When Vladimir Nabokov’s “Pale Fire” was published in 1962, reviewers wrote that it could be enjoyed at face value, but that it obviously hid many levels of complexity. Nabokov thought “the unravelling of a riddle is the purest and most basic act of the human mind.” He probably would have enjoyed one of the most remarkable academic books of this season, Nabokov’s Pale Fire: The Magic of Artistic Discovery (Princeton) by Brian Boyd, an attempt to unravel the riddles Nabokov embedded in “Pale Fire.” – National Post (Canada)