Sergey Slavnov sslavnov@YANDEX.RU: Dear experts on Nabokov,I ask for clarification on the subject "who killed Shade in Pale fire". I have my own arguments, but would prefer to know experts' opinion.

 

JM: I'm no expert, but I can offer you a few clues. To begin with, there seems to have been a real murderer intent on  killing Judge Golsdworth (whose resemblance to Shade has been annotated).  Kinbote, of course, had another interpretation to give.

 

I've just gain access to The New Yorker 1944 issue with Kenneth Fearing's poem about Sherlock Holmes and clues left in the snow.  Unfortunately I cannot reproduce it here (but I also read, thru Google, that its copy-rights have not been renewed) but it begins with a paraphrased: "a crime, if there was a crime... a conspiracy, if there was one". So, the first thing would be to establish if John Shade was actually killed ( about this theme, check the List for Carolyn Kunin's theories, or M.Roth's notes in The Nabokovian).