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Classifying Pale Fire as a novel seems in some ways inadequate, for the experimental book is unlike anything that came before it. The work consists of a 999-line poem, written by John Shade. When Shade dies, the poem falls into the hands of his insane neighbor, Charles Kinbote, who proceeds to annotate the verse with his own outrageous interpretations. The novel has thus been seen as a satire of literary scholarship, with Kinbote’s outlandish stories about the country Zembla adding comic effect to the work. Pale Fire is divided into four sections: a foreword from Kinbote, the poem itself, Kinbote’s commentary and line-by-line glosses, and an index. This unconventional narrative technique, which blurs the distinction between the teller and the tale, has led to the novel’s reputation as a precursor of postmodernism. Some critics have called Pale Fire a "creation of perfect beauty" that displays Nabokov’s unusual gifts for both poetry and prose.
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