Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov

 

This novel is a mixture of prose and poetry.  It starts with a forward by the character Charles Kinbote, explaining his relationship with the English poet John Slade who died shortly after writing the cantos that compose the next part of the book.  The majority of the book is after the poetry where Kinbote gives his commentary on the Slade work.

In his commentary, we discover that the poetry, at least in Kinbote's mind, is the story of a king forced from his kingdom and who ends up in England.  It becomes increasingly apparent that Kinbote is this king and that he believes this is his story, as he told it to Slade in the after dinner walks they took.  He believes that he had a great friendship with the poet and his wife but it emerges that the friendship is mostly in Kinbote's mind as is the subject of the poetry.  He writes about the assassin who is sent to kill the escaped king and about Slade's wife who he dislikes and blames for the fact that the friendship has never become what he wanted.

Vladimir Nabokov was born in Russia, spent significant time in France and England and ended up in the United States from the time of World War II.  This work is a sly comedy, a mystery and a history all rolled into one.  The character John Slade is secondary, used only to serve as an impetus to tell the story of Charles Kinbote who is the king written about.  I loved this work and highly recommend it to those searching for an approachable Nabokov novel to start with.  This work is recommended to literary fiction readers.