Pale Fire

Name: Pale Fire
Author: Vladimir Nabokov
ISBN: 9780679723424

by Vladimir Nabokov

320 pages1989Knopf Doubleday Publishing GroupISBN 9780679723424

FictionLiteraryClassicsAbsurdist

About this book

A darkly comic novel of suspense, literary idolatry and one-upmanship, and political intrigue from one of the leading writers of the twentieth century, the acclaimed author of Lolita. "Half-poem, half-prose...a creation of perfect beauty, symmetry, strangeness, originality and moral truth. One of the great works of art of this century." —Mary McCarthy, New York Times bestselling author of The Group 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, Vladimir Nabokov's witty novel achieves that rarest of things in literature—perfect tragicomic balance.

Publication Details

Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 1989
Pages: 320
ISBN: 9780679723424
Language: en

About Vladimir Nabokov

Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (Russian: Влади́мир Влади́мирович Набо́ков; 23 April [O.S. 10 April] 1899c – 2 July 1977) was a multilingual Russian-American novelist and short story writer. Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Russian, then rose to international prominence as a master English prose stylist. He also made contributions to entomology and had an interest in chess problems. Nabokov's *Lolita* (1955) is frequently cited as among his most important novels and is his most widely known, exhibiting the love of intricate word play and synesthetic detail that characterised all his works. The novel was ranked at #4 in the list of the Modern Library 100 Best Novels. *Pale Fire* (1962) was ranked at #53 on the same list. His memoir entitled *Speak, Memory* was listed #8 on the Modern Library nonfiction list. ([Source][1].) [1]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Nabokov