I absolutely adored the poem. I honestly found most of the commentary a slog to get through, but now that I’ve finished it and thought about it I like it, especially the character of Kinbote. I am going to be honest, I don’t think I picked up on much of anything. For most of the book I was under the impression that Kinbote’s just a lonely, useless guy who imagines he’s the king of a made up land called Zembla and want his poet friend to bring this land to life so he feel worthy. However, there’s some stuff that doesn’t make sense with this, like that one part where somebody recognizes Kinbote as the ex-king of Zembla. I feel like I’m either missing something or have it all wrong. I was also under the impression that Kinbote imagined all allusions to Gradus and Zembla, but some of the references to Gradus are so apparent that it make me think that maybe Shade didn’t actually write them? Anyways please point to places to look! Also I saw some people saying the index is important but I can’t find anything of note in there (I did skim it tbh).
by alldogsareperfect