I have just read an article that takes
the view point you describe (that is, that there is no there there in Pale
Fire). Here it is: in the series Modern Critical Views, Vladimir
Nabokov (ed. Bloom) "Reading Zemblan: The Audience disappears in Pale Fire"
by Alvin B. Kernan. Personally I like Mary McCarthy's 1962 review, reprinted in
her Writings on the Wall; Nabokov's Other Worlds by Alexandrov has
an excellent chapter on Pale Fire. The biographies are also good places
to look.
My own suggestions for further reading would include the
Alice books, The Picture of DorianGray (in which an
actress with a familiar name commits suicide unofficially), and Stevenson's
StrangeCase of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (another interesting suicide).
The Confessions of St Augustine is next on my own list, Dracula,
and oh, yes, I think I'll take a look at Timon of Athens.
Carolyn
Kunin
>> I didn't take Kurt Johnson's warning about forgetting the
literature >> personally, since he said he wasn't thinking of anyone in
particular, >> but what would participants recommend on _Pale Fire_?
I've read >> Meyer's and Boyd's books. Also, where is there
material on the >> theory that there is no "real story" and all the
ghosts, multiple >> personalities, single authors if you like them, et
cetera, are part >> of what chess problemists call the "play". If
I remember correctly, >> Alfred Appel says something similar about
_Lolita_, but I find the >> idea more satisfying in regard to _Pale
Fire_. >> >> Jerry Friedman >> >>
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