While I don't think you need to be 'extremely literary' to enjoy it, Pale Fire is strong stuff, and challenging in surprising ways -- as the linked review expou

While I don't think you need to be 'extremely literary' to enjoy it, Pale Fire is strong stuff, and challenging in surprising ways -- as the linked review expounds on, at some length. Lolita is probably Nabokov's most accessible book, or at least the most accessible of his I've read, but I bet part of what you liked there is that you, the reader, don't interact with Humbert Humbert in quite the same way that Humbert thinks about himself, or might expect you would interact with him. Nabokov is profoundly good at this sort of authorial/editorial/linguistic misdirection. On those terms, Pale Fire is a sort of 3d chess version of Lolita. Obviously the topic is different, at least, the surface topic is different. Obsession is still very much a topic. Anyway, you might enjoy reading more Nabokov! Don't give up on him! To my mind he's one of the literary gifts from the 20th century. And you might enjoy Pale Fire on a re-read, but I'd recommend something else by him (or a few palate-cleansing/getting deeper on the Nabokov vibe choices) if it left you cold. It left me a little cold, too. I've been re-reading Ada or Ardor recently which I'd say is really outstanding, if longer and more florid than Lolita.