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Pale Fire
- Narrated by: Marc Vietor, Robert Blumenfeld
- Length: 9 hrs and 19 mins
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Pale Fire
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Summary
A 999 line poem in heroic couplets, divided into 4 cantos, was composed - according to Nabokov's fiction - by John Francis Shade, an obsessively methodical man, during the last 20 days of his life.
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Critic reviews
"This centaur-work, half poem, half prose . . . is a creation of perfect beauty, symmetry, strangeness, originality and moral truth. Pretending to be a curio, it cannot disguise the fact that it is one of the great works of art of this century." (Mary McCarthy, The New Republic)
"Of all [Nabokov's] inventions, Pale Fire is the wildest, the funniest and the most earnest. It is like nothing on God's earth." (New York Herald Tribune)
"A monstrous, witty, intricately entertaining work . . . done with dazzling skill." (Time)
What listeners say about Pale Fire
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 13-04-23
A sublime narration
It is true that this a complex book which can be read many times and requires close attention. This audio version brings out the humour and verbal dexterity of the text and the narration is perfect . Highly recommended , CPR.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 18-05-23
Brilliant reading: brilliant novel.
Nabokov’s novel is clever, rich, intriguing and absorbing. This readers (there are two) are adept and capture so well the novel’s spirit.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Samuel Davidson
- 05-06-23
Masterpiece
I have enjoyed and been riveted by this novel and the performances. Will now try more Nabokov.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- sin sin minkin
- 05-04-20
A story in footnotes
I've been looking forward to reading Pale Fire for many years. This performance gave it every nuanced touch possible. Absolutely amazing narration. For many, this may not be as thrilling as a conventional 'story', but hearing what lies beneath, in the footnotes or editorial notes to the poem Pale Fire (which is a beautiful piece of American Whitmanesque lyricism) is what gives this masterful work its poignancy and humour.
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- M. Sexton
- 31-03-21
Genius
I wasn't sure if this puzzle of a book would work as an audiobook. Very nicely performed. Highly recommended (though be aware of what you're signing up for)
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 14-06-22
dnf :(
maybe buy the book to do justice to nabokov and understand the flow and structure of pale fire.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- CMV
- 28-04-17
It's all very clever but...
I loved Lolita and loved the idea of this novel. I can't claim to have got all the in-jokes and levels of sub-text but I got a fair amount of them. Perhaps reading it and referring to the endnotes as you go might make it better. But I found this only occasionally amusing, the jokes laboured, and the book, ultimately, boring.
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8 people found this helpful
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Simon Huggins
- 13-10-24
Insufferable dullness as a device
I am sure someone will find this clever. Making the reader suffer an incredibly dull prologue because the unreliable narrator believes they are a great writer probably seems clever, but not so much if you want anyone to read any further. The poem itself was in relative terms a welcome respite. I think this was supposed to be funny. Maybe yo someone more erudite and who live fifty years earlier.
It left me being very grateful I never went the English Literature route in my education.
I think he thought he was very clever writing about someone who thought they were very clever writing about someone who thought they were very clever writing about personal tragedy
I quite liked the aside about someone trying to create anti-matter blowing their leg off.
Hence 2 stars.
The narrator was fine. But I cannot rate him higher because there was scant opportunity for great expression. I mean at least he got through it, so Kudos for that.
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- handsheldfast
- 23-10-22
Hard work
Difficult in audible form. You may need to have the text in front of you to trace the connections and allusions. I am not interested in this tangled post modern web.
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3 people found this helpful