Pale Fire

This is the most metafictional book I’ve ever read. The book is split in 3: A Foreword, a 999 line poem called Pale Fire, and then all the commentary / footnotes.

I couldn’t decide what was the right way to read this. You have 3 options:

1. Read straight through. Don’t ever jump ahead.
2. Read the foreword, then while reading the poem jump along to every footnote / commentary
3. Read the footnotes / commentary first, then the poem with the commentary, then the commentary again. Perhaps buy two copies and read them side by side. (This is what is recommended in the book itself)

I personally went with route 2, and of course physical. An e-book just won’t work.

The poem Pale Fire, written by Johnde, is wrapped by a puzzling foreword and commentary by a man named Charles Kinbote. Kinbote is telling his own ridiculous story of being an exiled king in the commentary, which we don’t really know is true or not.

I’ll have to re-read this since its such a layered and multi-faceted meta story, and encourage any lover of meta fiction to read this.