Pale Fire - Vladimir Nabokov

Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov / ISBN 9780679723424 / 315-page paperback from Vintage Books

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A darkly comic novel of suspense, literary idolatry and one-upmanship, and political intrigue—and "one of the great works of art of this century" (Mary McCarthy)—from one of the leading writers of the 20th century.

In Pale Fire Nabokov offers a cornucopia of deceptive pleasures: a 999-line poem by the reclusive genius John Shade; an adoring foreword and commentary by Shade's self-styled Boswell, Dr. Charles Kinbote.

"This centaur work, half-poem, half-prose ... is a creation of perfect beauty, symmetry, strangeness, originality and moral truth. Pretending to be a curio, it cannot disguise the fact that it is one of the great works of art of this century." —Mary McCarthy