Pale Fire: Illustrated Sports Illustrated Sports Pale Fire Journal | Page 60

is great reason given the state of the patient, that circumstantial evidence would
be all that is needed.
Entry number 666
It is satisfying to see the doctors so interested in what I say. For once it
seems I am the one who has control of them. I do not feel they always dissect my
book the way it should be though. Books have souls. I must look into this books
soul and see what it says to me. The characters are dead now. The story is over,
but the soul lives on and that is what I must see.
Shade. There are many meanings contained in a singular word. It means so
many things. Shade of a tree. Shade of red, like Jell-O. Shade of a window. The
name of a poet. Is it so unreasonable to assume then that shade has many parts
to his character? The soul of the book says to look at the many shades of shade.
It seems impossible to contain them all in the carcass of a tree. I tried, the soul
of the book spoke to me and I wrote.
1. He starts a poem of 999 lines with shades and shadows. He says “I’d du-
plicate/ myself” he is already creating the idea that there is many shades
to be seen (1962, 33). The soul of his name makes it so. Shakespeare
said what’s in a name? a lot, a lot is in a name.
2. It seems the soul of the poem speaks to his shades. The corrected draft is
his life broken into fragmented pieces completely collapsing and yet sta-
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