Anonymous
8/13/2025, 9:55:01 AM
No.24634168
>>24634172
>>24634215
>>24634774
>>24634832
>>24634979
>>24634988
This book is very Talmudic
It is clear Nabokov was a Talmudic scholar in secret and structured his 1962 novel 'Pale Fire' with the same structural devices used in the Talmud.
>be Nabokov
>married to Jewish wife
>pretend to be butterfly and chess aficionado, just a disguise
>secretly studying Talmudic structure and form at night
>1962 write Pale Fire
>pretend it’s just a foreword, poem, footnotes, and index
>actually it’s Mishnah and Gemara
>poem = Mishnah
>Kinbote’s commentary = Gemara
>index = the Rashi
>forces reader into chavruta with Charles the schizo
>polyphonic disorder, no closure, truth unknowable
>commentary overshadows core text like in Talmud
>reader keeps flipping pages like when studying Talmud tractate
>structure so alien to Western canon people laud it as genius, just copying Talmud structure
>tfw Nabokov was the greatest Talmudist of the 20th century
>be Nabokov
>married to Jewish wife
>pretend to be butterfly and chess aficionado, just a disguise
>secretly studying Talmudic structure and form at night
>1962 write Pale Fire
>pretend it’s just a foreword, poem, footnotes, and index
>actually it’s Mishnah and Gemara
>poem = Mishnah
>Kinbote’s commentary = Gemara
>index = the Rashi
>forces reader into chavruta with Charles the schizo
>polyphonic disorder, no closure, truth unknowable
>commentary overshadows core text like in Talmud
>reader keeps flipping pages like when studying Talmud tractate
>structure so alien to Western canon people laud it as genius, just copying Talmud structure
>tfw Nabokov was the greatest Talmudist of the 20th century
