Editing Pale Fire

{{Short description|1962 novel by Vladimir Nabokov}}
{{for|the album by El Perro Del Mar|Pale Fire (album)}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=March 2025}}
{{Infobox book
| name          = Pale Fire
| image         = Nabokov Pale Fire.jpg
| image_size    = 
| caption       = First US edition of ''Pale Fire''
| author        = [[Vladimir Nabokov]]
<!-- | cover_artist  = -->
| country       = United States
| language      = English
| pages         = 315 
| publisher     = [[G. P. Putnam's Sons]]
| release_date  = 1962 (corrected edition first published by Vintage International, 1989)
| oclc          = 289702
}}

'''''Pale Fire''''' is a 1962 novel by [[Vladimir Nabokov]]. The novel is presented as a 999-line poem titled "Pale Fire", written by the fictional poet John Shade, with a foreword, lengthy commentary and index written by Shade's neighbor and academic colleague, [[Charles Kinbote]]. Together these elements form a narrative in which both fictional authors are central characters. Nabokov wrote ''Pale Fire'' in 1960–61, after the success of ''[[Lolita]]'' had made him financially independent, allowing him to retire from teaching and return to Europe.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Boyd|first=Brian|title=Shade and shape in pale fire|url=https://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/boydpf1.htm|access-date=2021-09-30|website=www.libraries.psu.edu|archive-date=2021-09-30|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210930132517/https://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/boydpf1.htm|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|last=Walter|first=Brian|title=Synthesizing artistic delight: the lesson of pale fire|url=https://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/walter.htm|access-date=2021-09-30|website=www.libraries.psu.edu|archive-date=2021-07-06|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210706030548/https://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/walter.htm|url-status=dead}}</ref> Nabokov began writing the novel in [[Nice]] and completed it in [[Montreux]], Switzerland.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Roth|first=Matthew|date=2015|title=THE COMPOSITION OF NABOKOV'S PALE FIRE|url=https://www.nabokovonline.com/uploads/2/3/7/7/23779748/2_noj_9_2015_roth_composition_of_pale_fire.pdf|journal=Nabokov Online Journal|volume=IX|access-date=2021-09-30|archive-date=2023-04-22|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230422055628/https://www.nabokovonline.com/uploads/2/3/7/7/23779748/2_noj_9_2015_roth_composition_of_pale_fire.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref>

''Pale Fire''<nowiki/>'s unusual structure has attracted much attention, and it is often cited as an important example of [[metafiction]],<ref>{{cite book |last=McCaffery |first=Larry |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Y-1ZAAAAMAAJ&q=%22Pale+Fire%22+metafiction |title=The Metafictional Muse: The Works of Robert Coover, Donald Barthelme, and William H. Gass |publisher=University of Pittsburgh Press |year=1982 |isbn=0-8229-3462-0 |page=21 |access-date=2009-09-18}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Waugh |first=Patricia |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=p34OAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA85 |title=Metafiction: The Theory and Practice of Self-Conscious Fiction |date=January 1984 |publisher=Methuen & Co. |isbn=0-416-32630-7 |pages=15, 85 |access-date=2009-09-18}}</ref> as well as an analog precursor to [[hypertext fiction]], and a [[poioumenon]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Fowler |first=Alastair |title=The History of English Literature |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=1989 |isbn=0-674-39664-2 |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts |page=372}}</ref> It has spawned a wide variety of interpretations and a large body of written criticism, which literary scholar {{ill|Pekka Tammi|fi}} estimated in 1995 as more than 80 studies.<ref name=Tammi>{{cite book | last = Tammi | first = Pekka | year = 1995 | chapter = ''Pale Fire'' | title = The Garland Companion to Vladimir Nabokov | editor = Vladimir E. Alexandrov | publisher = Garland Publishing | pages = 571–585 | isbn = 0-8153-0354-8}}</ref> The Nabokov authority [[Brian Boyd]] has called it "Nabokov's most perfect novel",<ref>{{cite book | last = Boyd | first = Brian | author-link = Brian Boyd | year = 2002 | title = Nabokov's World. Volume 2: Reading Nabokov | chapter = Nabokov: A Centennial Toast |editor=Jane Grayson |editor2=Arnold McMillin |editor3=Priscilla Meyer | page = 11 | publisher = Palgrave | isbn = 0-333-96417-9}}</ref> and the critic [[Harold Bloom]] called it "the surest demonstration of his own genius ... that remarkable tour de force".<ref>{{cite book | author = Bloom, Harold | author-link = Harold Bloom | year = 2003 | title = Genius: A Mosaic of One Hundred Exemplary Creative Minds | publisher = Grand Central Publishing | isbn = 0-446-69129-1}}</ref>

==Novel structure==
Starting with the epigraph and table of contents, ''Pale Fire'' is apparently the publication of a 999-line [[poem]] in four [[canto]]s ("Pale Fire") by the fictional John Shade with a foreword, extensive commentary, and index by his self-appointed editor, [[Charles Kinbote]].  Kinbote's commentary takes the form of notes to various numbered lines of the poem. Here, as in the rest of his [[critical apparatus]], Kinbote explicates the poem very little. Focusing [[monomania|monomanically]] on his own concerns, he divulges what proves to be the plot piece by piece, some of which can be connected by following the many cross-references. [[Espen Aarseth]] noted that ''Pale Fire'' "can be read either unicursally, straight through, or multicursally, jumping between the comments and the poem."<ref>{{cite book | last = Aarseth | first = Espen  |author-link = Espen J. Aarseth | year = 1997  | title = Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature | publisher = The Johns Hopkins University Press | page = 8 | isbn = 0-8018-5579-9 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=qx_-zj0-TwoC&pg=PA8 | access-date = 2010-04-02}}</ref> Thus, although the narration is non-linear and multidimensional, the reader can still choose to read the novel in a linear manner without risking misinterpretation.<ref>{{cite book | last = Chénetier | first = Marc | year = 1996 | title = Beyond Suspicion: New American Fiction Since 1960 | publisher = University of Pennsylvania Press | page = 74 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=vT48EdYFl1YC&pg=PA74 | access-date = 2009-09-18 | isbn = 978-0-8122-3059-8}}</ref>

The interaction between Kinbote and Shade takes place in the fictitious small college town and state of New Wye, Appalachia, where they live across a lane from each other from February to July 1959.  Kinbote writes his commentary from then to October 1959 in a tourist cabin in the equally fictitious western town and state of Cedarn, Utana. Both authors recount many earlier events, Shade mostly in New Wye and Kinbote in New Wye and in Europe, especially the "distant northern land" of Zembla.

==Plot summary==
Shade's poem digressively describes many aspects of his life.  Canto 1 includes his early encounters with death and glimpses of what he takes to be the supernatural. Canto 2 is about his family and the apparent suicide of his daughter, Hazel Shade. Canto 3 focuses on Shade's search for knowledge about an afterlife, culminating in a "faint hope" in higher powers "playing a game of worlds" as indicated by apparent coincidences. Canto 4 offers details on Shade's daily life and creative process, as well as thoughts on his poetry, which he finds to be a means of somehow understanding the universe.

In Kinbote's editorial contributions he tells three stories intermixed with each other. One is his own story, notably including what he thinks of as his friendship with Shade. After Shade was murdered, Kinbote acquired the manuscript, including some variants, and has taken it upon himself to oversee the poem's publication, telling readers that it lacks only line 1000.  Kinbote's second story deals with King Charles II, "The Beloved", the deposed king of Zembla. King Charles escaped imprisonment by [[Soviet]]-backed revolutionaries, making use of a secret passage and brave adherents in disguise.  Kinbote repeatedly claims that he inspired Shade to write the poem by recounting King Charles's escape to him and that possible allusions to the king, and to Zembla, appear in Shade's poem, especially in rejected drafts.  However, no explicit reference to King Charles is to be found in the poem.  Kinbote's third story is that of Gradus, an assassin dispatched by the new rulers of Zembla to kill the exiled King Charles.  Gradus makes his way from Zembla through Europe and America to New Wye, suffering comic mishaps. In the last note, to the missing line 1000, Kinbote narrates how Gradus killed Shade by mistake.

Towards the end of the narrative, Kinbote all but states that he is in fact the exiled King Charles, living incognito; however, enough details throughout the story, as well as direct statements of ambiguous sincerity by Kinbote towards the novel's end, suggest that King Charles and Zembla are both fictitious. In the latter interpretation, Kinbote is delusional and has built an elaborate picture of Zembla complete with samples of a [[constructed language]] as a by-product of insanity; similarly, Gradus was simply an unhinged man trying to kill Shade, and his backstory as a revolutionary assassin is also made up.

In an interview, Nabokov later said that Kinbote killed himself after finishing the book.<ref>{{cite book | last = Nabokov | first = Vladimir | title = Strong Opinions | year = 1973 | location = New York | publisher = McGraw-Hill | page = [https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780679726098/page/74 74] | isbn = 0-679-72609-8 | url = https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780679726098/page/74 }}</ref>  The critic Michael Wood has stated, "This is authorial trespassing, and we don't have to pay attention to it",<ref>{{cite book | last = Wood | first = Michael | title = The Magician's Doubts: Nabokov and the Risks of Fiction| year = 1994 | publisher = Princeton University Press | page = 186 | isbn = 0-691-00632-6 }}</ref> but Brian Boyd has argued that internal evidence points to Kinbote's suicide.<ref name=magic>{{cite book | last=Boyd | first=Brian | year=2001 | orig-year=1999 | title=Nabokov's "Pale Fire": The Magic of Artistic Discovery | publisher=Princeton University Press | page = 106 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3Tj05mucFQEC&pg=PA106 | isbn=0-691-08957-4}}</ref> One of Kinbote's annotations to Shade's poem (corresponding to line 493) addresses the subject of suicide at some length.

==Explanation of the title==
As Nabokov pointed out himself,<ref name=NYHT>{{cite news | first = Maurice | last = Dolbier | title = Books and Authors: Nabokov's Plums | work = The New York Herald Tribune | page = 5 | date = June 17, 1962}}</ref> the title of John Shade's poem is from [[Shakespeare]]'s ''[[Timon of Athens]]:'' "The moon's an arrant thief, / And her pale fire she snatches from the sun" (Act IV, scene 3), a line often taken as a metaphor about creativity and inspiration. Kinbote quotes the passage but does not recognize it, as he says he has access only to an inaccurate Zemblan translation of the play "in his [[wikt:Timonian|Timonian]] cave"<!--Index, Kinbote, p. 308-->, and in a separate note he even rails against the common practice of using quotations as titles.

Some critics have noted a secondary reference in the book's title to ''[[Hamlet]]'', where the Ghost remarks how the glow-worm "'gins to pale his uneffectual fire" (Act I, scene 5).<ref>{{cite book | last = Grabes | first = Herbert | year = 1995 | chapter = Nabokov and Shakespeare: The English Works | editor = Vladimir Alexandrov | title = The Garland Companion to Vladimir Nabokov | publisher = Garland Publishing, Inc | pages = 509–510 | isbn = 0-8153-0354-8}}  See also references therein.</ref>

The title is first mentioned in the foreword: "I recall seeing him from my porch, on a brilliant morning, burning a whole stack of [index cards of drafts of the poem] in the pale fire of the incinerator...".

==Reception==
According to Norman Page, ''Pale Fire'' excited as diverse criticism as any of Nabokov's novels.<ref>{{cite book | editor-last = Page | editor-first = Norman  | year = 1982 | title = Vladimir Nabokov: The Critical Heritage | publisher = Routledge and Kegan Paul | page =  29 | edition = 1997 | isbn = 0-415-15916-4 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=vJgLVmOe1sIC | access-date = 2008-01-19}}</ref> [[Mary McCarthy (author)|Mary McCarthy]]'s review<ref name=McC>{{cite magazine | last = McCarthy | first = Mary | author-link = Mary McCarthy (author) | title = A Bolt from the Blue | magazine = The New Republic | date = June 4, 1962 | url = https://newrepublic.com/article/63440/bolt-the-blue | access-date = 2018-01-14}}  Revised version in {{cite book |author=Mary McCarthy |title=A Bolt from the Blue and Other Essays |year=2002 |publisher=[[The New York Review of Books]] |location=New York |isbn=1-59017-010-5 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/isbn_9781590170106/page/83 83–102] |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9781590170106/page/83 }}</ref> was extremely laudatory; the Vintage edition excerpts it on the front cover.<ref>The quotation is "a creation of perfect beauty, symmetry, strangeness... one of the very great works of art of this century".</ref>  She tried to explicate hidden references and connections. [[Dwight Macdonald]] responded by saying the book was "unreadable" and both it and McCarthy's review were as pedantic as Kinbote.<ref name=Macd>{{cite journal | last = Macdonald | first = Dwight | author-link = Dwight Macdonald | date = Summer 1962 | title =  Virtuosity Rewarded, or Dr. Kinbote's Revenge | journal = Partisan Review | pages = 437–442}}  Partially reprinted in Page, ''Critical Heritage'', pp. 137–140</ref> [[Anthony Burgess]], like McCarthy, extolled the book,<ref>{{cite news | last = Burgess | first = Anthony | author-link = Anthony Burgess | date = November 15, 1962 | title = Nabokov Masquerade | newspaper = Yorkshire Post}}  Partially reprinted in Page, ''Critical Heritage'', p. 143.</ref> while [[Alfred Chester]] condemned it as "a total wreck".<ref>{{cite journal | last = Chester | first = Alfred | author-link = Alfred Chester | date = November 1962 | title  = ''Pale Fire,'' by Vladimir Nabokov | journal = Commentary}}  Reprinted in {{cite book | last = Chester | first = Alfred | year = 1992 | title = Looking for Genet: Literary Essays and Reviews | publisher = Black Sparrow Press | isbn = 0-87685-872-8 | url-access = registration | url = https://archive.org/details/lookingforgenetl00ches }}  Quoted by Page, ''Critical Heritage'', p. 29.</ref>

Some other early reviews were less decided,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/books/97/03/02/lifetimes/nab-r-palefire.html|title=In an Elaborate Spoof, Nabokov Takes Us to the Never-Never Land of Zembla|date=1962|website=www.nytimes.com|access-date=2018-03-04}}</ref> praising the book's satire and comedy but noting its difficulty and finding its subject slight<ref>{{cite journal | last = Steiner | first = George | author-link = George Steiner | title = Review of Pale Fire | journal = Reporter | date = July 7, 1962 | pages = 42, 44–45}}  Partially reprinted in Page, ''Critical Heritage'', p. 140.</ref><ref>{{cite news | last = Dennis | first = Nigel | author-link = Nigel Dennis | date = November 11, 1962 | title = It's Hard to Name This Butterfly! | publisher = Sunday Telegraph | page = 6}} Reprinted in Page, ''Critical Heritage'', pp. 142–143.</ref> or saying that its artistry offers "only a [[kibitzer]]'s pleasure".<ref name=Kermode>{{cite journal | last = Kermode | first = Frank | title = Zemblances | date = November 9, 1962 | journal = New Statesman | pages = 671–672}}  Reprinted in Page, ''Critical Heritage'', pp. 144–148</ref> Macdonald called the reviews he had seen, other than McCarthy's, "cautiously unfavorable".<ref name=Macd/>  ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]''{{'}}s 1962 review stated that "''Pale Fire'' does not really cohere as a satire; good as it is, the novel in the end seems to be mostly an exercise in agility – or perhaps in bewilderment",<ref>{{cite magazine|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,938428,00.html?internalid=atb100|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070104075852/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,938428,00.html?internalid=atb100|url-status=dead|archive-date=January 4, 2007|title=Books: The Russian Box Trick|magazine=TIME|date=1 June 1962|access-date=19 September 2010}}</ref> though this did not prevent the publication from including the book in its 2005 list of the 100 best English-language novels published since 1923.<ref>{{cite magazine|url=http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1951793_1951944_1952610,00.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100426144406/http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1951793_1951944_1952610,00.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=April 26, 2010|title=Pale Fire (1962), by Vladimir Nabokov|magazine=TIME|date=16 October 2005|first=Lev|last=Grossman|access-date=19 September 2010}}</ref>

The connection between ''Pale Fire'' and [[hypertext]] was stated soon after its publication; in 1969, the information-technology researcher [[Ted Nelson]] obtained permission from the novel's publishers to use it for a hypertext demonstration at [[Brown University]].<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Wolf |first=Gary |date=June 1995 |title=The Curse of Xanadu |url=https://www.wired.com/1995/06/xanadu/?pg=5&topic= |magazine=[[Wired (magazine)|Wired]] |volume=3 |page=5 |number=6}}</ref> A 2009 paper by Annalisa Volpone also compares ''Pale Fire'' to hypertext.<ref>{{cite web |last=Volpone |first=Annalisa |year=2009 |title='See the Web of the World': The (Hyper) Textual Plagiarism in Joyce's ''Finnegans Wake'' and Nabokov's ''Pale Fire'' |url=http://etc.dal.ca/noj/articles/volume3//05_Volpone.pdf |access-date=2011-05-31 |work=Nabokov Online Journal |volume=III |archive-date=2012-03-24 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120324195026/http://etc.dal.ca/noj/articles/volume3//05_Volpone.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref>

The first Russian translation of the novel, one created by [[Véra Nabokov]], its dedicatee, was published in 1983 by Ardis in Ann Arbor, Michigan<ref>{{cite web |url=http://nabokov.niv.ru/nabokov/kritika/mejer-blednyj-ogon/bibliografiya.htm |title="Бледный огонь" Владимира Набокова Библиография |quote=Набоков В. Бледный огонь. Ann Arbor: Ardis, 1983. — Пер. В. Набоковой.}}</ref> (Alexei Tsvetkov initially played an important role in this translation).<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.corpus.ru/press/robert-rouper-nabokov-amerike-po-dorgoe-lolite-svoboda.htm |title=Набоков в Америке |quote=Алексей Цветков: Я переводил Набокова, но это, надо сказать, довольно печальный эпизод в моей жизни. Скажу очень коротко, что получилось. Я переводил книгу "Бледный огонь” по собственной воле. Когда работу одобрил издатель, я связался с вдовой Набокова Верой. В ходе этой переписки правка достигла такого размера, что я отказался подписывать перевод своим именем. В результате вся работа была передана другому человеку, а в конце концов книга вышла как перевод Веры Набоковой.}}</ref>

After Nabokov's reputation was rehabilitated in the Soviet Union<ref>{{cite book | last = Boyd | first = Brian | title = Vladimir Nabokov: The American Years | url = https://archive.org/details/vladimirnabokova00boyd | url-access = registration | location = Princeton, New Jersey | publisher = Princeton University Press | year = 1991 | page = [https://archive.org/details/vladimirnabokova00boyd/page/662 662]| isbn = 9780691067971 }}</ref> (his novels started being published there in 1986<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-08-27-mn-14195-story.html |title=Novelist Nabokov Finally Published in Soviet Union|website=[[Los Angeles Times]]|date=27 August 1986 }}</ref> and the first book composed entirely of Nabokov's works was printed in 1988<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.lib.ru/NABOKOW/biblio.txt |title=Основные издания произведений Владимира Набокова |quote=Машенька. Защита Лужина. Приглашение на казнь. Другие берега (фрагменты). Романы/ Вступит. статья, составление и комментарий О. Михайлова. - М.: Художественная литература, 1988.}}</ref>), ''Pale Fire'' was published in 1991 in [[Yekaterinburg|Sverdlovsk]] (in Sergei Ilyin's Russian translation).<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.lib.ru/NABOKOW/biblio.txt |title=Основные издания произведений Владимира Набокова |quote=Бледное пламя: Роман и рассказы. Перевод С. Ильина. Свердловск: Независимое издательское предприятие "91", 1991}}</ref>

It was ranked 53rd on the list of the [[Modern Library 100 Best Novels]] and 1st on the American literary critic [[Larry McCaffery]]'s ''[[20th Century's Greatest Hits: 100 English-Language Books of Fiction]].''

==Interpretations==
Some readers concentrate on the apparent story, focusing on traditional aspects of fiction such as the relationship among the characters.<ref>{{cite journal | last = Alter | first = Robert | title = Autobiography as Alchemy in ''Pale Fire'' | journal = Cycnos | volume = 10 | year = 1993 | pages = 135–41}}</ref><ref>{{cite book | last = Pifer | first = Ellen | title = Nabokov and the Novel | location = Cambridge, Mass. | publisher = Harvard University Press | year = 1980 | pages = 110–118}}</ref>  In 1997, Brian Boyd published a much-discussed study<ref name=Shadeshape>{{cite journal | last = Boyd | first = Brian | author-link = Brian Boyd | title = Shade and Shape in ''Pale Fire'' | journal = Nabokov Studies | volume = 4 | year = 1997 | pages = 173–224 | doi = 10.1353/nab.2011.0072 | url = http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/boydpf1.htm | access-date = 2006-09-26}}</ref> arguing that the ghost of John Shade influenced Kinbote's contributions.  He expanded this essay into a book in which he also argues that, in order to trigger Shade's poem, Hazel Shade's ghost induced Kinbote to recount his Zemblan delusions to Shade.<ref>Boyd, ''Magic of Artistic Discovery.''</ref>

Some readers, starting with Mary McCarthy<ref name=McC/> and including Boyd, Nabokov's annotator [[Alfred Appel Jr.|Alfred Appel]],<ref>{{cite book | editor-last = Appel| editor-first = Alfred Jr. | year =  1991 | title = The Annotated Lolita | location = New York | publisher = Vintage Books | isbn = 0-679-72729-9}} Appel's annotations to ''[[Lolita]]'' also address ''Pale Fire'', and "in place of a note on the text", Appel reproduces the last two paragraphs of Kinbote's foreword, which discuss poetry and commentary.</ref> and D. Barton Johnson,<ref>{{cite book | last=Johnson | first=D. Barton | title=Worlds in Regression: Some Novels of Vladimir Nabokov | year = 1985 | location = Ann Arbor, Mich. | publisher=Ardis | isbn = 0-88233-908-7}}</ref> see Charles Kinbote as an alter-ego of the insane Professor V. Botkin, to whose delusions John Shade and the rest of the faculty of Wordsmith College generally condescend.  Nabokov himself endorsed this reading, stating in an interview in 1962 (the novel's year of publication) that ''Pale Fire'' "is full of plums that I keep hoping somebody will find. For instance, the nasty commentator is not an ex-King of Zembla nor is he professor Kinbote. He is professor Botkin, or Botkine, a Russian and a madman."<ref name=NYHT/> The novel's intricate structure of teasing cross-references leads readers to this "plum". The Index, supposedly created by Kinbote, features an entry for a "Botkin, V.," describing this Botkin as an "American scholar of Russian descent"—and referring to a note in the Commentary on line 894 of Shade's poem, in which no such person is directly mentioned but a character suggests that "Kinbote" is "a kind of anagram of Botkin or Botkine". In this interpretation, "Gradus" the murderer is an American named Jack Grey who wanted to kill Judge Goldsworth, whose house "Pale Fire's" commentator—whatever his "true" name is—is renting.  Goldsworth had condemned Grey to an asylum from which he escaped shortly before mistakenly killing Shade, who resembled Goldsworth.

Other readers see a story quite different from the apparent narrative. "Shadeans" maintain that John Shade wrote not only the poem, but the commentary as well, having invented his own death and the character of Kinbote as a literary device. According to Boyd,<ref name=Shadeshape/> Andrew Field invented the Shadean theory<ref>{{cite book | last = Field | first = Andrew | title = Nabokov: His Life in Art | url = https://archive.org/details/nabokovhislifein00fiel | url-access = registration | location = Boston | publisher = Little, Brown | year = 1967 | pages = [https://archive.org/details/nabokovhislifein00fiel/page/291 291–332]}}</ref> and Julia Bader expanded it;<ref>{{cite book | last = Bader | first = Julia | title = Crystal Land: Artifice in Nabokov's English Novels | url = https://archive.org/details/crystallandartif0000bade | url-access = registration | location = Berkeley | publisher = University of California Press | year = 1972 | pages = [https://archive.org/details/crystallandartif0000bade/page/31 31–56]| isbn = 9780520021679 }}</ref> Boyd himself espoused the theory for a time.<ref>{{cite book | last = Boyd | first = Brian | title = Vladimir Nabokov: the American Years | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=C8lF4iqAgRQC&q=Brian+Boyd+American+Years&pg=PP1 | access-date = 2006-09-25 | year = 1991 | publisher = Princeton University Press | pages = 425–456 | isbn = 0-691-06797-X}}</ref> In an alternative version of the Shadean theory, Tiffany DeRewal and Matthew Roth argued that Kinbote is not a separate person but is a dissociated, alternative personality of John Shade.<ref name=DeRewal>{{cite journal | last = DeRewal| first = Tiffany |author2=Roth, Matthew | year = 2009 | title = John Shade's Duplicate Selves: An Alternative Shadean Theory of Pale Fire | journal = Nabokov Online Journal | volume = 3 | url = http://etc.dal.ca/noj/articles/volume3//06_Roth.pdf | access-date = 2009-11-06}}</ref>  (An early reviewer had mentioned that "a case might be made" for such a reading.)<ref name=Diebold>{{cite news | last = Diebold | first = Michael | title = The World of Books: An Exercise in Madness | newspaper = The Pittsburgh Press | page = 9 | date = May 31, 1962 | url = https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=sUcqAAAAIBAJ&pg=4524%2C5142221 | access-date = 2010-04-21}}</ref>
"Kinboteans", a decidedly smaller group, believe that Kinbote invented the existence of John Shade.  Boyd<ref name=Shadeshape/> credits the Kinbotean theory to Page Stegner<ref>{{cite book | last = Stegner | first = Page |title = Escape into Aesthetics | location = New York | publisher = Dial | year = 1966}}</ref> and adds that most of its adherents are newcomers to the book. Some readers see the book as oscillating undecidably between these alternatives, like the [[Rubin vase]] (a drawing that may be two profiles or a goblet).<ref name="Kernan">{{cite book | last = Kernan | first = Alvin B. | title = The Imaginary Library: An Essay on Literature and Society | url = https://archive.org/details/imaginarylibrary00kern | url-access = registration | location = Princeton | publisher = Princeton University Press | year = 1982| isbn = 9780691065045 }} Reprinted as "Reading Zemblan: The Audience Disappears in ''Pale Fire''" in {{cite book | editor-last = Bloom | editor-first = Harold | year = 1987 | title = Vladimir Nabokov | location = New York | publisher = Chelsea House | pages = 101–126 | isbn = 1-55546-279-0}}</ref><ref>{{cite book | last = McHale | first = Brian | title = Postmodernist Fiction| location = London | publisher = Routledge | pages = 18–19 | year = 1987 | isbn = 0-415-04513-4}}</ref><ref>See also  [http://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A0=NABOKV-L the archives of NABOKV-L] for December 1997 and January 1998.  That mailing list contains many discussions of ''Pale Fire.''</ref>

Though a minority of commentators believe or at least accept the possibility that Zembla is as "real" as New Wye,<ref name=Tammi/> most assume that Zembla, or at least the operetta-quaint and homosexually gratified palace life enjoyed by Charles Kinbote before he is overthrown, is imaginary in the context of the story.  The name "Zembla" (taken from "Nova Zembla", a former latinization of [[Novaya Zemlya]])<ref>Boyd notes that [[Jonathan Swift|Swift]]'s ''Battle of the Books'' contains "a malignant deity, call'd ''Criticism''" that "dwelt on the Top of a snowy Mountain in ''Nova Zembla''". ''Magic of Artistic Discovery'', p.&nbsp;79.</ref> may evoke popular fantasy literature about royalty such as ''[[The Prisoner of Zenda]]''.<ref name=Kermode/><ref>{{cite web | last = Hornick | first = Neil |author2=Boyd, Brian | date = March 10, 2005 | title = ''Pale Fire'' and ''The Prisoner of Zenda'' | url = http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/hornboyd.htm | access-date = 2008-01-19}}  An exchange from NABOKV-L.</ref>  As in other Nabokov books, however, the fiction is an exaggerated or comically distorted version of his own life{{Citation needed|date=September 2007}} as a son of privilege before the Russian Revolution and an exile afterwards,<ref>Nabokov, ''Speak, Memory''</ref> and the central murder has resemblances (emphasized by Priscilla Meyer<ref name=Meyer>{{cite book | author = Meyer, Priscilla | title = Find What the Sailor Has Hidden: Vladimir Nabokov's Pale Fire | year = 1989 | location = Middletown, Conn. | publisher = Wesleyan University Press | isbn = 0-8195-5206-2 | url = https://archive.org/details/findwhatsailorha00pris }}</ref>) to [[Vladimir Dmitrievich Nabokov|Nabokov's father]]'s murder by an assassin who was trying to kill someone else.

Still other readers de-emphasize any sort of "real story" and may doubt the existence of such a thing.  In the interplay of allusions and thematic links, they find a multifaceted image of English literature,<ref name=Meyer/> criticism,<ref name = Kernan/> or glimpses of a higher world and an afterlife.<ref>{{cite book | last = Moynahan | first = Julian | authorlink=Julian Moynahan|year = 1971 | title = Vladimir Nabokov | publisher = University of Minnesota Press | pages = 40–45 | isbn = 0-8166-0600-5 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=Bqag980h9sUC&pg=RA1-PA41 | access-date = 2010-01-11}}</ref>

==Allusions and references==
The first two lines of John Shade's 999-line poem, "Pale Fire", have become Nabokov's most quoted couplet:

<blockquote><poem>I was the shadow of the [[waxwing]] slain
By the false azure in the window pane</poem></blockquote>

Like many of Nabokov's fictions, ''Pale Fire'' alludes to others of his. "Hurricane [[Lolita]]" is mentioned, and "[[Pnin (novel)|Pnin]]" appears as a minor character.  There are many resemblances to "[[Ultima Thule (short story)|Ultima Thule]]" and "[[Solus Rex (short story)|Solus Rex]]",<ref>Boyd (1999) reviews the resemblances.</ref> two [[The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov|short stories by Nabokov]] intended to be the first two chapters of a novel in Russian that he never continued.  The placename [[Thule]] appears in ''Pale Fire'', as does the phrase ''[[solus rex]]'' (a chess problem in which one player has no pieces but the king).

The book is also full of references to culture, nature, and literature. They include, but are not limited to:
{{Div col|colwidth=}}
* [[Bobolink]]
* [[Maud Bodkin]]
* ''[[The Brothers Karamazov]]''
* [[Robert Browning]], including "[[My Last Duchess]]" and ''[[Pippa Passes]]'' (inspired in a wood near [[Dulwich]]<ref name=deVries>{{cite journal | last = de Vries | first = Gerard | year = 1991 | title = Fanning the Poet's Fire: Some Remarks on Nabokov's ''Pale Fire'' | journal = Russian Literature Triquarterly | volume = 24 | pages = 239–267}}</ref>)
* [[Cedrus|Cedar]], including a colloquial American meaning, [[juniper]]<ref>Boyd, ''Magic of Artistic Discovery'', pp. 278–279.</ref>
* [[Ben Chapman (baseball)|Ben Chapman]]. Some have said the newspaper headline "Red Sox Beat Yanks 5–4 On [[On First Looking Into Chapman's Homer|Chapman's Homer]]" was genuine<ref name=LOA>{{cite book | last = Boyd | first = Brian | year = 1996 | title = Nabokov: Novels 1955–1962: Lolita / Pnin / Pale Fire | chapter = Notes | publisher = Library of America | editor = Vladimir Nabokov | editor2 = Brian Boyd | isbn = 1-883011-19-1 | url-access = registration | url = https://archive.org/details/vladimirnabokov0000unse }}</ref> and "[u]nearthed by Nabokov in the stacks of the Cornell Library",<ref>{{cite book | last = Appel | first = Alfred Jr. | title = Nabokov's Dark Cinema | url = https://archive.org/details/nabokovsdarkcine0000appe | url-access = registration | year = 1974 | publisher = Oxford University Press | page = [https://archive.org/details/nabokovsdarkcine0000appe/page/30 30] | isbn = 0-19-501834-6}}</ref> but others have stated no such game occurred.<ref>{{cite web | last = Donohue | first = Michael | date = 2004-10-31 | title = Chapman's Homer: Definitive Statement | work = Post to NABOKV-L | url = http://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0410&L=NABOKV-L&P=R43338&I=-3|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090227174021/http://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0410&L=NABOKV-L&P=R43338&I=-3|archive-date=27 February 2009}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | last = Croning | first = Brian | date = 2011-02-16 | title = Sports Legend Revealed: Did Vladimir Nabokov work an actual baseball headline into his novel 'Pale Fire'? | work = Los Angeles Times | url = http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/sports_blog/2011/02/sports-legend-revealed-did-vladimir-nabokov-work-an-actual-baseball-headline-into-his-novel-pale-fir.html | access-date = 2011-02-18}}</ref>  However, a different player, Sam Chapman of the Philadelphia Athletics, did hit a home run in the 9th inning on September 29, 1938, to defeat the Yankees, 5–4.<ref>{{cite web|website=Baseball-reference.com|title=Philadelphia Athletics at New York Yankees Box Score, September 28, 1939|url=https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYA/NYA193909282.shtml}}</ref>
* [[Charles II of England]]
* [[Charles VI of France]], known as Charles the Well-Beloved and Charles the Mad<ref name=LOA/>
* [[Disa (plant)|''Disa'']] orchid and the butterflies ''[[Erebia disa]]'' and ''[[Erebia embla|E. embla]]'' (which may lead to [[Disa]] and [[Embla]]<ref name=Meyer/>)
* [[T. S. Eliot]] and ''[[Four Quartets]]''
* ''"[[Der Erlkönig]]"''
* Et in Arcadia ego
* [[Thomas Flatman]]
* [[Edsel Ford (poet)]] and the poem "The Image of Desire"<ref name=Roth>{{cite journal | last = Roth| first = Matthew | year = 2007 | title = Three Allusions in Pale Fire | journal = The Nabokovian | volume = 58 | pages = 53–60}}</ref>
* ''[[Forever Amber (novel)|Forever Amber]]''<ref>Boyd, ''Magic of Artistic Discovery'', p. 271.</ref>
* [[Robert Frost]] and the poems "[[Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening]]" and possibly "Of a Winter's Evening"<ref>{{cite journal | last = Socher | first = Abraham | date = July 1, 2005 | title = Nabokov | journal = Times Literary Supplement | url = http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/socher.htm}}</ref>
* [[Oliver Goldsmith]]
* [[Gradus ad Parnassum]]
* [[Gutnish]]
* [[Thomas Hardy]] and the poem "Friends Beyond" (for the word "stillicide")<ref name=LOA/>
* [[Bret Harte]] and his character Colonel Starbottle<ref name=Roth/>
* [[Hebe (mythology)|Hebe]] and the poem ''"Vesennyaya Groza"'' ("Spring Thunderstorm") by [[Fyodor Tyutchev]]<ref>{{cite web | last = Dolinin | first = Alexander | date = 1995-12-12 | title = Re: Library of America queries (fwd) | work = Post to NABOKV-L | url = http://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9512&L=nabokv-l&P=1103 | access-date = 2008-09-28}}</ref>
* [[Sherlock Holmes]] and "[[The Adventure of the Empty House]]"<ref>{{cite book | last = Sisson | first = Jonathan B. | year = 1995 | chapter = Nabokov and some Turn-of-the-Century English Writers | editor =  Vladimir E. Alexandrov | title = The Garland Companion to Vladimir Nabokov | publisher = Garland Publishing | page = 530 | isbn = 0-8153-0354-8}}</ref>
* ''[[A Hero of Our Time]]''
* [[A. E. Housman]], including "[[To an Athlete Dying Young]]"
* ''[[In Memoriam A.H.H.]]''
* ''[[Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde]]''<ref name=deVries/>
* [[Samuel Johnson]], [[James Boswell]], Boswell's ''[[Life of Johnson]]'' and [[Hodge (cat)|Hodge]]
* [[James Joyce]]
* ''[[Kalevala]]''
* [[John Keats]], including "[[La Belle Dame sans Merci]]"<ref>Shvabrin, Stanislav. "Nabokov's 'La Belle Dame sans Merci': A Study in the Ethics and Effects of Literary Adaptation," ''Comparative Literature'' 65.1 (2013), pp. 117–118.</ref>
* The ''[[Konungs skuggsjá]]'' or ''Royal Mirror''
* [[Krummholz]]
* [[Jean de La Fontaine]] and "[[The Ant and the Grasshopper]]" (or cicada)
* [[Franklin Knight Lane]]
* Angus McDiarmid or MacDiarmid, author of ''[[Striking and Picturesque Delineations of the Grand, Beautiful, Wonderful, and Interesting Scenery Around Loch-Earn|Striking and Picturesque Delineations...]]''<ref>{{cite book | last = McDiarmid | first = Angus | year = 1815 | title = Striking and picturesque delineations of the grand, beautiful, wonderful, and interesting scenery around Loch-Earn | publisher = John Moir | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=2MUHAAAAQAAJ&q=barbarous+%22incoherent+transactions%22&pg=PA24 | access-date = 2008-09-28}}</ref>
* The [[Biblical Magi|Magi]], including Balthasar and Melchior
* Novaya Zemlya
* ''[[Papilio]] nitra'' (now ''[[Papilio zelicaon|P. zelicaon]] nitra'') and ''P. indra''
* ''[[Parthenocissus]]''
* [[Edgar Allan Poe]] and the poem "To One in Paradise" (for the phrase "Dim gulf")<ref name=LOA/>
* [[Alexander Pope]] and [[Jonathan Swift]]
* [[Marcel Proust]]
* [[François Rabelais]]
* Red admiral butterfly, ''[[Vanessa atalanta]]''
* [[Alberto Santos-Dumont]]
* [[Walter Scott]], including "[[Glenfinlas (poem)|Glenfinlas, or Lord Ronald's Coronach]]",<ref name=deVries/> "[[The Lady of the Lake (poem)|The Lady of the Lake]]", and ''[[The Pirate (novel)|The Pirate]]''
* [[Robert Southey]], in particular, the Poet Laureate's rivalry to [[Lord Byron]] as alluded to in the latter's ''[[Don Juan (poem)|Don Juan]]'' dedication
* ''[[Speyeria diana]]'' and ''[[Speyeria atlantis|S. atlantis]]''
* [[Thormodus Torfaeus]]
* [[Waxwing]]
* [[Pierinae]]
* [[Word golf]]
* [[William Wordsworth]], including "The River Wye", and [[Samuel Taylor Coleridge]], including "[[Kubla Khan]]"
* [[Lev Yashin]], a "stupendous [[FC Dynamo Moscow|Dynamo]] goalkeeper"
{{Div col end}}

See also ''[[The Ambidextrous Universe]]'', a later book referencing ''Pale Fire'' which in turn triggered a reciprocal response in a subsequent Nabokov novel (''[[Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle|Ada]]'', 1969).

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links & further reading==
* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/dramaon3/pip/najde/ Summary of a radio adaptation of ''Pale Fire''] broadcast in 2004 by [[BBC Radio 3]]
* [http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/critic.htm Criticism] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210930144823/http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/critic.htm |date=2021-09-30 }} (at ''Zembla'', web site of the International Vladimir Nabokov Society). Contains a chronology of ''Pale Fire'' and many essays about it, along with other writing on Nabokov's works.
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20121114050734/http://www2.nau.edu/tas3/wtc/ii04.html#movie Interactive Hypermedia] ''Pale Fire'' likened to Bach fugue and butterfly  [Shockwave Player required]
*{{cite book |last=Vernon |first=David |year=2022 |title=Ada to Zembla: The Novels of Vladimir Nabokov |publisher=Endellion Press |location=Edinburgh |isbn=978-1739136109|ref=none}} See chapter 15, '''Pale Fire'': The Poet & the King', pp.&nbsp;201–224. 
* {{cite book
  | last = Wood
  | first = Michael
  | title = The Magician's Doubts: Nabokov and the Risks of Fiction
  | publisher = Princeton University Press
  | year = 1994
  | location = Princeton
  | isbn = 978-0-691-04830-7}}

{{Vladimir Nabokov}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:1962 American novels]]
[[Category:Fiction with unreliable narrators]]
[[Category:Novels by Vladimir Nabokov]]
[[Category:Metafictional novels]]
[[Category:Novels about writers]]
[[Category:Novels set in fictional countries]]
[[Category:Postmodern novels]]
[[Category:Precursors of electronic literature]]