Reviews

The main character is such a milksop, perv and ultimately just a sly philanderer who likes to paint himself as romantic and innocent. The love interest, if you can call her that, takes advantage of him in ways that I feel he deserves. It's a testament to great writing to produce something so engaging wherein everyone is infinitely hateable, and for making me feel like a bad person for hating them.

spenkevich's review against another edition

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5.0

I. Foreword

With deepest sorrows, I regret to inform everyone to the death of fellow Goodreads reviewer, and my dear friend, s.penkevich. While he may have departed, I, Vincent Kephes, have taken upon myself the burden of collecting his notes and the half-finished reviews that he left behind in order to bestow them upon you all. I am certain beyond the shadow of a doubt that, having been close with s., this is in keeping with his wishes, and although they were never overtly expressed, I knew from the first moment we became acquainted that this was an undertaking he desired for I alone to embark upon. While it has been some time since we have seen each other in person, passing in the esteemed interior passageways of Eastern Michigan University and engaged together in academic adventures within the same four walls of many classrooms in Pray Harold’s Literature department, I have intimately following his scribblings on this website. After finding my way through his saved drafts, I’ve found a particular discarded review that radiates his voice and style, an unfinished work that belongs in the public eye. Having finished this particular novel of Nabokov’s back in the spring of 2012, s. left laconic remarks upon Goodreads stating his intention to return once he could “sort out some thoughts” and complete his work. I’ve taken some liberties, incorporating several of his rudimentary drafts and notes into one authoritative, polished copy, and have included a commentary to help understand the ideas that bounced through his mind while creating his review. My commentary to this poem, now in the hands of my readers, represents an attempt to sort out those echoes and wavelets of fire, and pale phosphorescent hints, and all the many subliminal debts to me. Without further adieu, I present to you the last review of s.penkevich’s.

II. Review of: Pale Fire By Vladimir Nabokov
‘'reality' is neither the subject nor the object of true art which creates its own special reality having nothing to do with the average 'reality' perceived by the communal eye’

Nabokov’s Pale Fire is at once a comedy of errors, and a biting satire on politics, literary criticism, as well as Nabokov’s own life and colleagues. Through the foreword and commentary of a fictitious poem, Nabokov stays impressively in character as Charles Kinbote as Kinbote misinterprets John Shade’s poem and imposes his own life story as the true underlying message of the poem. Through misdirection, intentional fallacies, wordplay and wit, as well as a vast array of allusions to his own works and life, Nabokov has created a parody of epic comedic proportions.

In keeping true to Nabokov’s style, I present to you a pale parody.

A Parody Fire
        I was the shadow of the reader slain
        by laughter through the tale of Zemblan’s famed
        runaway royalty, a story which
        served to mimic the politics
5     from which Nabokov also did flee
        like Pale Fire’s commentator to work in an American university.

        Through wordplay and wit this story unfolds
        of poets and spies as voyeurism grows
        an unshakable notion in our commentators brain
10   that it is he who inspires each clever refrain
        from his neighbors pen down into his last work of art
        then a conclusion takes the form of bullet through heart

        Through parody Nabokov takes a humorous jab
        at literary criticism and the way that we grab
15   for meanings that fit into our own ideal
        even when those meanings are completely unreal.
        So have a chucke, have a laugh
        and enjoy Nabokov’s tale of literary gaffe.

In short, a charming novel that I greatly enjoyed reading. The joy lies in Nabokov’s craftsmanship, and I am stunned how well he was able to keep this together.
4.5/5

III. Commentary

1. Through misdirection, intentional fallacies, wordplay…
Am I the only one made irascible by s.’ insistence on producing a thesis statement in each review, as well as incorportate a conclusion in most – this review lacks one for reasons of being an incomplete work, but one can be sure he would have been unable to rest lest he recapitulate his main points. This habit is surely a residual effect of our time spent together in Dr. L-‘s Lit. Theory course. Our marvelous professor insisted that within her course would be forged the perfection of the thesis statement, and it seems s. has been unable to remove himself from his memories of that class. Of utmost importance here is that this was where I first laid eyes on s., then a young, quirky teenager often adorned in band t-shirts featuring musical icons such as Neil Young (loathed) or, to credit his tastes, The Doors. While I sat a distance away from him – the effluvium of tobacco made sitting directly beside him a tad unpleasant for a non-smoker such as myself, I ensured a direct line of sight with his notes by placing myself a few rows behind him. I must confess that his note taking habits were lackadaisical, often drifting into juvenial attempts at poetry, or perhaps song writing. The following poem evinces his inability to break away from a rhyme structure that must have been made sacrosanct in him through angst-ridden punk bands like the Dead Kennedy’s (another t-shirt that frequented his wardrobe in those days). Old habits don’t just die hard, in s. they outright failed to die until he himself did.

2. Line 1: I was the shadow…
A parody of John Shade’s first line in his poem which reads: “I am the shadow of the waxwing slain”

3. Line 2: by laughter…
It seems s. has decided to produce his own little jab at me through this poem. The winter following our time spent together in Dr. L-‘s course, I happened to find myself seeking a new place of residence. Having heard from s. that he lived in the R- apartments, I quickly transcribed a letter to the housing office stating my desires to move in immediately, and, if at all possible due to my being a stranger in the area, to find an apartment close to his own so as to be comfortable around friends. While living near a close friend is a blessing, there are some deficiencies when that friend happens to live with two other roommates, all of which were loud and often intoxicated. Worse, s. began to learn harmonica and banjo at this time, a piercing sound like a tormented soul accompanying the already guitar-heavy clamor of their nightly escapades. Laughter would always thwart my efforts to sleep on weekends, and when one finds themselves alone in the night haunted by loneliness, the joyous laughter that only comes when close friends find themselves in high spirits formed by shared company tends to be nothing but a dagger through the heart. I had pitched multiple noise complaints against them, and this line is a message to me alone that he knew it was I who filed the aforementioned complaints.

3. Line 5: Nabokov did flee…
While Nabokov’s family did uproot over reasons of political turmoil, s. fails to draw the most obvious connexions here. Nabokov’s own father was killed by Piotr Shabelsky-Bork, his father protecting the life of Pavel Milyukov, whom Wikipedia calls “a leader of the Constitutional Democratic Party-in-exile.” To anyone with a scholarly eye, which, clearly, s. lacks, would note that Nabokov incorporates murders through mistaken identity in his novels to echo his fathers own death.

4. Line 6: Pale Fire’s commentator…
Another conspicuous insult directed towards myself. It is apparent that s. finds my features to be some sort of hilarious joke. Though I am not ashamed to have red hair, and very white skin – a feature that is often of discomfort to me during the summer months – it is outright injurious to nickname me “Pale Fire”. I am glad I have kidnapped s. in order to…. That last statement of kidnapping is in jest, and it seems by “backspace” key is out of order otherwise I would have it stricken from the records. It is a tragedy to have lost him, and my backspace key. Alas, we cannot take back our words, and now even in writing I have found myself stuck in the same conundrum. The obvious allusion is sealed by his referene to “an American university”, one of which we have met at. (See Note 1)

5. Line 8: Voyeurism grows…
To speak of me as a voyeur is also entirely unfounded. It was not I that chose for his bed to be directly in line of sight, seen clearly through the tiniest gap between his nightshade and window frame, that could only be viewed from the precise location of my late night reading chair. The chair absolutely had to have been positioned there in order to collect the rays of the moon upon my page so I would not need a night lamp in order to read and could hide myself in total darkness in order to become merely an extension of my novel, or my homework as opposed to a being producing or reading. I had no desire to be forced to watch him sleep from such a tragedy of coincidences, and when he saw me gazing out – purely to better reflect on my thoughts, staring into the abyss allowing it to gaze back into me, spacing out and only happening to be directed towards him, why should I have felt it necessary to avert my gaze? I was in deep thought, caught up in serious work, unlike he who knows nothing of scholarly knowledge and probing thought. Look at his reviews, the man can’t avoid using the term ‘prose’ at least once in every review. Had he an IQ beyond that of a toddler he would know there are resources such as a thesaurus – I assume he hasn’t utilized one as he cannot spell it in order to place it in the url bar.

6. Line 10: Clever refrain…
Clever, as defined by Wikipedia: “a large knife that varies in its shape but usually resembles a rectangular-bladed hatchet. It is largely used as a kitchen or butcher knife intended for hacking through bone. The knife's broad side can also be used for crushing in food preparation.” I suppose this use of cleaver was meant to be some metaphor at the cutting wit of Nabokov’s. Weak choice at best.

7. Line 11: last work of art
This line clearly defines my legal right to have obtained these documents. While I am currently pitted in a legal battle for “illegally” accessing his computer, I am certain this will provide more than satisfactory evidence in my defense. Besides, possession is nine-tenths of the law anyhow.

8. Line 16: when those meanings are completely unreal.
Upon reviewing earlier drafts, there are multiple lines crossed out in which it is evident he desired to use a phrase “misinterpretation of signs”. It seems he, like all juvenile poets, had the end rhyme as his goal and forced each of these meager lines towards keeping up with his laughable rhyme; rhythm and overall enjoyableness were victims butchered and slain in order to achieve his goal. You, reader, are also a victim for having been forced to read such drivel. Unlike s., I will refrain from placing an exclamation point at the end of the preceding sentence, I am not a child and I prefer to maintain a profession care over my punctuation at all times. Besides, what is with his use of the single inverted comma? He must think himself Knut Hamsun or Cormac McCarthy, both of which he must have seen me reading on my balcony, or seen tucked into my book bag at school as there is no possible way that it was from reading Kafka that he decided to investigate Hamsun. If it was Kafka, then surely he learned that from myself as well. When he sat outside reading from Virginia Woolf, I am certain it was only to discover a vantage point to peer in to my bookshelves, which I kept in the middle of my bedroom just so he could see them. I have spent years following his work to see that he is nothing but a shade of my own genius, and I am certain his reference of a John Shade in his introduction is simply a confession of such.
But I digress. The desire to use the term “sign” takes root in his job working as a sign maker at U- factory at the time of reading this novel. Several unfinished drafts for novels such as Steinbecks In Dubious Battle were found by myself as well, and it seemed he had failed in an attempt to relate Steinbeck’s message of workers revolt to his own plight working in the suffocating aluminum dust, low wages and hazardous conditions of the factory. He had a love for workers rights, which was hopefully beaten out of him by the absence of workers voice he must have encountered there. It is best that he did not post those, as politics and anything scholarly is truly above his capacities. Perhaps had he read more Hegel instead of Steinbeck he would have formed any worthwhile opinions.

9. Line 18: literary gaffe.
The literary gaffe is s.’ opinions and this poem altogether. Perhaps it is best that I have kidnapped… I mean, uh, let’s just ignore any attempts of what must be jokesters that say s. is alive and still writing on Goodreads, okay? He is a menace.

There you have it, the final work of s.penkevich. That's all folks.

The End(?)