num_pages: 239
description: The urbane authority that Vladimir Nabokov brought to every word he ever wrote, and the ironic amusement he cultivated in response to being uprooted and politically exiled twice in his life, never found fuller expression than in Pale Fire published in 1962 after the critical and popular success of Lolita had made him an international literary figure. An ingeniously constructed parody of detective fiction and learned commentary, Pale Fire offers a cornucopia of deceptive pleasures, at the center of which is a 999-line poem written by the literary genius John Shade just before his death. Surrounding the poem is a foreword and commentary by the demented scholar Charles Kinbote, who interweaves adoring literary analysis with the fantastical tale of an assassin from the land of Zembla in pursuit of a deposed king. Brilliantly constructed and wildly inventive, this darkly witty novel of suspense, literary one-upmanship, and political intrigue achieves that rarest of things in literature–perfect tragicomic balance. With an introduction by Richard Rorty.(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed) 
language: English
title: Pale Fire
titlecomplete: Pale Fire
characters: Sybil (Nabokov), Botkin, Gradus, John Shade, Judge Goldsworth, Charles Kinbote, Jack Grey
genres: Fiction, Russian Literature, 20th Century, Classics, American, Russia, Literary Fiction, Literature, Poetry, Novels
ratings_count: 49116
places: Zembla, New Wye, Appalachia, Cedarn, Utana
awards: awardedAt: -220896000000
name: National Book Award Finalist
category: Fiction
publisher: Everyman's Library