There's a certain literary canon of "men of genius" and often Nabokov is recommended from this reference frame; people rightly react to its invocation. "Don't b

There's a certain literary canon of "men of genius" and often Nabokov is recommended from this reference frame; people rightly react to its invocation. "Don't be terrified of Pale Fire" frames "Pale Fire" as an impenetrable manifestation of the essence of genius, implying that if you were at the right level you'd get it, but—condescendingly—it's still "okay" if you don't get it! That framing is nonsense. It's a thing that's fun for some people, and a certain kind of lit-bro mistakingly believes that what they like is what's genuinely Good and what every smart person should like. I expect your aversion is actually to that voice which takes for granted that "smart-sounding" is equivalent to literary merit for everyone else, too. In fact, Pale Fire is quite a straightforward story, with a creative form with some puzzles to decipher if you feel like it. Or you can brush past them; the suspicious presence of contradictions is a delight in itself. It was fun for me at 22 but at 33 I would not go back and read it—I don't recall it being particularly deep, but it was a good time. I'm more interested in the other Russians now. Not that Nabokov, Tolstoy, or Dostoevsky have anything to do with each other. One would never think to group them at all if they hadn't written in the same language.