Pale Fire Poem on Index Cards

I'm doing a project I've wanted to complete for a long time: write Vladimir Nabokov's poem Pale Fire onto 80 medium sized index cards, precisely as his book intended.

Creating the note cards are more than just for aesthetic appeal. I believe that through hand-copying a piece of writing, one emulates the process an author went through in creating a work and can 'step into the shoes' and get a better perspective than simply reading.

George Washington as a young boy hand copied some hundred 'Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation.' to really internalize those ideas and shape a system of morality to guide his decisions. ref. I heard his story while I was in high school, so I did the same. I have yet to be elected President, but I blame that on account of being born outside the States ... as well as my overall mistrust and abstinence towards politics.

Pale Fire is less instructive than Washington's Rules of Civility in practical terms, but has its own merits. What interests me about Pale Fire as a hand-copying project is the unique way in which the index cards structures the poem, and the ideas therein. Nabokov's immigrant perspective on American culture is thought-provoking, and Nabokov's intelligence and quirky individualism permeates his writing. 

Two limited edition publications of the poem onto index cards have been commercially available. Arion Press, published 1994, printed the poem's lines as described in the novel. Gingko Press, published 2011, added stylistic facsimile corrections and smudges to each card.

Arion edition,
faithful to novel

Gingko edition,
interpretive style

Although the Gingko edition aesthetically seems to resemble something an author would write by hand, I think it is less faithful to Nabokov's work. The gratuitous ink blots and cross-outs don't seem characteristic of Nabokov's description: 'a tidy, remarkably clear hand'.

But more importantly, the poem's lines are not arranged in the precise structure outlined in the novel. Liberties with facsimile revisions make the poem's 999 lines fail to adhere to the strict decomposition across exactly eighty index cards, each consisting of fourteen lines.

To me this is no trivial oversight! Nabokov actually did compose novels on note cards identical to the ones described in Pale Fire. One can assume he composed Pale Fire itself on note cards, careful to detail as the novel described! But why do I think that this structure is important?

Nabokov's note card
the Great American Novel,
fourteen lines at a time!

The fourteen line compartmentalization of the author's thoughts and organization of his work, lends an interesting feel for how his poem came together. I can just imagine Nabokov, penning a semi-colonic phrase on the last line of his index card, where the structure of his writing medium calls for a natural break. You miss out on identifying these breaks when reading the poem in one long strand.

Lines sometimes finish a note card as well as a section:  40, 78, 166.
Then there are lines at or near the end of note card lines that lead a transition from one idea to the next:

13: "Retake the falling snow...",
27-28: Was he in Sherlock Holmes, the fellow whose / Tracks pointed back when he reversed his shoes?',
51-53... "The setting sun / Bronzed the black bark, around which, like undone / Garlands, the shadows of the foliage fell."
65: "Switching from chippo-chippo to a clear ..."
90: "She lived to hear the next babe cry. Her room"
129-130 Asthmatic, lame and fat, / I never bounced a ball or swung a bat." (129 is the fourteenth line, but 130 ends the section - almost!)

In truth, the first canto does fit exactly onto thirteen index cards, including single line skips between sections of prose, with not a single line to spare! I left the fourteenth line on the first note card blank by mistake, and found out the last line would not fit on the last note card, by exactly that one line I skipped!

Coincidence that the math added up exactly?

I may be wrong, but I doubt it! - Chuck Barkley