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Nabokov Pale Fire The Magic of Artistic Discovery Brian Boyd Books

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Nabokov Pale Fire The Magic of Artistic Discovery Brian Boyd Books

I started this book halfway expecting a dry, jargon-filled academic analysis, and was pleasantly surprised. The book reads like a series of brilliantly clear and thought-provoking lectures in a course on this remarkable book... the kind of lectures where the prof gets applauded at the end (I envy the students at the U. of Auckland who can take Prof. B's courses!) He starts with the simple puzzles of the book (the ones that most readers figure out on their own, such as who V. Botkin is) and then takes the reader through a series of rereadings, and re-rereadings, eventually presenting his solution to the central problem of the book (I won't spoil the suspense by saying what it is, but it made sense to me). Probably the best aspect of the book is the guidance it gives about what to look for when you re-reread Pale Fire on your own. An example of what literary criticism ought to be!


Tags : Amazon.com: Nabokov's Pale Fire: The Magic of Artistic Discovery (9780691089577): Brian Boyd: Books,Brian Boyd,Nabokov's Pale Fire: The Magic of Artistic Discovery,Princeton University Press,0691089574,European - General,History,LITERARY CRITICISM European General,LITERARY CRITICISM Russian & Former Soviet Union,Literary Criticism,Literary studies: general,Literature - Classics Criticism,Literature: history & criticism,NABOKOV, VLADIMIR VLADIMIROVICH, 1899-1977,Non-Fiction,Russian & Former Soviet Union,ScholarlyUndergraduate,UNIVERSITY PRESS,United States,LIT004130,LIT004240

Nabokov Pale Fire The Magic of Artistic Discovery Brian Boyd Books Reviews

Right from the top I will state that I do not agree 100% with everything outlined in Professor Boyd's book on my favorite Nabokavian literary work. But I do share Professor Boyd's love for Pale Fire, and reading this book increased my enjoyment and appreciation of the work immensely. This was clearly a labor of love and it is an easy read (not dry and stale) for anyone who had the slightest enjoyment in reading Nabokov's book.
With a list price of $30, one would expect something of passable quality. Instead, Princeton Press went with their cheapest option possible - the "made on a 1984 Xerox machine" version. I've had coursepacks done by the local copy store that are of better quality. Every little pixel can be seen, giving the print a fuzzy, overly copied look. I struggled for two weeks to read this for a class and finally gave up halfway through, and what I did read I could barely comprehend due to the poor quality of the print, so it's hard for me to say what I thought of the actual content.

Before you wonder if it's just my copy, I can verify that this was the case of at least one other book - my friend's copy was just as poor. As far as I can tell, this is from the first paperback printing, 2001. Also, the cover is ugly. I really expect better from Princeton. I'm sure an undergrad from the college of design could do a better job. I mean, this is Brian Boyd, preeminent Nabokov scholar, writing about one of the greatest works of art ever written, and this is the best they could do? For shame!

Sorry for the single star review BB. It's nothing against your scholarship, which I'm sure is superb, it's just that it's hard to read.
Obviously I must not be as big a Nabokov groupie as other Pale Fire enthusiasts, because when I read Pale Fire in a college seminar, most of us spent weeks admiring Nabokov's academic satire and what we then thought was a purposefully horrible poem. Now I feel somewhat shamed because Boyd seems to think the poem itself is great poetry -- I cringe because our class read out loud particularly funny lines and laughed at what a good "bad" poem Nabokov wrote. Maybe Boyd does miss some of the humor, but that is all he misses. I don't think he leaves one line, joke, pun, or obscure reference unexplained. I enjoyed the first few chapters more because they stuck to many of the more obvious discoveries Nabokov intended his readers to make. By the middle, Boyd had my head spinning with some of the leaps of analysis -- I was too confused to agree or disagree. But by the end, his overall surprises and theories come together and make sense. No matter what you make of Boyd's theory, I applaud the book for its emphasis on close reading and for its obvious love of this great writer. Nabokov is one of this century's best and deserves this kind of in-depth reading. In the final chapter, Boyd answers some of the criticisms about his theory (by Michael Wood, for instance, a Princeton prof) and almost ends up sounding like Kinbote for a moment in his defensiveness. This book is a true discovery for a devout reader because it shows how to read better and more closely, how to link (bobo-link) seemingly unrelated bits together. Hats off to a great work of Nabokov scholarship -- Boyd brought in lots of information from Nabokov's other works that proved to be quite important.
I started this book halfway expecting a dry, jargon-filled academic analysis, and was pleasantly surprised. The book reads like a series of brilliantly clear and thought-provoking lectures in a course on this remarkable book... the kind of lectures where the prof gets applauded at the end (I envy the students at the U. of Auckland who can take Prof. B's courses!) He starts with the simple puzzles of the book (the ones that most readers figure out on their own, such as who V. Botkin is) and then takes the reader through a series of rereadings, and re-rereadings, eventually presenting his solution to the central problem of the book (I won't spoil the suspense by saying what it is, but it made sense to me). Probably the best aspect of the book is the guidance it gives about what to look for when you re-reread Pale Fire on your own. An example of what literary criticism ought to be!