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From: mmar@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (Mitchell Marks)
Newsgroups: net.books
Subject: Re: Pale Fire
Message-ID: <1814@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 19-Mar-86 16:36:24 EST
Article-I.D.: sphinx.1814
Posted: Wed Mar 19 16:36:24 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 22-Mar-86 04:14:10 EST
References: <12423@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Reply-To: mmar@sphinx.UUCP (Mitchell Marks)
Organization: U Chicago
Lines: 14
Summary: 


Okay, Darkbloom fans:  What do you think, after all, of the *poem*
"Pale Fire" (included in the *novel* _Pale Fire_).  Originally the general
reaction was that it was pretty weak, which raised some tasty ironies about
why Kinbote thinks it's good, and how Shade got to be so famous -- just
one oozy step behind Frost.  Sometime in the seventies this trend in criticism
turned around, and those commenting on the novel started to treat the poem
as really pretty good in itself -- understood as a comic/ironic epic after
Pope, say.
    I think it's fun but still too much doggerel.  What say you?
-- 

            -- Mitch Marks @ UChicago 
               ...ihnp4!gargoyle!sphinx!mmar