Shade's Commentator
John's next-door neighbor is Charles Kinbote, who may or may not be suffering delusions of grandeur. Kinbote is the presenter and annotator of Shade's poem. Some critics assert that Kinbote is Shade's invention, while others maintain that Shade is a literary device or a fiction that Kinbote employs to further his own ends. Other interpretations are possible; Zembla — the country Kinbote claims to come from — is after all a land of "resemblances."
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Famous quotes containing the word shade:
“A theory of the middle class: that it is not to be determined by its financial situation but rather by its relation to government. That is, one could shade down from an actual ruling or governing class to a class hopelessly out of relation to government, thinking of gov’t as beyond its control, of itself as wholly controlled by gov’t. Somewhere in between and in gradations is the group that has the sense that gov’t exists for it, and shapes its consciousness accordingly.”
—Lionel Trilling (1905–1975)