What's better for a first read, poem then commentary or flipping back and forth between them?

are you me? I did this

Is this a good version?

Dual wielding with two copies as suggested in the book you mong.

his dad was assassinated

I only read the poem when I felt it was necessary. It was hilariously bad, I don't think he intended for anyone to actually read it through. What are you, autistic?

Why does everybody say the poem is bad? I liked it. Any arguments for why it's bad?

There's a line somewhere like "but all of a sudden, things got dim/ I got better, I even learned to swim" (obvious terrible paraphrase, but the point was the line is something of a non-sequiter and a shitty rhyme) along with other, equally crappy lines. There's a joke somehow about Shade actually being a kind of mediocre poet that Kinbote just happens to be obsessed with, as well as a number of places where Kinbote may have actually changed the open himself. I still think the poem is decent either way, for every crappy line there's a couple of great ones.

pleb opinions detected

Flip back and forth, then read the index through at the end.

I liked it too. The feel of mid 1950's academic suburban life is palpable, and Shade's reverse Lolita daughter thoroughly proto/lit/. 'No lips would share the lipstick of her smoke..' [You] motherfuckers are going to have to learn how to read. I'm not even a fan, but recognize the greatness of this novel in ALL its aspects.

Do you honestly believe Vlad had no idea some of the lines thudded? Of course he knew, it was fucking intentional.

Im trying to read it on an E-Reader right now, jumping back and forth

It's hell

The novel is interesting as a concept, I give it that

Some say it is a parody of T. S. Eliot's poetry, which Nabokov thought overrated. If that is the case, appreciating the poem would be missing the point.

maybe its a testament to eliots prowess that even a deliberate parody of his work holds power

Lol. My grandmother was raised in a castle and prosecuted for antisemitism, I am as patrician as can be.

The poem's aesthetic is a brutal roasting of aspirational middlebrow tastes. Like plebs who read the New Yorker or the NYRB to become "cultured".

>roleplaying on Veeky Forums of all places

you know there's a dedicated board for this right?

being the bastard child of a castle janitor is not something to be proud of, user

Two reasons, Nabokov was a not a writer of poetry and he also wrote it purposely to be bad to show the "author" was a bad poet

Even the intro is full of trite sentimentality. Maybe its more obvious if you actually read poetry.

My grandma was in the shoah, I am even more patrician and I quite enjoyed the poem. Even more than the rest of the book.

am p. sure a straight read-through is initially intended followed by cross-referencin l8r or awn a 2nd go

also p. sure whether the poems good or not relative to irl criteria is irrelevant 2 the book's gist (although it scans as first 3 sections acceptable, 4th as "purloined" by kinbote doo doo butt) - theres a v. clear case for kinbote bein Bonkers AF and simply existin as a bozo livin near an amusement park who made up the whole damn story

think the commentary'd obfuscation in relation 2 glimpses of that reality anchors pale fire's importance more than whether the poems actually "good" oar knot

>fell for the Jews can buy their way into society meme