Pale fire

Pale Fire is a novel written in the form of a scholarly work: the annotated edition of the poet John Shade’s final poem, “Pale Fire.” As such, the novel consists of the text of the poem itself, plus a Foreword, Commentary, and Index written by Shade’s colleague and neighbor, Professor Charles Kinbote. As the poem’s editor, Kinbote’s job is to help readers understand Shade’s poem by providing analysis and context—a task at which he comically fails, since he devotes most of his Commentary to telling unrelated stories of King Charles the Beloved, the deposed king of Kinbote’s native country of Zembla.