Category: Archived DMs

Pale Fire Peoples!
Welcome to Week 4! A nice long flight yesterday and some quality Father’s Day reading time has me nearly caught up. It seems like once I hit the King’s escape, things really started to move.
I was struck this week by two stylistic features this book has in common with Gravity’s Rainbow (perhaps they define the Cornell School): a predeliction for silly names (Gahr?!) and a love for the tangential detail, though where N. spins them out like playful fractals that go on a sentence or three or four, Pynchon was laying down dense-packed multi-paged tangents designed to re-, de-, and cross- wire our brains. (I ‘spose ya could argue that the whole commentary is like a 200+-page tangential detail, so mebbe Nabokov wins that battle after all.)
In related news, I’ve begun to read certain Kinbote passages with the voice of Dr. Evil. (“Physically, he was a sickly bald-headed man resembling a pallid gland.”)
Next week: We’ve got just two weeks to go (can ya believe that?). To keep them roughly even, this week will be a little on the short side. Let’s meet back up round about the “anonymous bard of the twelfth century,” which is to say, right after the commentary on Lines 681, also known as page 188 in the Everyman’s Library.

Pale Fire Peoples!
Welcome to Week 3. It’s very special week for me, because this is the first week when I’m officially a little bit behind, which means we’re really rollin’ now. I’ve been savouring it a bit too much methinks.
But enough about me — how are you doing out there? And more to the point, have you checked out the Palefire Deathmarch Wiki yet, for the demystification of tricky vocab? (Created some say by “Cort,” others say by “DavidG.” But in such murky matters can the truth ere truly be known?)
Speaking of “Cort,” don’t miss his exhortation to write frothy heroic bather-verse (wiki-style, no less) at the tail end of the thread for Week 2. I could be wrong here, but I think he’s talking to you.
Next week: Let’s meet back up just past “the adjacent position of these rhymes,” which is to say, right after the commentary on Lines 367-370, also known as page 149 in the Everyman’s Library.

Pale Fire Peoples!
Looks like we’re off to an excellent start. Lotsa folks on the march, with fully 20 posts so far on last week’s thread, including an excellent bit o’ background on the Zemlya of it all, filed just last night by so-called “Cort.” Good stuff!
This week is a bit of a paradox. We’ve now read the poem, so this would be an appropriate week for commentary on the poem before we read the, er, commmentary. On the poem. It’s sorta like a thin crack into which our world may whisper out. So, you know, stay frosty out there.
Me, I was surprised by how flat-out funny the foreword was — with occasional fore-shades of my beloved “Cruel Shoes” — and then again at how sad the poem sometimes dips, especially Canto 2, as Other Dan noted in last week’s thread. It’s a regular Pale Fire Emotional Death Roller Coaster March is what it is.
What’d you think?
Next week: Let’s dive into to the madness of King Kinbote and then meet up at page 105 in the Everyman’s Library, which is to say, the end of the comentary on Lines 130, in other words somewheres round about a passing reference to “the interesting note to Line 149.”

Welcome Pale Fire Peoples! Today is the first day of the rest of your Deathmarch. By my (very rough) count, we have around 20-30 folks on board — this should be fun.
For them what’re new to Deathmarching, here’s how it works: we’ll tackle the book in 40-50 pages/week chunks. Don’t sweat it too much if you fall a little behind — most folks do at some point. Try to resist racing ahead so as to exentuate the commonality of referential data.
Every Tuesday, I’ll post a thread right chere on cecilvortex.com. Use that thread for comments, which can be as low-key as “Hello Pale Fire Peoples!” or as erudite as [very erudite example here]. One request: If you’re re-reading the book, do yer best to avoid spoilers.
And that’s it. The entire sheebang.
Thanks much for making the ‘march. The book’s entirely new to me and I’m really looking forward to tackling page 1. The first two words appear to be “Pale” and “Fire,” which are words I already know, so I’m feeling pretty good.
Let’s hit the Foreword and the poem this week. Depending on the edition, that appears to add up to around 40-50 pages of actual text.
Next week: See ya at the start of the Commentary (page 57 in the el [everyman’s library], 73 in vi [vintage international]).

One week from today, the PFDM kicks off. Job one for this week: make sure you have yourself a copy of so-called “Pale Fire.” Job two: don’t read Pale Fire! Oh, you can read the cover copy. And you can read the spine. Please, read the spine. But as we learned with the GRDM, one of the biggest challenges in these DMs is not getting too far ahead o’ the pack, so be sure to leave them innards alone.
Over the next few days, getcher booties polished and yer canteen cleansed. Shake out the old pup tent. Next week: we ride!

A few weeks back, we wrapped “The Gravity’s Rainbow Deathmarch,” in which some 13 or 14 of us went screaming across Pynchon’s notoriously challenging uber-book.
Mark yer calendars. Two weeks from today — on May 31st — tanned, rested, and ready, we’ll be starting up Deathmarch 2. This time out, we’re tackling something a wee bit lighter and a whole lot shorter. By its rep, Vladimir Nabokov’s Pale Fire is a wild, one-of-a-kind read. Anthony Burgess says it’s a “brilliant confection.” Mary McCarthy, never one to be out done by Anthony Burgess, says: “This centaur work, half-poem, half-prose . . . is a creation of perfect beauty, symmetry, strangeness, originality and moral truth. Pretending to be a curio, it cannot disguise the fact that it is one of the great works of art of this century.” And various folks I know who’ve already read it say: “Great stuff!”
Here’s how the PFDM works: every Tuesday, I’ll leave a short post here on the site. If you’re reading along, drop by and post a comment — something insightful or erudite, random blather, or just a quick “hey now!” That’s it — that’s the whole deal. The book looks like a great ride. And the whole adventure should take around 7 weeks or so.
All are welcome — good friends, new acquaintances, and outright strangers. And yes, my old enemy, my nemesis: The Man with Five Hands: you are welcome too. The Big Idear is to use the momentum of the pack to get into books we might otherwise miss.
There are two main bargain editions online — The Everyman’s Library edition (an inexpensive hardcover) and the Vintage paperback. Either will work — I’ll include page references for both when we set our weekly targets.
And say, if you’re thinking of marching along, why not be here now and practice commenting at this very moment, by leaving one on this very thread. As an added bonus, it’ll help us get a rough head count so we know how much food and water to pack in. Metaphorically speaking.
See you out on that winding road…. -CV

In which our journey ends….
Congratulations and my thanks to everyone who took to the trail, you 35 or so who started this journey and enabled us achieve launch velocity, and you 13 or 14 who will make it through to the other side, 750 pages and 350+ comments later. A survival rate to be proud of, I think, given the history this book has for breaking people’s spirits.
Me myself, I’ve still got about 30 pages to go, which seems appropriate — I’ve been just a little behind most of the way. I’m savoring the last little bit now, sorta soaking up the sauce. Just got to a sequence this morning that seemed an excellent sharp-elbowed response to anyone understandably searching for a tidy wrap (page 733, p/v):

Underneath, someone else has written, in English: Good drawing! Finish! and underneath that, in another hand, It IS finished, you nit. And so are you.“

Defensive jabs and all. I’ve just loved the hell out of this book. The first 100 pages or so were pretty rough going for me, as I struggled to get the rhythm of the thing. And there were a few parts in the middle where he almost lost me. But certainly, from the Casino on, the pure fun factor has been much richer than I ever expected.
All in all, there are few books I’ve gotten more out of than this beast. And there’s just no way I would have ever gotten past page 30 without the group. So here’s to you all, with a mighty clink to clinking mugs in celebration.
Next week: We take a little bit of a break and soak our feet in preparation for the next trail — something a little bit easier on the knees and a great deal shorter. Look for “The Pale Fire Deathmarch” — coming soon to a cecilvortex.com near you.

Well this is it — the last stop before the final push! Just 7 days till we receive Ultimate Wisdom! Woo!
I enjoyed the last week’s reading, packed with taffy bits, although I’ll confess to getting pretty lost during the FF sequence. I’ll hafta go back and give that another read.
One recent passage I thought I’d pull out for the thread, on page 691 (p/v): “You didn’t like the haiku. It wasn’t ethereal enough? Not Japanese at all? In fact it sounded like something right outa Hollywood? Well, captain — yes you, Marine Captain Esberg from Pasadena — you have just had, the Mystery Insight! (gasps and a burst of premonitory applause) and so you — are our Paranoid . . . For The Day!)” which I thought was a really nice explicit statement re what we’ve talked about a fair bit here on the thread — the often cartoony/genre-heavy/cinematic style of the proceedings. It doesn’t necessarily say why he’s doing it, but at least it does say that we’re all named Captain Esberg from Pasadena. And again: Woo!
Next week: What can I say? See you on the other side. Perhaps it’ll be like the end of Narnia, and we’ll all be partying with the dead. Reepicheep! Peter Sachsa! Here I come!

At So-Called Bill’s excellent suggestion, last week turned into one final rest, reflect, and reread week before the grand finale. Now here we are, tanned and ready, primed for the big wrap and just — jinkies! — two more weeks to go. I really like the word “jinkies.”
Next week: Page 706 (p/v), once more with feeling….

So here we are at Week 14, and now it’s all right there, all right there within reach. Me myself, I’m about 8 pages off target, which is the closest I’ve been in a long while. The most recent stretch has been one of my favorites. In particular, the story of Byron the Bulb, which came across as pretty much a perfect thing. And it’s just two more weeks now. Just two more weeks, and the inside back cover will finally be revealed….
Next week: UPDATE — we’d originally targeted page 706 (p/v), but I like So-Called Bill’s suggestion from the comments of belaying those orders and taking one more week to soak up a little extra Pynchon goodness. So let’s call this week a time loop and let folks catch up and retrace their steps.