Editing Pale Fire (section)

==Novel structure==
Starting with the epigraph and table of contents, ''Pale Fire'' is apparently the publication of a 999-line [[poem]] in four [[canto]]s ("Pale Fire") by the fictional John Shade with a foreword, extensive commentary, and index by his self-appointed editor, [[Charles Kinbote]].  Kinbote's commentary takes the form of notes to various numbered lines of the poem. Here, as in the rest of his [[critical apparatus]], Kinbote explicates the poem very little. Focusing [[monomania|monomanically]] on his own concerns, he divulges what proves to be the plot piece by piece, some of which can be connected by following the many cross-references. [[Espen Aarseth]] noted that ''Pale Fire'' "can be read either unicursally, straight through, or multicursally, jumping between the comments and the poem."<ref>{{cite book | last = Aarseth | first = Espen  |author-link = Espen J. Aarseth | year = 1997  | title = Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature | publisher = The Johns Hopkins University Press | page = 8 | isbn = 0-8018-5579-9 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=qx_-zj0-TwoC&pg=PA8 | access-date = 2010-04-02}}</ref> Thus, although the narration is non-linear and multidimensional, the reader can still choose to read the novel in a linear manner without risking misinterpretation.<ref>{{cite book | last = Chénetier | first = Marc | year = 1996 | title = Beyond Suspicion: New American Fiction Since 1960 | publisher = University of Pennsylvania Press | page = 74 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=vT48EdYFl1YC&pg=PA74 | access-date = 2009-09-18 | isbn = 978-0-8122-3059-8}}</ref>

The interaction between Kinbote and Shade takes place in the fictitious small college town and state of New Wye, Appalachia, where they live across a lane from each other from February to July 1959.  Kinbote writes his commentary from then to October 1959 in a tourist cabin in the equally fictitious western town and state of Cedarn, Utana. Both authors recount many earlier events, Shade mostly in New Wye and Kinbote in New Wye and in Europe, especially the "distant northern land" of Zembla.