Pale Fire

Synopsis

The american poet john shade is dead; murdered. His last poem, pale fire, is put into a book, together with a preface, a lengthy commentary and notes by shade's editor, charles kinbote. Known on campus as the 'great beaver', kinbote is haughty, inquisitive, intolerant, but is he also mad, bad - and even dangerous? As his wildly eccentric annotations slide into the personal and the fantastical, kinbote reveals perhaps more than he should.