the commentary (and the index) on the other, have been written by two completely different people having completely different agendas and who are in completely different mental states. And this is what makes this novel so unique. An unreliable narrator is present, too (in fact, a very very unreliable one).
I would describe the whole work as incredibly beautiful, sophisticated, witty, intellectual, philosophical, highbrow puzzle in which the author uses 5 (!) languages to construct his puns as well as refers to the works of many great poets.
It seems, the author demonstrates to the reader what he capable of and at the same time remains distant and indifferent. Only once one can feel some kind of emotion - his longing for the Paradise Lost, his 'Zembla', his native land now under the rule of dumb and cruel 'Exstremists'.

The most impressive parts of the novel for me are the parts of the poem.

'A thousand years ago five minutes were
Equal to forty ounces of fine sand.
Outstare the stars. Infinite foretime and
Infinite aftertime: above your head
They close like giant wings, and you are dead.'
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'The sun is a thief: she lures the sea
and robs it. The moon is a thief:
he steals his silvery light from the sun.
The sea is a thief: it dissolves the moon.'
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'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.'

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'My God died young. Theolatry I found
Degrading, and its premises, unsound.
No free man needs God; but was I free?'
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There was a time in my demented youth
When somehow I suspected that the truth
About survival after death was known
To every human being: I alone
Knew nothing, and a great conspiracy
Of books and people hid the truth from me'
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What moment in that gradual decay
Does resurrection choose? What year?
Who has the stopwatch? Who rewinds the tape?
Are some less lucky, or do all escape?
A syllogism; other men die
But I am not another: therefore I'll not die.

Touché.....

Nabokov is scathing about Dostoevsky in his Lectures on Russian Literature; he scoffs that one can hardly speak of “realism” or “human experience” when discussing “an author whose gallery of characters consists almost exclusively of neurotics and lunatics.”

Of course, the same charge could be leveled at Nabokov’s own most notable characters, including Lolita’s Humbert Humbert and Pale Fire’s Kinbote. As Boston University Russian scholar Katherine Tiernan O’Connor has argued, Dostoevsky’s “ghostly shadow” is in fact nearly ubiquitous in Nabokov’s work.

=============

Primer br. 1: Lolita. Neko ko je vrlo moguće pedofil se maklja nožem (ako se dobro sećam) u melodramatičnom dvoboju u prizemlju luks vile sa nekim ko je vrlo moguće makro. A opet, remek delo od romana.

Primer br. 2: Bleda Vatra. Neko ko je vrlo moguće kralj iz neke vrlo moguće stvarne zemlje beži od neke vrlo moguće revolucije i vrlo moguće se zaljubljuje u matorog američkog pesnika. Neko ga juri, a taj neko je vrlo moguće ubica. A opet. A opet. Mislim da u životu nisam pročitao nešto ovoliko. Uh. Savršeno? Makar blizu mom ličnom dojmu te jeftine reči.

Mislim da zato toliko i volim Nabokova. Što nijedan od njegovih „zapleta“ ne bi bio tretiran kao tzv. visoka književnost da se našao u rukama a ma bilo koga drugog. A Nabokov sa tim čini čuda.

Sve počinje sa pesmom fiktivnog pomenutog pesnika, pesmom od tačno devetsto devedeset devet odn. hiljadu stihova (u zavisnosti koga pitate). I sama pesma je za pet, čak i da nema potonjeg komentara pesnikovog prijatelja. A taj komentar je... uh. Ne znam stvarno šta da kažem. Čarls Kinbot je Hambert Hambert na steroidima. Uzgred, vrlo simpatičan tip, čak i kad laže kako zine – baš zato što laže kako zine. Osećao sam se kao da rešavam slagalicu dok sam čitao. Nisam je rešio, naravno, ali nekad je zabavno i pokušavati.

Nabokova volim i zato što ponekad nema rešenja. Zato što kod njega ne treba tražiti alegorije, simbole i slične pizdarije (plus, to i u samom romanu kaže više puta, sad da li Kinbot ili Šejd ili Nabokov, svejedno je; a onda malo onako usput i pljune Frojda – jer zdravo je). Samo se treba prepustiti, i čitati.

Roman koji je sam svoja stvarnost: smehotresan, tužan, lucidan i potpuno, potpuno sulud. Roman kome ne treba verovati – roman u koji treba verovati.

p.s. svaki pomen reči „vrlo“ treba uzeti s krajnjim oprezom

5+

Here is a singular novel, the matrix of an autobiographical poem, augmented by an intellectual development made by a neighbor of the creator of the opus, including an introduction, comments, and an index.
It's a bit like the fable of the jay who wants to adorn himself with the peacock's feathers. Charles Kimbote is an inverted scholar, misogynist, and solitary neighbor of the author's work, Pale Fire, John Shade. Self-proclaimed friend of the artist, whom he brazenly spies on, the professor preaches frankly and shamelessly pulls the cover on him under the guise of scholarly works. But, unfortunately, the overwhelming mass of the critical apparatus tends to eclipse the work of art that it nevertheless intends to serve: instead of embellishing the text with enlightening comments, the pontifying exegete parasitizes the latter with personal considerations of harsh judgments on his contemporaries, in-depth studies relating to his native country of Zembla, and the destiny of the last of his sovereigns, without obvious connection with the voluminous poem, except that the neighboring indelicate did not have of ceasing to annoy the author so that it is questioning in this last. In short, the so-called Charles Kimbote flaunts a laughable pedantry and absconds at first glance.
Pale Fire is an exercise in style, a furiously triumphant tour de force. It is a funny satire of erudition stirring the air in its total sterility, draping itself with a certain dignity, mimicking the true nobility that belongs only to the creator and the artist.

Whenever anyone asks me what's the funniest novel I've ever read I always nominate Pale Fire. I always thought it was my favourite Nabokov but on second reading I'm not so sure this still holds true. It's one of those books that relies heavily on its ingenious surprises and second time round its comedy routines lose the clout of the unexpected. The first thing that strikes is the jubilant joie du vivre with which he writes this novel. Nabokov knows he has a brilliant original idea which will allow him the full scope of his prodigious comic gift and you can feel his excitement on every page.

It begins with a brilliant pastiche of an essentially mediocre poem. The narrator knows it's a mediocre poem but has to pretend it's genius to justify the 250 pages of notes he writes about it.

I knew nothing about the plot when I first read Pale Fire and I think that's the best vantage point from which to enter this novel. Almost any description of the plot is a spoiler of sorts.
What I will say is it's probably the most brilliant portrait of megalomania ever written. And in many ways, it anticipates the modern phenomenon of trolling and celebrity envy/stalking.

A mad delirious dash—or, rather, a raucous ferris wheel spinning continuously and never stopping long enough for reason to hitch a ride, showcasing Nabokovian prose with its baroque and turgid construction of eccentricities. Pale Fire has the riveting scintillation of an exploding firework, a thousand anecdotes and details spiral together, detonating within the ostensibly rigid structure of footnotes. Nabokov is the ultimate escape artist like the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland who claims he has something important to tell you but then scampers in the opposite direction. His art is diversion.

The more you try to distance yourself from Nabokov—to create a space of aesthetic purview, to stand back and ascertain the movement of his fast-paced whirlwind—is exactly the moment he drags you along further into the labyrinth, absorbs you into a fictitious realm enclosed by indulgently bizarre parentheticals, into the frenzied abyss of his composition, and takes you along for the ride.

“We cannot help reading into these lines something more than mirror play and mirage shimmer.”

"The moon's an arrant thief
And her pale fire she snatches from the sun."
-William Shakespeare

Pale Fire is a work of genius. A pièce de résistance.

‘Pale Fire’ is the name of a poem in 999 lines written by our fictional poet John Shade. It is being narrated by his friend and neighbor Charles Kinbote with rather a long foreword and an even longer commentary.

Who rides so late in the night and the wind?

I must confess that in the beginning I was a bit confused. What is this? I asked myself. Was Nabokov alright when writing this book? The poem is nice and ordinary, so why should it be followed by a lengthy clarification and interpretation? And what’s up with Kinbote? Why is he so obsessed with the poem and the poet and why does he often digress and starts talking about some king in ‘Zembla’?

Before long, as I continued reading, it became clear that those clarifications are more vital and significant than the poem itself; that Kinbote is trying to tell us something; that nothing is as it seems.

Who has the stopwatch? Who rewinds the tape?
Are some less lucky, or do all escape?
A syllogism: other men die; but I
Am not another; therefore I’ll not die.

Que maravilla de novela, una genialidad de Nabokov que, aunque no es de lectura fácil, tiene momentos de una maestría absoluta.

Es una novela de una estructura muy particular, el primer 1/4 de libro es la transcripción completa del poema póstumo de 999 versos de John Shade, escritor estadounidense asesinado el mismo día que escribió el ultimo verso de este poema titulado Pálido Fuego, y el resto del libro son las notas correspondientes a distintivos pasajes del poema comentadas por quien ademas de ser el editor del poema fue un cargoso admirador y vecino del propio John Shade, el profesor Charles Kinbote, que también es dueño de una extraña y secreta historia sobre un país llamado Zembla que fue lo que inspiro a Shade para escribir su poema, o por lo menos eso es de lo que esta convencido Charles Kinbote. Así que va a ser a través de estas notas como nos metemos en la historia del rey de Zembla para terminar comprendiendo (solo un poco) como fue la muerte del escritor John Shade.

El espíritu de la novela me hizo recordar mucho al genial cuento de Borges Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius, porque en Pálido Fuego también lo ficticio y lo real se funden magistralmente en una historia rara, misteriosa y a veces también algo confusa.
Hubo momentos donde la lectura se me hizo ardua y densa, e incluso tengo que reconocer que me perdía un poco dentro de la historia, pero la originalidad y la arquitectura de la trama son realmente para aplaudir de pie, y la complejidad del personaje de Charles Kimbote es magnifica, un personaje obsesionado por apropiarse de un protagonismo que parece no corresponderle, aunque ficción y realidad se mezclan tanto que uno al final ya duda de todo.
Una gran novela con un cierre que es un lujo.

A PARODY FIRE
I. Foreword

With deepest sorrows, I regret to inform everyone to the death of fellow Goodreads reviewer, and my dear friend, s.penkevich. While he may have departed, I, Vincent Kephes, have taken upon myself the burden of collecting his notes and the half-finished reviews that he left behind in order to bestow them upon you all. I am certain beyond the shadow of a doubt that, having been close with s., this is in keeping with his wishes, and although they were never overtly expressed, I knew from the first moment we became acquainted that this was an undertaking he desired for I alone to embark upon. While it has been some time since we have seen each other in person, passing in the esteemed interior passageways of Eastern Michigan University and engaged together in academic adventures within the same four walls of many classrooms in Pray Harold’s Literature department, I have intimately following his scribblings on this website. After finding my way through his saved drafts, I’ve found a particular discarded review that radiates his voice and style, an unfinished work that belongs in the public eye. Having finished this particular novel of Nabokov’s back in the spring of 2012, s. left laconic remarks upon Goodreads stating his intention to return once he could “sort out some thoughts” and complete his work. I’ve taken some liberties, incorporating several of his rudimentary drafts and notes into one authoritative, polished copy, and have included a commentary to help understand the ideas that bounced through his mind while creating his review. My commentary to this poem, now in the hands of my readers, represents an attempt to sort out those echoes and wavelets of fire, and pale phosphorescent hints, and all the many subliminal debts to me. Without further adieu, I present to you the last review of s.penkevich’s.

II. Review of: Pale Fire By Vladimir Nabokov
‘'reality' is neither the subject nor the object of true art which creates its own special reality having nothing to do with the average 'reality' perceived by the communal eye’

Nabokov’s Pale Fire is at once a comedy of errors, and a biting satire on politics, literary criticism, as well as Nabokov’s own life and colleagues. Through the foreword and commentary of a fictitious poem, Nabokov stays impressively in character as Charles Kinbote as Kinbote misinterprets John Shade’s poem and imposes his own life story as the true underlying message of the poem. Through misdirection, intentional fallacies, wordplay and wit, as well as a vast array of allusions to his own works and life, Nabokov has created a parody of epic comedic proportions.

In keeping true to Nabokov’s style, I present to you a pale parody.

A Parody Fire
        I was the shadow of the reader slain
        by laughter through the tale of Zemblan’s famed
        runaway royalty, a story which
        served to mimic the politics
5     from which Nabokov also did flee
        like Pale Fire’s commentator to work in an American university.

        Through wordplay and wit this story unfolds
        of poets and spies as voyeurism grows
        an unshakable notion in our commentators brain
10   that it is he who inspires each clever refrain
        from his neighbors pen down into his last work of art
        then a conclusion takes the form of bullet through heart

        Through parody Nabokov takes a humorous jab
        at literary criticism and the way that we grab
15   for meanings that fit into our own ideal
        even when those meanings are completely unreal.
        So have a chucke, have a laugh
        and enjoy Nabokov’s tale of literary gaffe.

In short, a charming novel that I greatly enjoyed reading. The joy lies in Nabokov’s craftsmanship, and I am stunned how well he was able to keep this together.
4.5/5


III. Commentary

1.t Through misdirection, intentional fallacies, wordplay…
Am I the only one made irascible by s.’ insistence on producing a thesis statement in each review, as well as incorportate a conclusion in most – this review lacks one for reasons of being an incomplete work, but one can be sure he would have been unable to rest lest he recapitulate his main points. This habit is surely a residual effect of our time spent together in Dr. L-‘s Lit. Theory course. Our marvelous professor insisted that within her course would be forged the perfection of the thesis statement, and it seems s. has been unable to remove himself from his memories of that class. Of utmost importance here is that this was where I first laid eyes on s., then a young, quirky teenager often adorned in band t-shirts featuring musical icons such as Neil Young (loathed) or, to credit his tastes, The Doors. While I sat a distance away from him – the effluvium of tobacco made sitting directly beside him a tad unpleasant for a non-smoker such as myself, I ensured a direct line of sight with his notes by placing myself a few rows behind him. I must confess that his note taking habits were lackadaisical, often drifting into juvenial attempts at poetry, or perhaps song writing. The following poem evinces his inability to break away from a rhyme structure that must have been made sacrosanct in him through angst-ridden punk bands like the Dead Kennedy’s (another t-shirt that frequented his wardrobe in those days). Old habits don’t just die hard, in s. they outright failed to die until he himself did.

2.tLine 1: I was the shadow…
A parody of John Shade’s first line in his poem which reads: “I am the shadow of the waxwing slain”

3. Line 2: by laughter…
It seems s. has decided to produce his own little jab at me through this poem. The winter following our time spent together in Dr. L-‘s course, I happened to find myself seeking a new place of residence. Having heard from s. that he lived in the R- apartments, I quickly transcribed a letter to the housing office stating my desires to move in immediately, and, if at all possible due to my being a stranger in the area, to find an apartment close to his own so as to be comfortable around friends. While living near a close friend is a blessing, there are some deficiencies when that friend happens to live with two other roommates, all of which were loud and often intoxicated. Worse, s. began to learn harmonica and banjo at this time, a piercing sound like a tormented soul accompanying the already guitar-heavy clamor of their nightly escapades. Laughter would always thwart my efforts to sleep on weekends, and when one finds themselves alone in the night haunted by loneliness, the joyous laughter that only comes when close friends find themselves in high spirits formed by shared company tends to be nothing but a dagger through the heart. I had pitched multiple noise complaints against them, and this line is a message to me alone that he knew it was I who filed the aforementioned complaints.

3.tLine 5: Nabokov did flee…
While Nabokov’s family did uproot over reasons of political turmoil, s. fails to draw the most obvious connexions here. Nabokov’s own father was killed by Piotr Shabelsky-Bork, his father protecting the life of Pavel Milyukov, whom Wikipedia calls “a leader of the Constitutional Democratic Party-in-exile.” To anyone with a scholarly eye, which, clearly, s. lacks, would note that Nabokov incorporates murders through mistaken identity in his novels to echo his fathers own death.

4.tLine 6: Pale Fire’s commentator…
Another conspicuous insult directed towards myself. It is apparent that s. finds my features to be some sort of hilarious joke. Though I am not ashamed to have red hair, and very white skin – a feature that is often of discomfort to me during the summer months – it is outright injurious to nickname me “Pale Fire”. I am glad I have kidnapped s. in order to…. That last statement of kidnapping is in jest, and it seems by “backspace” key is out of order otherwise I would have it stricken from the records. It is a tragedy to have lost him, and my backspace key. Alas, we cannot take back our words, and now even in writing I have found myself stuck in the same conundrum. The obvious allusion is sealed by his referene to “an American university”, one of which we have met at. (See Note 1)

5.tLine 8: Voyeurism grows…
To speak of me as a voyeur is also entirely unfounded. It was not I that chose for his bed to be directly in line of sight, seen clearly through the tiniest gap between his nightshade and window frame, that could only be viewed from the precise location of my late night reading chair. The chair absolutely had to have been positioned there in order to collect the rays of the moon upon my page so I would not need a night lamp in order to read and could hide myself in total darkness in order to become merely an extension of my novel, or my homework as opposed to a being producing or reading. I had no desire to be forced to watch him sleep from such a tragedy of coincidences, and when he saw me gazing out – purely to better reflect on my thoughts, staring into the abyss allowing it to gaze back into me, spacing out and only happening to be directed towards him, why should I have felt it necessary to avert my gaze? I was in deep thought, caught up in serious work, unlike he who knows nothing of scholarly knowledge and probing thought. Look at his reviews, the man can’t avoid using the term ‘prose’ at least once in every review. Had he an IQ beyond that of a toddler he would know there are resources such as a thesaurus – I assume he hasn’t utilized one as he cannot spell it in order to place it in the url bar.

6.tLine 10: Clever refrain…
Clever, as defined by Wikipedia: “a large knife that varies in its shape but usually resembles a rectangular-bladed hatchet. It is largely used as a kitchen or butcher knife intended for hacking through bone. The knife's broad side can also be used for crushing in food preparation.” I suppose this use of cleaver was meant to be some metaphor at the cutting wit of Nabokov’s. Weak choice at best.

7.tLine 11: last work of art
This line clearly defines my legal right to have obtained these documents. While I am currently pitted in a legal battle for “illegally” accessing his computer, I am certain this will provide more than satisfactory evidence in my defense. Besides, possession is nine-tenths of the law anyhow.

8.tLine 16: when those meanings are completely unreal.
Upon reviewing earlier drafts, there are multiple lines crossed out in which it is evident he desired to use a phrase “misinterpretation of signs”. It seems he, like all juvenile poets, had the end rhyme as his goal and forced each of these meager lines towards keeping up with his laughable rhyme; rhythm and overall enjoyableness were victims butchered and slain in order to achieve his goal. You, reader, are also a victim for having been forced to read such drivel. Unlike s., I will refrain from placing an exclamation point at the end of the preceding sentence, I am not a child and I prefer to maintain a profession care over my punctuation at all times. Besides, what is with his use of the single inverted comma? He must think himself Knut Hamsun or Cormac McCarthy, both of which he must have seen me reading on my balcony, or seen tucked into my book bag at school as there is no possible way that it was from reading Kafka that he decided to investigate Hamsun. If it was Kafka, then surely he learned that from myself as well. When he sat outside reading from Virginia Woolf, I am certain it was only to discover a vantage point to peer in to my bookshelves, which I kept in the middle of my bedroom just so he could see them. I have spent years following his work to see that he is nothing but a shade of my own genius, and I am certain his reference of a John Shade in his introduction is simply a confession of such.
But I digress. The desire to use the term “sign” takes root in his job working as a sign maker at U- factory at the time of reading this novel. Several unfinished drafts for novels such as Steinbecks In Dubious Battle were found by myself as well, and it seemed he had failed in an attempt to relate Steinbeck’s message of workers revolt to his own plight working in the suffocating aluminum dust, low wages and hazardous conditions of the factory. He had a love for workers rights, which was hopefully beaten out of him by the absence of workers voice he must have encountered there. It is best that he did not post those, as politics and anything scholarly is truly above his capacities. Perhaps had he read more Hegel instead of Steinbeck he would have formed any worthwhile opinions.

9.tLine 18: literary gaffe.
The literary gaffe is s.’ opinions and this poem altogether. Perhaps it is best that I have kidnapped… I mean, uh, let’s just ignore any attempts of what must be jokesters that say s. is alive and still writing on Goodreads, okay? He is a menace.

There you have it, the final work of s.penkevich. That's all folks.

The End(?)

solgun ateş’in merkezini bin mısralık bir şiir oluşturuyor. bu şiirin öncesinde şiiri yayınlayan kahramanımızın önsözü, sonrasında açıklamaları ve hazırladığı bir dizin var. işimiz bu haliyle bile kolay değilken daha önsözde anlıyoruz ki şiirleri bize sunan-açıklayan bu kahramanımız tuhaf, güvenilmez bir anlatıcı. açıklamalarına başladığımızda anlıyoruz ki şiiri açıklamaktan çok şiir üzerinden kendi hikayesini anlatıyor ve açıklamalarda biraz daha ilerlediğimizde anlıyoruz ki kendi hikayesini anlatmasının da ötesinde bir durumla karşı karşıyayız. şiirde sayısız gönderme ve kelime oyunu, açıklamalarda hem ileriye hem geriye doğru yönlendirmeler var, dizin şiiri ve açıklamaları ayrıca tekrar tekrar okumaya yöneltiyor. üç ayraç gerekiyor bu kitaba, bir de kesintisiz bir dikkat ve elbette sadece kendisine ayrılacak zaman.

solgun ateş’in kusursuz bir yapısı var. en temelde başlatıyor anlama çabamızı. biraz merak ama daha çok huzursuzlukla karmaşayı çözmeye çalışıyoruz. karakterlere dair fikirler yavaş yavaş oluşmaya başlıyor, olay örgüsü biraz daha anlaşılır hale geliyor. devam ediyoruz ama devam ettikçe yeni sorunlar çıkıyor ortaya. yeni sorunlar çıktıkça durup yeniden çabalıyoruz. elimizde bir şiirden ve o şiiri çarpıttığını fark ettiğimiz anlatıcının açıklamalarından başka bir şey olmadığı için çabalamak şiiri ve açıklamaları tekrar tekrar okumaktan başka bir şey değil. bulduğumuz çözümler ya da yakaladığımız ipuçlarına rağmen temkinli ilerliyoruz hep. yavaş yavaş hikaye yerli yerine oturuyor derken başka gizemler, şifreler beliriyor. bir üst düzeye geçiyoruz: kelime oyunları için dipnotlara yöneliyoruz, dipnotlardan dış kaynaklara. nabokov’un kurduğu yapı bizi anlamak için çabalamak zorunda bırakıyor. çabaladıkça anlamanın bir yanıyla kolay bir yanıyla da imkansız olduğunu anlıyoruz. dış kaynaklardan çıkılacak yolun sonu yok.

hiçbir şey yapmasa da nabokov,“bir kitabı okuyamazsınız, ancak yeniden okuyabilirsiniz. etkin, esaslı, yaratıcı okur, yeniden okuyandır,” diyen nabokov solgun ateş’te bize etkin okur olmanın, yaratıcı okur olmanın zorunlu bir uygulamasını yaptırıyor. solgun ateş’in kapağını ciddiyetiyle kapattığınızda nabokov’un müstehzi gülümsemesini görür gibi oluyorsunuz zaten!

son olarak, hem 190 dipnotlu harika çevirisi, hem de nabokov’a ve solgun ateş’e dair değerli yazıları ve makale çevirileri için yiğit yavuz’a teşekkür etmek istiyorum. işinin ne kadar zor olduğunu düşünmek bile zordu benim için.

An irony-laden tour de force although personally I find Nabokov's style here, as elsewhere, excessively leaden and his voice monotonous, and while this is sometimes intentional, for comic purposes, the comedic episodes are not sufficiently distinctive to be entirely successful.