/r/TrueLit
The premier place on reddit for discussing books and literature, both fictional and non-fictional alike. If you're interested in "written works, especially those considered of superior or lasting artistic merit," then you're in the right place.
If you enjoy the conversation, join our official Discord server!
About Us
The premier place on reddit for discussing books and literature, both fictional and non-fictional alike. If you're interested in "written works, especially those considered of superior or lasting artistic merit," then you're in the right place.
We want to encourage and support in-depth, intellectual discussion. Clear, polite and well-written responses should be upvoted; opinions should not be downvoted.
If you enjoy the conversation, join our official Discord server! (https://discord.gg/5UyEQTKjF7)
Rules
No recommendation requests. Please do not ask for book recommendations. Better resources for recommendations are: Our Thursday or Monday weekly threads, r/SuggestMeABook, r/booksuggestions, and r/bookrecommendations
Stay On-Topic. All discussion must be related to literature.
Bigotry is Forbidden. No racism, sexism, or other forms of bigotry.
Ensure All Posts Are of High Quality. For general posting, ensure that you pose your own opinion as well. Do not simply ask a question and expect an answer. Strive for at least 300 words (~7 sentences).
Avoid the Following:
- "What do you think of X" posts, unless you provide your own in-depth original thoughts.
- Lists or "best of" threads (i.e. who are your favorite contemporary authors).
- Requesting help on homework assignments or creating a curriculum.
- Sharing unpublished fiction or non-fiction you've written.
- Purely image links.
- Amusing videos vaguely related to literature.
- Publisher press releases, online bookstore referrals, or other forms of advertising.
- Uncensored spoilers.
Limit Two Link Posts and One Personal Post Per Day
No Blatant Self-Promotion. Don't just post a link to your website or Youtube video review. If you're going to do something of the sort, you must participate in the comment discussion. Don't promote other subreddit read-alongs. Instead, feel free to promote these in the Monday weekly thread.
Vote with Civility. Be civil and don't downvote opinions.
Mods Have Final Word. Moderators have final discretion.
Join our official Discord server!
/r/TrueLit
62,244 Subscribers
Pale Fire Read-Along, p137-196
Summary
The clockwork toy in Shade’s basement (137)
The tale of the king’s escape (137-147)
Kissing girls? Wouldn’t you rather think of the hot and muscly men? (147)
Description of Gradus and the extremists (147-154)
We get Shade’s view of literary criticism (154-156)
Long story of Kinbote’s being rejected about Shade’s birthday party (157-163)
The poltergeist in the house (164-167)
Dissecting a variant (167-168)
Shade not wanting to discuss his work (168-170)
An odd man in Nice (170-171)
Notes about Sibyl (171-172)
My dark Vanessa (172-173)
Marriage (173-174)
Gradus starting to track down Kinbote (174-181)
The Shades are going to the western mountains after the poem is finished (181-183)
Toothwart white (183-184)
Wood duck (184)
The poltergeist in the barn (184-193)
Something that stuck out to me
Gradus and the clockwork toy in the basement seem to go together, and appear to evoke the mechanical advancement of time toward death.
Discussion
You can answer any of these questions or none of them, if you’d rather just give your impressions.
- Why do you think Sibyl is much more outward in her dislike for Kinbote than Shade?
- What do you think is the significance of the poltergeist? It seems maybe incongruent in a book that otherwise doesn’t appear to have a supernatural setting, so why is it there?
- Kinbote seems desperate to tell his own story. Why do you think this is?
- Nabokov seems to like giving his own opinions through characters. Was there an instance that he did this that you particularly agreed or disagreed with?
- What do you think of the blank in the variation on page 167?
- What was your favorite passage?
- Unreliable narrators invite interesting theories. What’s your interesting theory, if any?
01:04 UTC
What Are You Reading This Week and Weekly Rec Thread
Please let us know what you’ve read this week, what you've finished up, and any recommendations or recommendation requests! Please provide more than just a list of novels; we would like your thoughts as to what you've been reading.
Posts which simply name a novel and provide no thoughts will be deleted going forward.
11:44 UTC
General Discussion Thread
Welcome again to the TrueLit General Discussion Thread! Please feel free to discuss anything related and unrelated to literature.
Weekly Updates: N/A
13:01 UTC
Villa Muniria where William Burroughs wrote Naked Lunch in room n. 9 in 1956 (now Hotel El Muniria)
Not much to see these days and I could not tell if the place was open or had tenants that day. Top of a small hill in a quiet neighborhood with with a view on the port. Other Tangiers places referenced in Burroughs' letters include Cafe Central on Socco Chico square.
16:14 UTC
TrueLit read-along Pale Fire: Commentary Lines 1-143
I hope you enjoyed this week's reading as much as I did. Here are some guiding questions for consideration and discussion.
- How do you like Nabokov's experimental format?
- Are you convinced that the cantos are the work of John Shade?
- Commentary for Lines 131-132: "I was the shadow of the waxwing slain by feigned remoteness in the windowpane...[through to]...mirrorplay and mirage shimmer." What is your interpretation of this enigmatic commentary?
- There were many humorous passages. Please share your favourites.
- Do you think the castle is based on a real structure?
Next week: Commentaries from Line 149 to Lines 385-386 (pp 137-196 of the Vintage edition)
05:24 UTC
What Are You Reading This Week and Weekly Rec Thread
Please let us know what you’ve read this week, what you've finished up, and any recommendations or recommendation requests! Please provide more than just a list of novels; we would like your thoughts as to what you've been reading.
Posts which simply name a novel and provide no thoughts will be deleted going forward.
11:44 UTC
TrueLit's 2024 Top 100 Favorite Books
14:30 UTC
General Discussion Thread
Welcome again to the TrueLit General Discussion Thread! Please feel free to discuss anything related and unrelated to literature.
Weekly Updates: N/A
13:02 UTC
True Lit Read Along, January 18 – Foreword and Poem (p. 13-69)
| FOREWORD THOUGHTS |
|---|
| In 1964, Nabokov published a megalomaniacal commentary to Pushkin’s verse-novel Eugene Onegin that dwarfs the original. Charles Kinbote’s commentary to the poem “Pale Fire” is five times longer than the poem. |
| Kinbote goes into meticulous detail on Shade’s composition methods. But he possibly contradicts himself regarding the poem’s intended length. |
| Kinbote and Shade lived in Appalachia, yet Kinbote writes from Utah near an amusement park. An intriguing sentence: “As mentioned, I think, in my last note to the poem … that I was forced to leave New Wye soon after my last interview with the jailed killer.” |
| The foreword includes several detours, like "See my note to line 991." If you flip to that note, you'll read "...I have mentioned in my note to lines 47-48." Turn to this note and you are sent to the Foreword, to his note to line 691, and his note to line 62. The note to line 62 loops us back to the Foreword, the note for line 691, and the note for lines 47-48, at which point we've come full circle. |
| If we followed the trail of notes outlined above, we'd find ourselves back at the Foreword knowing much more about Kinbote's identity... but doesn't it seem strange that Nabokov would reveal so much so soon? |
| As well as being a work of metafiction, this is a work of ergotic literature. |
| The non-linear way we can read Pale Fire is not a gimmick. It provides a big clue to Kinbote’s personality and to the story-behind-the-story or the story-behind-the-story-behind-the-story. If we were to follow the reading order suggested by Kinbote in the foreword’s last paragraph, we’d read the commentary three times and the poem once. |
| Kinbote seems to both disdain and adore the poem—or perhaps one of these. |
| POEM THOUGHTS |
|---|
| Stunning opening couplet. |
| Is the poem good? Is the poem supposed to be good but Nabokov couldn’t quite muster the masterpiece he wanted? Or is it supposed to be sort of bad, a parody of mid-century American poetry that delusional Kinbote thinks is great? The last chapters of Lolita include a parody of Eliot; it would not be out of character for Nabokov to parody Frost (whom Shade kind of resembles). Or does only Kinbote think Shade is a great poet? Yet the commentary includes several short Shade poems that I think are indisputably good. IMO >!Nabokov meant for the poem to be a masterpiece, but despite occasionally brilliant lines, the poem is middling and Nabokov was a good but not great poet!< |
| Hmmmm that missing last line.... |
| A SENTENCE I LIKE |
|---|
He consulted his wristwatch. A snowflake settled upon it. "Crystal to crystal," said Shade.
| AN INTRIGUING SENTENCE |
|---|
This batch of eighty cards was held by a rubber band which I now religiously put back after examining for the last time their precious contents.
06:00 UTC
What Are You Reading This Week and Weekly Rec Thread
Please let us know what you’ve read this week, what you've finished up, and any recommendations or recommendation requests! Please provide more than just a list of novels; we would like your thoughts as to what you've been reading.
Posts which simply name a novel and provide no thoughts will be deleted going forward.
11:44 UTC
General Discussion Thread
Welcome again to the TrueLit General Discussion Thread! Please feel free to discuss anything related and unrelated to literature.
Weekly Updates: N/A
13:01 UTC