Pale Fire

This isn't a book about the Russian taiga - and I'm sure you didn't think it was, either. Everytime I read Nabokov though, part of me thinks it will be set in Russia, in the countryside. This book, like Lolita, is American.

The sun is a thief; she lures the sea
and robs it. The moon is a thief:
he steals his silvery light from the sun.
The sea is a thief: it dissolves the moon.

There's a reason this book is famous; it's very good. How beautiful is that quote! And it's a clue, as well, to the whole book. It's ostensibly a book of poetry with commentary - actually it's a mystery. Is any of it real? Who is really writing the book? The wonderful thing is that there's no orthodox view on it all. You can read it and decide for yourself if the writer is Nabokov, or one of the people in the story - John Shade, the poet; Kinbote, his commentator; Botkin, the crazy university professor; or someone else altogether.

It's a very funny book, and it's very brilliant and clever, with lots of literary allusions (the one above is a "translation" of Shakespeare's Timon of Athen, Act IV, Scene 3), and lots of games. Perhaps it's too clever and intellectual to love ardently - but as food for the mind, it is wonderful.