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Penelope's avatar

I 100% agree with your recommendation! "Pale Fire" was my first Nabokov novel (recommended by Ted Gioia, AKA "The Honest Broker"), and it made me an official Nabokov fan. I could probably write a whole wall of text praising the book, but instead I'll just highlight how amazing it was that Nabokov wrote a whole 1000-line narrative poem in a (to him) foreign language.

I was first introduced to Nabokov by the band The Police in their 1980 song "Don't Stand So Close To Me." In the last 2 lines of the third verse, Sting sings "It's no use, he sees her, he starts to shake and cough, just like the old man in that book by Nabokov." I didn't read "that book," AKA "Lolita," until more than a decade after first hearing "Don't Stand So Close To Me," but that was all right because I could appreciate the book much better then than I could 10+ years ago (and "Lolita" isn't the first or the last book that Sting inspired me to read).

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Jeff Goins's avatar

Ah, I missed Gioia's recommendation of it. I'd love to get others' takes on it. It seemed to be such a rich text. For instance, one reviewer/scholar I recently read said that the book is actually written by John Shade, pretending to be Charles Kinbote. Now I have to read it again!

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Penelope's avatar

I don't know if Ted Gioia has written a whole article on "Pale Fire." He actually recommended it to me in the comments section on one of his articles when I commented that I was interested in trying Nabokov and not sure where to start (I didn't want to start with "Lolita" because I wasn't sure I'd like it, and I didn't want "Lolita" to scare me away from Nabokov's other work if I didn't like it). Ted said his favorite Nabokov novel was "Pale Fire," so I read it first and "Lolita" second (and I loved the inside joke reference to "Lolita" within "Pale Fire.")

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Richard Bush's avatar

Jeff, you have written a wonderful and enjoyable post. Thank you.

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Jeff Goins's avatar

Ah, thanks, Richard. I'm glad you liked it, and you're welcome.

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E. G. Allis's avatar

Ok, I’m sold.

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Jeff Goins's avatar

I hope you like it! It's rare that I am so evangelistic about a book, but this one deserves it. I finished the book and thought, "I didn't know you could do that..."

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Peter C. Meilaender's avatar

That sounds like an absolutely fascinating book. Thanks for the recommendation!

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Jeff Goins's avatar

It's truly great. Just don't be discouraged if the first 100 pages or so has you scratching your head. It all comes together in the end.

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Chen Rafaeli's avatar

Thank you -I've still to read several books by Nabokov, "Pale fire" is one of them

As for "Lolita". I read it first when a teenager, when it was allowed to read it where I lived back then. I read indeed very fast. But in Russian.

Since then I re-read many times...one starts reading more slowly

Indeed one understands all the allusions and alliterations so much better after living in the US.

Then at some point one takes the original (Nabokov translated to Russian himself, and I'm grateful he did).

I'm not through it, asit's hard for me to read from the screen-I'd need to find it printed. But it reads ...strangely, wonderfully -different. It's both same-and a standalone.

It's hard to explain.

Thank you, I really enjoyed the post.

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ThinkPieceOfPie's avatar

Wonderful. A book I haven't read by an author I love.

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Jeff Goins's avatar

Oh, well, buckle up! It's considered his masterpiece. Hope you like it. What other of his works do you like?

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ThinkPieceOfPie's avatar

Ada, Speak Memory and Lolita, a number of times over the years. Time for more...

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Jeff Goins's avatar

All on my list. Have heard good things about his memoir and saw Ada at a used bookstore. It keeps coming up.

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Gary Trujillo's avatar

Interesting read. Thanks for sharing. Also, if I saw a Nabocov book at an airport (which I unfortunately never have) I'd have to buy it out of principle.

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Jeff Goins's avatar

Indeed. I saw this one on a shelf of "classics" at Parnassus Books in the Nashville airport. I had just read Lolita and loved it and was eager to remain in the Nabokovian universe. I actually thought the book WAS a poem at first and only later realized it was a novel. Anyway, that's essentially what I did: bought a book I'd never heard of before, thinking it was one thing and ending loving that it was another.

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Mar 22
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Jeff Goins's avatar

Thank you, Tracy!

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