"Let me state that without my notes Shade's text simply has no human reality at all since human reality of such a poem as his (being too skittish and reticient for an autobiographical work), with the omission of many pithy lines carelessly rejected by him, has to depend entirely on the reality of its author and his surroundings, attachments and so forth, a reality that only my notes can provide. To this statement my dear poet would probably not have subscribed, but, for better or worse, it is the commentator who has the last word" (Nabokov 28-29).
I feel I have been deceived a little. My first obvious point has been staring me in the face from the preface to the back cover, but I didn't want to see it. It's like how I knew my parents were Santa and the tooth fairy and the Easter bunny, but I didn't care to acknowledge it until forced to. Going back to our conversation in class-- I like lies.
John Shade is not real.
I knew this, but didn't know this, and I'm in shock, a little. I shouldn't be. I got through the foreward and a bit of the first canto, and I was thinking I was reading it weird. Like it was just a poem written by a dead guy. I typed in John Shade on the computer, google-ing him for confirmation. He's not real, and I feel like he's died all over again- which is weird that I would be sad, because I don't know him. . . yet. Maybe I won't feel so bummed when the poem is over.
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