I was the shadow of the waxwing slain (no, really, I almost was)

[undyingking]

In my dream last night I was preparing to go to a party with a Pale Fire theme. I was uncomfortably aware of not having read the book for years, and not being up to speed on the busy world of its exegesis and explication. Also, I had no idea of what to wear as costume. My tentative plan was going to be to ask the other, more knowledgeable, guests "Are you a Shadeite or a non-Shadeite?"; and then nod in the right places, smile politely and sip my drink as they expounded their personal theories.

This is possibly the most culturally highbrow dream I've ever had – I am quite impressed with my unconscious (although I think the term for one who believes John Shade also wrote the Charles Kinbote material is actually "Shadean" rather than "Shadeite").

If you haven't read Pale Fire, by the way, you really must: it's brilliant, and also very funny. At least, I think so: but what do you think? 1 = bad, 10 = good.

[Poll #1664071]

And I should reread it, as that bit of the dream at least was true.

Comments

[venta.livejournal.com]

If you're going to have loads of buttons instead of just "like/don't like" radio affairs, you could at least make the options attached to them a bit more orthogonal. That way I might have been able to express the blind terror induced by that Wikipedia summary.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Mm, I guess so. I suppose just projecting your level of blind terror onto a good-bad axis is always likely to be more towards the bad end.

(Blame al_fruitbat, it was his idea.)

[jackfirecat.livejournal.com]

isn't the median of two results, one 9 and one 10, 9.5 not 1.5?

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Mm, eff knows what's going on there.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

It seems to have corrected now there's a third response. Hmm.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

By way of clarification: I might have liked the idea of Pale Fire quite a lot had it not been poetry, but poetry and I don't get along.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

In the edition I have, only 32 pages out of 248 are poetry -- the rest is the 'commentary' etc -- so it's not too bad from that pov.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Ooh, might read it then!