The Review of Contemporary Fiction

Nabakov's "Pale Fire": The Magic of Artistic Discovery by Brian Boyd
Irving Malin

Brian Boyd. Nabokov’s “Pale Fire”: The Magic of Artistic Discovery. Princeton Univ. Press, 1999. 303 pp. $30.00.

Boyd, the distinguished biographer of Nabokov, believes that Pale Fire is a masterpiece, a text that must be read many times. He links it to the idea of discovery proposed by Sir Karl Popper: “Like Nabokov, Popper stresses that there is always more to discover and no right road to discovery. We sense a problem, to which we freely invent solutions that we then need to test against alternatives by comparing their consistency, their consequences, their explanatory power.”

Boyd, who has announced himself as a “Shadean,” proposes as discovery that there is a ghostly presence behind Shade and Kinbote—that this presence compels their creations. I cannot reveal the presence, but I must inform the reader that this premise is thrilling; it changes our direction. Pale Fire is, according to Boyd, not simply a game that can never be solved. He offers a solution which is convincing because it assumes that Nabokov affirms the belief in an “afterlife.” And this belief refuses to rest on indeterminacy.

But will we be able to accept Boyd’s solution as the truth? According to Popper (as mentioned by Boyd), there “is no sure method of discovery that all our ideas involve conjecture and are subject to refutation.” Boyd, indeed, hopes that we can go beyond his “discovery” and find a better one. This critical study, therefore, 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]


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The Review of Contemporary Fiction Nabakov's "Pale Fire": The Magic of Artistic Discovery by Brian Boyd Irving Malin Brian Boyd. Nabokov’s “Pale Fire”: The Magic of Artistic Discovery. Princeton Univ. Press, 1999. 303 pp. $30.00. Boyd, the distinguished biographer of Nabokov, believes that Pale Fire is a masterpiece, a text that must be read many times. He links it to the idea of discovery proposed by Sir Karl Popper: “Like Nabokov, Popper stresses that there is always more to discover and no right road to discovery. We sense a problem, to which we freely invent solutions that we then need to test against alternatives by comparing their consistency, their consequences, their explanatory power.” Boyd, who has announced himself as a “Shadean,” proposes as discovery that there is a ghostly presence behind Shade and Kinbote—that this presence compels their creations. I cannot reveal the presence, but I must inform the reader that this premise is thrilling; it changes our direction. Pale Fire is, according to Boyd, not simply a game that can never be solved. He offers a solution which is convincing because it assumes that Nabokov affirms the belief in an “afterlife.” And this belief refuses to rest on indeterminacy. But will we be able to accept Boyd’s solution as the truth? According to Popper (as mentioned by Boyd), there “is no sure method of discovery that all our ideas involve conjecture and are subject to refutation.” Boyd, indeed, hopes that we can go beyond his “discovery” and find a better one. This critical study, therefore, 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]

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