Pale Fire

First reading Pale Fire to me was a little bit like first reading Beloved, I was confused. After getting further into the commentary, however, and understanding the tone of the book and seeing the humor and fun in the book, I have grown to really enjoy it. I was not expecting a work that was so funny and I really enjoyed that aspect of the book, I also saw a lot of connections between the book and Nabokovs’ real life. The murder of Shade and the murder of Nabokovs’ father on the same day was especially interesting. The exile from a Country similar to Russia, placed in a close proximity to Russia after the monarchy is overthrown in the story seems influenced by Nabokovs’ own experiences in Russia during the Revolution.
The work seems to place literary criticism in a particularly harsh light, as one mad mans analysis forever changes the poem itself. Even when the reader knows that the poem is not about Charles the Beloved and Zembla, the work is still altered into something different. The critic kills the poem ( and in a sense the poet as well.) I wonder how Nabokov would feel about our analysis of this text.