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Nabokov's Pale Fire: The Magic of Artistic Discovery

brian boyd

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Pale Fire is regarded by many as Vladimir Nabokov's masterpiece. The novel has been hailed as one of the most striking early examples of postmodernism and has become a famous test case for theories about reading because of the apparent impossibility of deciding between several radically different interpretations. Does the book have two narrators, as it first appears, or one? How much is fantasy and how much is reality? Whose fantasy and whose reality are they? Brian Boyd, Nabokov's biographer and hitherto the foremost proponent of the idea that Pale Fire has one narrator, John Shade, now rejects this position and presents a new and startlingly different solution that will permanently shift the nature of critical debate on the novel. Boyd argues that the book does indeed have two narrators, Shade and Charles Kinbote, but reveals that Kinbote had some strange and highly surprising help in writing his sections. In light of this interpretation, Pale Fire now looks distinctly less postmodern--and more interesting than ever.


In presenting his arguments, Boyd shows how Nabokov designed Pale Fire for readers to make surprising discoveries on a first reading and even more surprising discoveries on subsequent readings by following carefully prepared clues within the novel. Boyd leads the reader step-by-step through the book, gradually revealing the profound relationship between Nabokov's ethics, aesthetics, epistemology, and metaphysics. If Nabokov has generously planned the novel to be accessible on a first reading and yet to incorporate successive vistas of surprise, Boyd argues, it is because he thinks a deep generosity lies behind the inexhaustibility, complexity, and mystery of the world. Boyd also shows how Nabokov's interest in discovery springs in part from his work as a scientist and scholar, and draws comparisons between the processes of readerly and scientific discovery.


This is a profound, provocative, and compelling reinterpretation of one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century.

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1,1999

This edition

Format
320 pages, Paperback
Published
December 1, 2001 by Princeton University Press
ISBN
9780691089577
ASIN
0691089574
Language
English

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About the author

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brian boyd

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Brian Boyd (b.1952) is known primarily as an expert on the life and works of author Vladimir Nabokov and on literature and evolution. He is University Distinguished Professor in the Department of English at the University of Auckland, New Zealand.

In 1979, after Boyd completed a PhD at the University of Toronto with a dissertation on Nabokov's novel Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle, he took up a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Auckland (appointed as lecturer in English in 1980). Also in 1979, Nabokov's widow, Véra, invited Boyd to catalog her husband's archives, a task which he completed in 1981.

While Nabokov's Ada: The Place of Consciousness (1985; rev. 2001), was considered as "an instant classic," Vladimir Nabokov: The Russian Years (1990) and Vladimir Nabokov: The American Years (1991) have won numerous awards and been translated into seven languages. In 2009 he published On the Origin of Stories: Evolution, Cognition and Fiction, often compared in scope with Northrop Frye's Anatomy of Criticism (1957).

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Community Reviews

Rating(3.9 / 5.0, 31 votes)
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31 reviews All reviews
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Voidgangsta
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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One of the most interesting works of fiction I've ever encountered, Boyd offers a controversial theory of what is behind the plot. What is uncontroversial is that Boyd is an insightful, close reader. I finally read Nabokov's "Ada" about a year ago, and I look forward to re-reading "Ada" with Boyd's book about Ada at hand.
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prouted
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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Boyd is such an astute reader that this book of criticism and analysis is disheartening for me. Disheartening until I realize that he has been reading Nabokov, stalking Nabokov for a decade longer than I have lived. The amount of energy that he has expended in his devotion is apparent here. He loving charts a circumlatory path the through the book. As he does the book unfolds in ways that I would have never experienced on my own. It is invaluable in this regard. As a result of this book I have enjoyed Pale Fire more than probably any other book. It shows what is possible when one lovingly devotes them self to a great work of art. The effort that one puts into this book is transmuted and returned to the reader.
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Macha_3108
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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I was electrified at the beginning, but got a little uneasy in the middle, even thinking more than once that we were verging on DMT trip monologue, or Charlie Day With Red Yarn Connecting Photographs territory. But Boyd always won me back and the end is pretty glorious, revealing him to be tripping on a pure, powerful love of close reading. I want to live in a universe where every author has a fan this dedicated.
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KeedKiro
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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A must-read for those who love Pale Fire. I was not particularly persuaded by the argument he makes in the second half, but extremely well done nonetheless.
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stackleberg
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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Good, especially the reading and rereading sections but beyond that it somewhat becomes too specific, and a little unnecessary, whereas the earlier sections elucidate and encourage rereadings/rethinkings, the latter ones come across as "look at all the lines I can draw between things".

Worth reading, just not all the way to the very end (unlike Pale Fire and its mysterious index)
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Sara2cena
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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All my favorite authors are doing everything in their power to make me believe in god and /or ghosts. Pale Fire after Brothers Karamazov after Spinoza’s Ethics…. They know the way to get me
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Lozane
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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Just read half of this as a companion to "Pale Fire." It was definitely a great place to start for unraveling the mysteries in "Pale Fire." At some point, the book got to be a little too English-majory for me... e.g. "Did the ghost of John Shade inspire Kinbote to write his Commentary?" But the beginning is well worth reading for understanding what's really going on in PF.
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