Nabokov's Pale Fire by Brian Boyd

Nabokov's Pale Fire by Brian Boyd

Leads the reader step-by-step, gradually revealing the relationship between Vladimir Nabokov's ethics, aesthetics, epistemology, and metaphysics. This work shows how Nabokov's interest in discovery springs in part from his work as a scientist and scholar, and draws comparisons between the processes of readerly and scientific discovery.

One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2000 "My award for Novel of the Century goes to Nabokov's Pale Fire..The book that prompted these reflections and confirmed me in my choice for Novel of the Century was Brian Boyd's remarkable, obsessive, delirious, devotional study."--Ron Rosenbaum, New York Observer "It seems impossible for any scholar to write about Pale Fire, Nabokov's novel disguised as a poem and a pseudo-scholarly consideration of that poem, without appearing to be offering a mimicry of the great work. Nabokov's Pale Fire is no exception. Writing with an intensity that would suit Pale Fire's own narrators, Brian Boyd, a leading authority on Nabokov, gives an exquisitely detailed reading of the book and advances a new thesis about which fictional character (or characters) is supposed to have written the book."--Publishers Weekly "Brian Boyd's strength as a critic ... is that his compendious knowledge of Nabokov's biography and writings, especially those in English, is matched by his level-headedness and attention to detail."--Catriona Kelly, Times Literary Supplement "[Boyd] is far and away Nabokov's best-informed and most subtle critic... [He] bases his new interpretation on a staggering wealth of textual and extratextual detail and is clearly right on every major argument."--Choice "A readable, elegantly written and witty guide through [the] process of discovery to which Nabokov himself invariably invites us, in what is arguably his finest novel."--Helen McLean, The Globe and Mail "This critical study ... is not merely a brilliant search for the 'truth' of Pale Fire--it is also a study of the way we read texts and think about existence."--Irving Malin, Review of Contemporary Fiction "[E]ye-opening... Boyd's singular reading ... suggests a novel that is in fact startlingly harmonious, one in which life and death blend in seamless unity."--Daniel Zalewski, New York Times Book Review "Writing with an intensity that would suit Pale Fire's own narrators, Brian Boyd, a leading authority on Nabokov, gives an exquisitely detailed reading of the book."--Publishers Weekly "This startling new theory is not only hard to refute--it makes it impossible for anyone to see Pale Fire under the same light... For the discoveries that lie ahead we are now indebted to Boyd's scrupulous research and pertinent interpretation. Nabokov's Pale Fire: The Magic of Artistic Discovery is truly the essential companion/mode d'emploi to one of the greatest masterpieces of the 20th century."--Alexandre O. Philippe, Bloomsbury Review "Boyd's Pale Fire will change how we read Nabokov's. Boyd brilliantly shows the intensity with which the three parts of the novel 'recall' one another... Above all, Nabokov's Pale Fire is a manifesto for close reading. There can be no better recommendation than that."--Eric Naiman, Slavic Review

Brian Boyd is a Professor of English at the University of Auckland. New Zealand. He is the author of the prize-winning Viadimir Nabokov The Russian Years (Princeton) Viadimr Nabokov: The American Years (Princeton), and Nabokov's Ada The Place of Consciousness. He has also edited Nabokov's English novels and autobiography for the Library of America and Nabokov's Butterflies for Beacon Press.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780691089577
ISBN 10	0691089574
Title	Nabokov's Pale Fire
Author	Brian Boyd
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Princeton University Press
Year published	2001-11-04
Number of pages	320
Prizes	Short-listed for Choice Magazine Outstanding Reference/Academic Book Award 2000
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.