THE CHESS GRID
Below is my preliminary search to map out Pale Fire as a chess game. I believe that Nabokov has the reader move from commentary not only to feel like a pawn in a chess game but to actually act as a chess piece. This would explain why certain lines of the poem are mentioned and not others (just as not every portion of the chess board must necessarily be utilized in a chess game). It also explains why certain portions of commentary are returned to multiple times. This parallels how certain sections (especially the middle where the Pale Fire commentary requires the greatest amount of movement on the part of the reader) are more often frequented in a chess game. As you can see, I have yet to complete this, but it does give one a better understanding of how the novel is structured. Arrows denote commands to visit a section whereas dashes denote a simple allusion to a different section of the text.
Lines 1-4: I was the shadow of the waxwing slain, ect.
à see foreword on New Wye
à see lines 181-2
à see note to line 998
- (notes to 286 and 408)
Line 12: that crystal land
à see note to lines 39-40 Was close my eyes, ect.
à see note to line 962 Help me, Will. Pale Fire.
à see note to line 962 Help me, Will. Pale Fire.
à see note to line 894 a king
Line 17: And then the gradual; Line 29: gray
à see note to line 596
Line 27: Sherlock Holmes
Lines 34-35: Stilettos of a frozen stillicide
Lines 39-40: Was close my eyes, ect.
à see note to line 962 Help me, Will. Pale Fire.
Line 42: I could make out
-(lines 605, 822, 894, and 937)
-lines 70, 79, 130
Lines 47-48: the frame house between Goldsworth and Wordsmith
à see note to line 691
à see foreword: the coming of summer presented a problem in optics
à see note to line 62 often
à see notes to lines 47-48
à see line 691 and note
“Dear Jesus, do something”
Line 49: shagbark
à see note to line 549
Line 57: The phantom of my little daughter’s swing
Line 61: TV’s huge paperclip
-note to lines 71-72
Line 62: often
à see notes to lines 47-48
à see line 691 and note
Line 70: The new TV
à see notes to line 149
à see notes to line 171
Line 71: parents
à see eventually my ultimate note
à see not to line 130
Line 79: a preterist
Line 80: my bedroom
-notes to lines 275 and 433-434
-note to line 130
Line 85: Who’d seen the Pope
Lines 86-90: Aunt Maud
-line 90
Lines 90-93: Her room, etc.
Line 91: trivia
Line 92: the paperweight
Line 98: On Chapman’s Homer
à see note to line 802
Line 101: No free man needs a God
à see note to line 549
Line 109: iridule
à see line 634
Line 119: Dr. Sutton
=notes to line 181 and 1000
-line 986
Lines 120-121: five minutes were equal to forty ounces, etc.
à see note to line 181
Line 130: I never bounced a ball or swung a bat
-line 131 etc.
à see note to line 681
à see note to line 149
Line 131-132: I was the shadow of the waxwing slain by feigned remoteness in the windowpane
à see note to line 17
à see note to line 596
Line 137: lemniscates
Lines 143: a clockwork toy
Line 149: one foot upon a mountain
Line 162: With his pure tongue, etc.
Line 167: There was a time, etc.
à see note to line 181, “today”
Line 169: Survival after death
à see note to line 549
Line 171: a great conspiracy
à see note to line 17
à see note to line 596
Line 172: books and people
Line 181: Today
-notes to lines 286 and 408
Lines 181-182: waxwings. . . cicadas
-(bird in lines 1-4 and 131 and in ultimate line of poem)
-(cicada lines 236-244)
Line 189: Starover Blue
à see note to line 627
(go to square 209)
Line 209: gradual decay
à see note to 181
Lines 213-214: A syllogism
Line 230: a domestic ghost
à see note to line 347
à see lines 90-98
à see note to line 90
-lines 5-12
Line 231: How ludicrous, etc.
à cp: "Rabelais," line 501
Line 238: empty emerald case
à see lines 243-244
à see, frequently see, note to line 181
à see note to line 802
Line 240: That Englishman in Nice
Line 246: . . .my dear
-lines 246-292
Line 247: Sybil
Line 270: My dark Vanessa
à see note to lines 993-995
à see, see now, my note to lines 993-995
Line 275: We have been married forty years
à see note to line 247
à see note to lines 433-434
Line 286: A jet’s pink trail above the sunset fire
Line 287: humming as you pack
-lines 287-299
Line 293: She
à see notes to line 230
à see notes to line 347
Line 319: wood duck
Line 334: Would never come for her
Line 347: old barn
à see note to line 181
Lines 347-348: She twisted words
Lines 367-370: then – pen, again – explain
Line 376: poem
Lines 376-377: was said in English Litt to be
à see foreword
à see note to line 894
Line 384: book on Pope
Lines 385-386: Jane Dean, Pete Dean
Line 403-404: it’s eight fifteen (And here time forked)
Line 408: A male hand
Line 413: a nymph came pirouetting
Line 417-421: I went upstairs, etc.
à see note to line 991
Line 426: Just behind (one oozy footstep) Frost
Line 431: March night . . .headlights from afar approached
à see line 445, more headlights in the fog. . .
Lines 433-434: To the . . .sea Which we had visited in thirty-three
à see line 240
-lines 261-267
à see note to line 80
Line 469: his gun
Line 470: Negro
à see note to line 998
Line 475: A watchman, Father Time
à see line 312
Line 490: Exe
Line 493: She took her poor young life
à see note to line 550
Line 501: L’if
Line 502: The grand potato
Line 502: IPH
à see note to line 549
Line 549: While snubbing gods including the big G
à see note to line 517
Line 550: debris
à see note to line 12
Lines 557-558: How to locate in blackness, with a gasp, Terra the Fair, an orbicle of jasp
Line 579: the other
à see foreword
Line 584: The mother and the child
Line 596: Points at the puddle in his basement room
-lines 627-630
Lines 597-608: the thoughts we should roll-call, etc.
à see note to line 149
-lines 606-608
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