This channel really dropped one of the best literary analyses on KZfaq and disappeared from the face of the earth

....why is this your only video???? This is precisely what i need from youtube. DO MORE!!

I don't have much to say but I wanted to commend you for your excellent work here. Rarely do I finish a video essay and say, out loud, 'Holy shit.' Not to toot my own horn or anything, but upon writing my review of this book for Goodreads, I came to realize how similar it was, both structurally and thematically, to House of Leaves, and was totally stoked when you pointed that out too. This truly might be one of the best video essays I've ever seen, especially with all the art and the music being by just you two. Just stellar. Also, that song is a bop and a half. Truly haunting.

Excellent analysis! This helped clear up some very nebulous ideas I had grabbed from the text while reading but never fully grasped or pieced together the meaning of. Furthermore, I have realized something you did not mention and it is making me cry, the TRUE tragedy of Pale Fire. It is not Shade's murder nor Botkin's suicide. Or, well, it is, but it goes one step further. You pointed out that Shade pities Botkin and is nice to him. What got me thinking is WHY does Shade pity Botkin. I believe that Botkin reminds him of his daughter, Hazel. They are both outcasts, lonely, hated by society. The Hazel/Botkin connection may even have been mentioned somewhere in the text? I can't remember. All could find in the way of evidence of John's feelings is in note 894, his diffusing of the tension between Botkin and Emerald could be described as paternal. Anyway, the True Tragedy of this book is that Botkin, disappointed that the poem is not about his Zembla, does not realize that as Shade got to know him, he was reminded more and more of his daughter, and was inspired to write the poem, come to terms with Hazel's death, and make peace with life, the grand potato, etc. Shade wrote Pale Fire, not ABOUT Botkin, as poor Botkin was expecting, but BECAUSE of Botkin. Shade saw him as a reflection of Hazel. BOTKIN IS THE SHADOW OF THE WAXWING SLAIN. In the foreword, Botkin talks about watching Shade take in the world and turn it into poetry: "Here he is... that is his head... He is looking ... at a distant lake. I am looking at him. I am witnessing... John Shade perceiving and transforming the world...so as to produce... a line of verse." Shade was walking with Botkin, was looking at the place where his daughter died, was working the poetry in his head. The poetry of the novel is astounding. The false azure sky reflection kills the waxwing. The false self in his own reflection kills Botkin. The false reflection of Hazel in Botkin kills Shade. The false reflection of Goldsworth in Shade kills Jack Gray.

The unfinished index is so haunting

For the first time I realized those first lines in the poem are also a reflection to the life of Kinbote, which also seems to confirm he indeed committed suicide and hopes to live on through the work of a more talented man by being a part of it in his own unsavory way. The window pane is also a nod to how he spied through the windows. And he shadowed him (followed)

Just finished the book today and I am so grateful that this video exists. Like you mentioned, I just skimmed the index and didn't think much about it. Thank you for the video; it was both entertaining and eye opening.

Dayum. This is so good! Ada or Ardor next would be a gift.

"Dear Jesus, do something." They went there and did. Y'all are fantastic. Please make more videos!

This is a wonderful video about a fantastic novel. Really excited for this channel to grow!

Just finished the book, and this video really gave me some extremely valuable insight into what this work really encompasses. Super explanative and well edited too.

This is a great study. I read the book last year and it was really interesting to watch this. I believe the Russian immigrant theme could be somewhat taken from Nabokov's own life. There's also probably something to the fact that Zembla is a monarchy that got taken over by communists, forcing the main character to run. Nabokov got really screwed over by the October Revolution and the way Kinbote/Botkin describes Gradus (especially the "Mere springs and coils..." paragraph) felt like a reflection of his thoughts. I spent hours on the nabokovian reading about different interpretations, but this is the first instance of one so consistent and concrete. The fact that this channel is so underrated is a war crime, this is an absolute gem

That's the perfect commentary for KZfaq. Not superficial while not being too lengthy. I would love to see your review of other Nabokov's books like The Real Life of Sebastian Knight / Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle.

Legend! Really enjoy how you step by step solve the puzzle of Pale Fire and how it turned out to be a tragic story.

I have not been able to stop talking about this book since I started reading it and this video is amazing! I am so happy that there are people passionate enough to spend this much time making an youtube analysis on such a nice subject as they would on a good video game or something else. I loved the part about how pale fire is an interactive experience. I can't express enough how happy I am that people can have as much fun with this older and less accessible story! Video also cleared my questions and I can't wait so see where this channel will go in the future!

This is one of the best video easey I've seen about litterateur.

so cool. I don 't understand why there are so few views . Thank you for the analysis

A lot of great work was put into this video. Thank you for this. PLEASE MAKE MORE!

Wonderful video, you do the book a lot of justice and that little nod to alternative story telling and how this book is a prime example of it really wasn't expected but it was appreciated!

Very impressive video! I so hope you make more of them.

Superb. I just finished Pale Fire and can't stop thinking about it. This opened up so many new perspectives that I hadn't considered.

That was so fucking good. Throughout the video when you brought up certain sentences I remembered that I had felt a pang of confusion or unease when I encountered them but moved on without drawing any connections (such as the faculty member saying I thought your name came from Botkin and Botkin as a job type surname). How much of this was your analysis and how much was from the essay you mentioned? Regardless, everything in this was so well done. Thank you so much. Must say I feel a little cheated that the (Penguin!) Kindle version didn’t have the index. Thanks again and very excited to follow this channel onwards.

The Scottish accent is beautiful. Great first video

Ghosts in Pale Fire are actually a rabbit hole at least as deep as the Botkin one and in my opinion make all the themes of mirrors, reflections, suicide, the afterlife, authority and authorship come together beautifully. Once you add up the details in the commentary (especially those that are concerned with mirrorings), a picture emerges of Shade finishing his work as a ghost from the afterlife by haunting Kinbote's story and aiding his own death by guiding Gradus (within the fiction of Kinbote), thus becoming the waxwing that crashed into his own reflection and mirroring his daughter's suicide. Just as Kinbote was initially disappointed that the poem wasn't about Zembla but later claimed to have found bits of Zembla in it, the reader is initially jarred and disappointed that the commentary ignores the poem completely, but then realizes there is bits of Shade in Zembla. I won't list all the evidence I've found for this theory, but I think Brian Boyd's The Magic of Artistic Discovery should cover most of it, though I haven't read it yet. It'd make for a cool sequel to this video.

you two work very well off of each other, very impressed with this work.

This is incredible. Please, please do more!

This was a brilliant analysis and so charmingly and engagingly delivered. Magnificent work!

I finished Pale Fire this week, and oh my gosh, this video has shed so much light on my reading! I totally missed the Botkin references (happy to admit I neglected the index), I did consider that Kinbote might be a creation of John shade, but the Prof Botkin solution seems a lot tidier/meatier. Gonna have to pick it back up and give it another going through- thanks so much for the analysis! Is the song at the end something you wrote? It’s fab!

You put a lot of work into this!! You deserve to see the fruits of your labor. Thank you for everything.

Superb. The best analysis I’ve ever read or viewed about my favourite novel. So good that this is the first and probably the only comment I’ve ever made on KZfaq. Absolutely wonderful!

This is probably my favourite book, ever. You guys made it an even more rich post-read experience and I can't thank you enough! Hope you're both doing well and can't wait for more content ;)

What an amazing video. Seems to have come perfectly in time for me to have finished reading Pale Fire! So very glad you guys made this and made it so entertaining, thorough and creative. Would love to see more. Keep it up.

This is so well done. Please make more.

Wow!!! Such an incredible video, really took me on a journey and recontextualized my reading of the book. I can't wait to see what you guys do next

Reading it on mini pad is the best! Can search names, words, definitions and I can mark up pages with scribble, highlights and notes. It’s quite the Meta experience doing exactly what Kinbote that nutcase is also doing.

I just finished this last week this video was recommended to me at the perfect moment

What a beautiful video for a masterpiece. Please continue, your efforts are not as hidden as the text the video examines.

A lot of great work in this video! can’t wait for more.

This was an amazing analysis. Thank you so much for this

I really enjoyed this. Thank you!

This is an extraordinary video with incredible thoughtfulness, care and concern. You picked a pretty niche topic so the reach will be limited, but it deserves accolades.

That was simply amazing. Thank you very much

Excellent! I love this book, and I've never found a good video on it until today. Thanks a lot. I hope you will continue running this channel!

This is a deep analysis. Respect to all involved for deconstructing this. You have invested a lot of time in this and it shows. Much appreciated.

I admit that the "intentional murder" of Shade by Gradus, who was prosecuted by Goldsmith, got past me. I thought that it was a botched assassination as Gradus was incapable, but your analysis of Botkin living in Judge Goldsmith's house makes sense especially with the quotation that Gradus actually knew the place. Thanks!

Thank you for making this

I love this format of video essay, please make more !

Excellent video, can’t wait to see how this channel continues to emerge and grow.

Fantastic. Thank you very much. Your video opened my eyes to some more intricate details, like the real identity of Gradus. Meta-analysis also was perfectly on point. I am happy you made this book more accessible to some people

My wife has been watching the show You lately and when reading through the book, I really thought Kinbote was going to end up killing Shade. That everything about the revolutionaries was just him justifying it. I thought there were a lot of similarities between Kinbote and the main character from You. They are both just full of delusions about who they are and their relationship with the other person.

Great analysis! I just thought that it would be interesting to note the mention of mammoths (king-bot, maggot of extinct fly that once bred in mammoths and is thought to have hastened their phylogenetic end) in the Botkin’s index entry, as, although the hypothesis is outdated today, Novaya Zemlya (aka "Zembla") was long thought to be the last refuge where woolly mammoths survived.

THIS ROCKS!!!!!!!

Incredible analysis, even better song

I really enjoyed this video! Can't wait for what you guys have been up to since this came out.

Good video, hope you make more. I’m studying this for quiz bowl

This book is shown on the coffee table of the protagonist in Blade Runner 2049

Amazing! thanks for all the effort you put in. Really hope you end up covering some more Nabokov. Would love to see something on Ada

Amazing video. I wish all the success to your project! :)

What an amazing video! Very well done both

I really appreciate this! Thank you!!

What a wonderful job you guys did with this video! Thank you for putting this all together and sharing

Amazing video! Please keep making videos!

Thank you sooo much. Great vid. Great novel.

This was an amazing video, hopefully you guys continue to make more

Lovely video, and well done. Excited to se what else you get up to.

Thank you so much! Having english as a second language, I found this much more difficult than Lolita. Didn't stop Nabokov though : ) Speak, Kimbolt!

The song in the end. *Bozhe moy! Bozhe moy!*

Thanks for the video

Thank you so much for sharing this!

Such a amazing video. Hope you post more!

Amazing! Thank you.

This is such a brilliant videa, it really explained so much that I could not pick up in my one read of pale fire. I just have one question... What did you think of the alternative lines in the draft that Kinbote presents, that have more explicit allusions to Zembla? Do you think he made those up or do you think Shade wrote those maybe just to humour Kinbote?

Greetings from Auckland. Loved this video. Subscribed.

It’s like analog horror before analog horror in the written word! Lovely thank you!! I just finished Pale Fire and love this analysis. ❤

I'm interested in how this book relates to Blade Runner 2049. I can't believe they're leading me to decipher literature.

Excellent work - chapeau!

Casually drops somes of the best literally analysis out there, refuses to elaborate, leaves. What did they mean by this? Are they waiting for blade runner 3????

Great Job!

Great work!

wow @ the song at the end!!

Amazing

will you do another nabokov novel next?

Cool video, L&S.

amazing video i cried for real thank you´s from mexico city :)

Brilliant :)

Thank you!!. I am currently reading this and was losing my mind over Zembla. I started doubting my own level of intellect lmaooo. Turns out Kinbote really sucks and I'm not surprised by this move of Nabokov's. He likes to play with the reader this way.

Pale Fire also contains an in-joke reference to "hurricane lolita", you get it or you don't.

I think this channel is gonna get me into literature. Oh no

I like your thinking. Hal...... = Halitosis. See Charles Dares Substack, lost work

This is a great analysis. I'd suggest to dive deeper in the atomic bomb ideas (as Cold War and McCarthysm are referenced throught he book) and the way Pale Fire is a parody of certain strains of literary criticism.

The writer in masterful English, Vladimir Nabokov ( 1899 - 1977 ). He also wrote many other books.

Alright, I’ll read it again, dammit

@___________uncompetative: No, it’s to do with the brilliance, wit and complete originality of the novel. Some of us like that sort of thing. The fact that Pale Fire was such a gloriously unexpected follow-up to Lolita is merely the vodka-soaked cherry on the multi-layered cake.

Interesting analysis. I'm surprised you didn't mention the idea that V. Botkin, a "Russian in America," is none other than V. Nabokov himself. My read of the book is purely a critique English departments and their endless analysis and unraveling of mysteries in places they don't exist, their commentary being asinine in contrast with the works upon which they spend their careers analyzing. The English majors themselves, so caught up in analysis of the "puzzle" presented to them, they are blind to the sheer absurdity of their plight. Your video, Nabokov's colleagues, and Nabokov himself included. It is only through writing a groundbreaking novel, so well-executed in its mysteries unraveled precisely and only by those it is satirizing, and the deeper you analyze the more you realize you, dear reader, are the butt of its joke.

TYSM I missed so much loool

@49:35 i really enjoy this song. What style of music would you call this? I'd like to find more music like it.

How do I constantly listen to that little mastpiece that ends the video?

I did read this book straight through and got most of it. (Except, as a former indexer, I didn't want to analyze one more index!)

i think the idea that kinbote committed suicide is further strengthened by the comment on line 493. he seems to have considered the idea of suicide quite a lot and has even sorted out what he thinks to be the most ideal way of doing it. he even says “if i were a poet i would certainly make an ode to the sweet urge to close one’s eyes and surrender utterly unto the perfect safety is wooed death. ecstatically one forfeels the vastness of the Divine Embrace enfolding one’s liberated spirit, the warm bath of physical dissolution, the he universal unknown engulfing the minuscule that had been the only real part of one’s temporary personality” then later says in the same note “so what can stop one from effecting the transition? what can help us to resist the intolerable temptation? what can prevent us from yielding to the burning desire for merging in god? we who burrow in filth every day may be forgiven perhaps the one sin that ends all sins”, which seems to me like him justifying suicide to himself.

Is there any way to get a copy of the song at the end of this video? So beautiful and haunting!