A masterpiece, brilliantly conceived and executed—a spectacular example of VN’s conceptual and verbal artistry with “Aha” moments, smiles and laughs, and head-shaking awe on every page. Constructed as a commentary by Charles Kinbote, a visiting Zemblan professor at Wordsmith University in New Wye, Appalachia and the neighbor of the poet John Slade, on Slade’s 999-line eponymous poem. During the course of the increasingly irrational and obsessive commentary, it becomes clear that Kinbote is Charles Xavier, the exiled King of Zembla, overthrown by the extremists, who escaped the coup. A gay man given to bizarre behavior, Kinbote thinks Spade’s poem is about him and Zembla, and his commentary is similarly wrongly focused on that. What is apparently the murder of Slade by Jock Grey, an escaped mental patient, is turned into an attempt at regicide by Jacob Gradus whose travels from Zembla to Geneva, Nice, and New York City are described in great detail. Worth re-reading again for the deliciously clever details.