Barrie Karp  [to JM’s ‘We mustn’t forget that what’s presented to the spectator points not only to Nabokov’s novel “Pale Fire” but, also, to a specific edition that ostensibly carries a burnt out match in its cover (not the most appropriate visual rendering of PF in my eyes’]  What PF covers do you like, Jansy? or imagine?

Jansy Mello:  A good question (and I know you are an artist and an expert on visual arts, right?).

I prefer the classic hard-cover edition from Everyman’s Library (or the German, Rowohlt, “Fahles Feuer”) when nothing is suggested to the prospective reader* - instead of covers like the Brazilian one by Chip Kidd, with a flowery wallpaper background and a man who points a gun at the

If I knew how to paint or take artistic photographs I might choose something similar to what I found in a French paperback reproducing a painting by Emil Nolde,“Mer sombre”. Or variations on ancient maps, writing desks, a collection of reflecting windows or mirror surfaces, something descriptive but never metaphorical.

I haven’t seen “Her” (the sinopsis online reminded me of another favorite movie in which Boy George sings the theme of “Electric Dreams”) but the strangely warm relationship established between humans and intelligent machines reminded me of the mysterious love that may blossom in a reader, like Kinbote towards Shade, for example. An interesting parallel for a start.  There are so many ways to interpret “Pale Fire” and to track its ghosts.

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*The same for the elegant Gingko edition of “John Shade’s” Pale Fire.