Simon Rowberry: Concerning Nabokov's own words on Pale Fire… we are left with two main options as to the meaning of this shift in his interpretation (interpretation, I would stress, is the key word here. There is no correct 'solution' to the novel, as it is not an empirical problem but a work of art, only interpretations).[…]  the novel showed hidden depths that Nabokov had not considered, which led to these contradictory statements.The fact that Pale Fire veered out of Nabokov's control is not undesirable, however, as it has allowed the novel to remain exciting and relevant to this day, with new theories being developed regularly, even if one will inevitably disagree with at least half of them… the novel has arguably developed into a more organic novel, than the sterile artifact it would  have become if Nabokov's statements would have become canon.

Clayton Smith: “I was confused, as perhaps other readers were, on how point 3 supported a Shadean reading.  To understand one needs the actual deleted quote, which I trust some may find useful:"As John Shade says somewhere:// Nobody will heed my index,//I suppose,//But through it a gentle wind ex//Ponto blows."

 

JM: In the printed, easily available foreword we can read: “Through the window of that index// climbs a rose// And sometimes a gentle wind ex//Ponto blows.” (Montreux, January 5,1966).

I fully agree with Simon Rowberry’s considerations that “there is no correct ‘solution’…only interpretations” and that the novel “developed into a more organic novel” and “Pale Fire veered out of Nabokov’s control.”
At first I thought that Simon was alluding to the idea that everybody usually says more than is consciously intended (Nabokov once stated that even a phone number can be revelatory, flap its wings and escape…), or that language (the signifier) holds more mysteries than we give it credit for. However, as a matter of interpretation, one can also read into his assessment the recognition of a more esoteric element (rendered through a “plexed artistry” and exceeding it…).  

 

Although I seem to remember sentences where Nabokov denies any similarity between Zembla and Russia in Strong Opinions, as a metaphor of what he feels towards his childhood home and infant fantasies, Zembla seems to fit in perfectly with the importance he will ascribe to “the index” and to the gentle winds that reach him at his an “ex ponto” exile. We should remember that “index” means a finger, a pointing finger… Perhaps the fascination with the novel Pale Fire (more than with the poem) arises by a special feeling of something “real” (true) that it may hold and convey. It lies beyond the issue of fictional or even actual “authorship.”