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Pale Fire

208 statements
40 feature instances
13 referencing feature instances

Pale Fire	type	TVTItem
Pale Fire	label	Pale Fire
Pale Fire	page	PaleFire
Pale Fire	comment	Pale Fire is a 1962 novel by Vladimir Nabokov. It ostensibly concerns a 999 line poem by nationally famous poet John Shade, which appears in the book with extensive commentary by Shade's neighbor and fellow professor Charles Kinbote. Once the commentary gets underway however, it is clear Kinbote's interpretation differs wildly from the information available in the poem itself, which is soon eclipsed by the mad, paranoid, telescoping story that emerges from Kinbote's intrusion. Shade is unavailable to correct the work, having been shot dead by a man who was likely trying to kill someone else entirely.As inconsistencies in the narrative begin to pile up, more and more of the novel's premises become suspect, and the reader navigates through multiple layers of reality formed by variable amounts of truth and lies, while simultaneously navigating Kinbote's labyrinthine footnotes that allow the book to be read in any order the reader chooses.Likewise, the story can be read any way the reader chooses (though not every layer of reality is created equal): as an exile's loving capsule of his vanished homeland, an international political thriller, a sad portrait of a lonely madman, a parent's ode to his dead child, or a scathing satire of academia.According to The Other Wiki: "The interaction between Kinbote and Shade takes place in the fictitious small college town 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 of Cedarn, Utana."
Pale Fire	fetched	2023-06-12T21:59:12Z
Pale Fire	parsed	2023-06-12T21:59:12Z
Pale Fire	isPartOf	DBTropes
Pale Fire / int_1282bf4f	type	No Celebrities Were Harmed
Pale Fire / int_1282bf4f	comment	No Celebrities Were Harmed: In terms of his physical appearance, evocative name, and his generally sober, unflashy, classical diction, John Shade could be considered this with respect to Robert Frost.
Pale Fire / int_1282bf4f	featureApplicability	1.0
Pale Fire / int_1282bf4f	featureConfidence	1.0
Pale Fire	hasFeature	Pale Fire / int_1282bf4f
Pale Fire / int_1869b4b1	type	Unreliable Narrator
Pale Fire / int_1869b4b1	comment	Unreliable Narrator: I'd give the example's name, but I'm pretty sure he lied about that too.
Pale Fire / int_1869b4b1	featureApplicability	1.0
Pale Fire / int_1869b4b1	featureConfidence	1.0
Pale Fire	hasFeature	Pale Fire / int_1869b4b1
Pale Fire / int_1f6983f7	type	Ambiguous Situation
Pale Fire / int_1f6983f7	comment	Ambiguous Situation: Did Hazel Shade intend to kill herself? Or was it just a freak accident? Shade seems to think her death was a suicide, but who knows for sure?
Pale Fire / int_1f6983f7	featureApplicability	1.0
Pale Fire / int_1f6983f7	featureConfidence	1.0
Pale Fire	hasFeature	Pale Fire / int_1f6983f7
Pale Fire / int_27690f66	type	Literary Allusion Title
Pale Fire / int_27690f66	comment	Kinbote usually hates Literary Allusion Titles, considering them lazy. (So, apparently, does Shade — some of the time.)
Pale Fire / int_27690f66	featureApplicability	1.0
Pale Fire / int_27690f66	featureConfidence	1.0
Pale Fire	hasFeature	Pale Fire / int_27690f66
Pale Fire / int_294ed981	type	Bilingual Bonus
Pale Fire / int_294ed981	comment	Bilingual Bonus: "Zembla" is an old way of transcribing Земля (today generally transcribed zemlya or zemlja), which means "land" in Nabokov's native Russian. It's also a reference to The Prisoner of Zenda.
Pale Fire / int_294ed981	featureApplicability	1.0
Pale Fire / int_294ed981	featureConfidence	1.0
Pale Fire	hasFeature	Pale Fire / int_294ed981
Pale Fire / int_36406c28	type	In the Original Klingon
Pale Fire / int_36406c28	comment	In the Original Klingon: Kinbote suggests a Zemblan etymology for Shakespeare's last name as being "the most probable".
Pale Fire / int_36406c28	featureApplicability	1.0
Pale Fire / int_36406c28	featureConfidence	1.0
Pale Fire	hasFeature	Pale Fire / int_36406c28
Pale Fire / int_415b3315	type	Stylistic Suck
Pale Fire / int_415b3315	comment	Stylistic Suck: Kinbote flatters himself that he can accurately ape the prose style of many other writers, but professes to be horrible at writing verse. Some of the "variant lines" which he claims were left over from earlier drafts of the poem — the very lines that give him the excuse to bring in his otherwise irrelevant stories of Zembla — seem suspiciously un-Shadean, so to speak.
Pale Fire / int_415b3315	featureApplicability	1.0
Pale Fire / int_415b3315	featureConfidence	1.0
Pale Fire	hasFeature	Pale Fire / int_415b3315
Pale Fire / int_421ae215	type	Mysterious Past
Pale Fire / int_421ae215	comment	Mysterious Past: Real, or imagined and achingly desired.
Pale Fire / int_421ae215	featureApplicability	1.0
Pale Fire / int_421ae215	featureConfidence	1.0
Pale Fire	hasFeature	Pale Fire / int_421ae215
Pale Fire / int_4c8e8078	type	All of the Other Reindeer
Pale Fire / int_4c8e8078	comment	All of the Other Reindeer: Kinbote's social status at the university, with the (possible) exception of his relationship with Shade.
Pale Fire / int_4c8e8078	featureApplicability	1.0
Pale Fire / int_4c8e8078	featureConfidence	1.0
Pale Fire	hasFeature	Pale Fire / int_4c8e8078
Pale Fire / int_4f4e43cc	type	Always Second Best
Pale Fire / int_4f4e43cc	comment	Always Second Best: John Shade is always listed second after Robert Frost in the lists of New England poets, something he dislikes but lives with.
Pale Fire / int_4f4e43cc	featureApplicability	1.0
Pale Fire / int_4f4e43cc	featureConfidence	1.0
Pale Fire	hasFeature	Pale Fire / int_4f4e43cc
Pale Fire / int_4fb23aa8	type	I Have This Friend
Pale Fire / int_4fb23aa8	comment	I Have This Friend: Kinbote reports overhearing part of a conversation at a party between John Shade and another guest, Mrs. H.; Shade insists that "a person who deliberately peels off a drab and unhappy past and replaces it with a brilliant invention" cannot truly be called insane. When Kinbote innocently asks what they were discussing, however, Mrs. H. insists that they were merely talking about an employee at the local railway station who thought he was God and began redirecting the trains.
Pale Fire / int_4fb23aa8	featureApplicability	1.0
Pale Fire / int_4fb23aa8	featureConfidence	1.0
Pale Fire	hasFeature	Pale Fire / int_4fb23aa8
Pale Fire / int_50b9b3d0	type	Crazy Jealous Guy
Pale Fire / int_50b9b3d0	comment	Crazy Jealous Guy: Kinbote absolutely adores Shade, while looking for every opportunity to put down his wife Sybil, including claiming certain parts of the poem are not about her when they explicitly are.
Pale Fire / int_50b9b3d0	featureApplicability	1.0
Pale Fire / int_50b9b3d0	featureConfidence	1.0
Pale Fire	hasFeature	Pale Fire / int_50b9b3d0
Pale Fire / int_5a3b8032	type	The Un-Reveal
Pale Fire / int_5a3b8032	comment	The Unreveal: A big part of why the book is so great: there is just enough information given to deny any single interpretation as valid.
Pale Fire / int_5a3b8032	featureApplicability	1.0
Pale Fire / int_5a3b8032	featureConfidence	1.0
Pale Fire	hasFeature	Pale Fire / int_5a3b8032
Pale Fire / int_6056f853	type	Homoerotic Subtext
Pale Fire / int_6056f853	comment	Speaking of Homoerotic Subtext, Kinbote stuffs so much of it into his stories of Zembla that it pretty much ceases to be subtext. In his recounting of Jakob Gradus's pursuit of the Zemblan king, he devotes one section to placing Gradus in a very homoerotic situation with a much younger man, and dwelling gleefully on Gradus's discomfort.
Pale Fire / int_6056f853	featureApplicability	1.0
Pale Fire / int_6056f853	featureConfidence	1.0
Pale Fire	hasFeature	Pale Fire / int_6056f853
Pale Fire / int_60cc14ba	type	Ruritania
Pale Fire / int_60cc14ba	comment	Ruritania: A highly idealized example in Zemblanote a distant northern land.
Pale Fire / int_60cc14ba	featureApplicability	1.0
Pale Fire / int_60cc14ba	featureConfidence	1.0
Pale Fire	hasFeature	Pale Fire / int_60cc14ba
Pale Fire / int_61c7d589	type	Bigger Is Better in Bed
Pale Fire / int_61c7d589	comment	Bigger Is Better in Bed: Bearing in mind that much of Kinbote's narrative is a self-flattering fantasy, Oleg, the Prince of Zembla's best friend, is described as this:
Pale Fire / int_61c7d589	featureApplicability	1.0
Pale Fire / int_61c7d589	featureConfidence	1.0
Pale Fire	hasFeature	Pale Fire / int_61c7d589
Pale Fire / int_63be4131	type	Pretty Boy
Pale Fire / int_63be4131	comment	Pretty Boy: Kinbote describes both the teenage Prince and the teenage Prince's best friend Oleg as being this, as Fanservice for himself, as it were.
Pale Fire / int_63be4131	featureApplicability	1.0
Pale Fire / int_63be4131	featureConfidence	1.0
Pale Fire	hasFeature	Pale Fire / int_63be4131
Pale Fire / int_641cf81d	type	Viewers Are Geniuses
Pale Fire / int_641cf81d	comment	Viewers Are Geniuses: Or else Nabokov wrote it to amuse himself, and he just doesn't care if you get it.
Pale Fire / int_641cf81d	featureApplicability	1.0
Pale Fire / int_641cf81d	featureConfidence	1.0
Pale Fire	hasFeature	Pale Fire / int_641cf81d
Pale Fire / int_6627695f	type	Author Appeal
Pale Fire / int_6627695f	comment	Author Appeal: References to butterflies, like every one of Nabokov's books.note Kinbote persistently misidentifies them or completely fails to recognise them, a clue to how much of an Unreliable Narrator he is. In-universe, Kinbote's tales about King Charles of Zembla are full of homoeroticism and distaste for women.
Pale Fire / int_6627695f	featureApplicability	1.0
Pale Fire / int_6627695f	featureConfidence	1.0
Pale Fire	hasFeature	Pale Fire / int_6627695f
Pale Fire / int_66755d29	type	Author Avatar
Pale Fire / int_66755d29	comment	Author Avatar: Near the end, implied to be one of Kinbote's layers. Many critics of the novel go even further than this, arguing that neither Kinbote nor Shade truly 'exist' in the world of the novel, that neither of them are the true 'narrator' of the work, who shows himself only through very brief slips in how he writes the character of Kinbote near the end, who states that his 'notes and self' are slowly waning away— in this reading, he truly is waning away as the novel draws to a close.
Pale Fire / int_66755d29	featureApplicability	1.0
Pale Fire / int_66755d29	featureConfidence	1.0
Pale Fire	hasFeature	Pale Fire / int_66755d29
Pale Fire / int_6d332aea	type	Driven to Suicide
Pale Fire / int_6d332aea	comment	Driven to Suicide: Hazel Shade after being ditched by her jerkass blind date whom she had seen as her one chance for finding love.
Pale Fire / int_6d332aea	featureApplicability	1.0
Pale Fire / int_6d332aea	featureConfidence	1.0
Pale Fire	hasFeature	Pale Fire / int_6d332aea
Pale Fire / int_6ebb6b43	type	Died During Production
Pale Fire / int_6ebb6b43	comment	Died During Production: In-universe. Shade is killed before he can write Line 1000 of his poem, but Kinbote helpfully tells us what it must have been. It is also implied that Kinbote is spiraling down toward suicide; once his edition of Shade's poem is finished, he will clearly have nothing left to live for.
Pale Fire / int_6ebb6b43	featureApplicability	1.0
Pale Fire / int_6ebb6b43	featureConfidence	1.0
Pale Fire	hasFeature	Pale Fire / int_6ebb6b43
Pale Fire / int_7ad2c23d	type	ShoutOutToShakespeare
Pale Fire / int_7ad2c23d	comment	And this Shout-Out to Shakespeare is, by Kinbote, mistranslated into English from a Zemblan copy of Timon of Athens without the Arc Words.
Pale Fire / int_7ad2c23d	featureApplicability	1.0
Pale Fire / int_7ad2c23d	featureConfidence	1.0
Pale Fire	hasFeature	Pale Fire / int_7ad2c23d
Pale Fire / int_7dbfa45b	type	Spy Speak
Pale Fire / int_7dbfa45b	comment	Spy Speak: The assassins (supposedly) pursuing the exiled King Charles frequently do this; unfortunately for them, their codes change so often that the speakers at both ends of a conversation can completely misinterpret each other. Two spies apparently break into the bedroom of Charles' likewise exiled wife and find a letter from him, giving away his pseudonym and place of residence, in her bedside table; when they inform their associate that the clue was right where he said it would be, he claims to have told them nothing of the sort.
Pale Fire / int_7dbfa45b	featureApplicability	1.0
Pale Fire / int_7dbfa45b	featureConfidence	1.0
Pale Fire	hasFeature	Pale Fire / int_7dbfa45b
Pale Fire / int_8b68d9a7	type	Stalker with a Crush
Pale Fire / int_8b68d9a7	comment	Stalker with a Crush: The whole reason Kinbote first rented a cabin out west in Cedarn is that he heard through multiple channels that John and Sybil Shade had a cabin there themselves, and were to go there on their next vacation; he got hold of a rental property there and was going to find some excuse to "accidentally" run into John.
Pale Fire / int_8b68d9a7	featureApplicability	1.0
Pale Fire / int_8b68d9a7	featureConfidence	1.0
Pale Fire	hasFeature	Pale Fire / int_8b68d9a7
Pale Fire / int_8b6e8d7	type	Anachronic Order
Pale Fire / int_8b6e8d7	comment	Anachronic Order: Most of the novel consists of footnotes that refer the reader all around the book.
Pale Fire / int_8b6e8d7	featureApplicability	1.0
Pale Fire / int_8b6e8d7	featureConfidence	1.0
Pale Fire	hasFeature	Pale Fire / int_8b6e8d7
Pale Fire / int_93f27743	type	Metafictional Title
Pale Fire / int_93f27743	comment	Metafictional Title: Pale Fire the book is named after "Pale Fire" the poem.
Pale Fire / int_93f27743	featureApplicability	1.0
Pale Fire / int_93f27743	featureConfidence	1.0
Pale Fire	hasFeature	Pale Fire / int_93f27743
Pale Fire / int_9cad69bf	type	Depraved Homosexual
Pale Fire / int_9cad69bf	comment	Depraved Homosexual: Kinbote is mildly promiscuous with certain of his students who are in the closet (he installed two ping-pong tables in the basement den of his rented house as a pretext/excuse for bringing younger men home), although he claims to have been heartbroken by one with whom he was seeking a less ephemeral relationship. His adoration of Shade also borders on Homoerotic Subtext. Speaking of Homoerotic Subtext, Kinbote stuffs so much of it into his stories of Zembla that it pretty much ceases to be subtext. In his recounting of Jakob Gradus's pursuit of the Zemblan king, he devotes one section to placing Gradus in a very homoerotic situation with a much younger man, and dwelling gleefully on Gradus's discomfort.
Pale Fire / int_9cad69bf	featureApplicability	1.0
Pale Fire / int_9cad69bf	featureConfidence	1.0
Pale Fire	hasFeature	Pale Fire / int_9cad69bf
Pale Fire / int_ab558564	type	New Age
Pale Fire / int_ab558564	comment	New Age: Has an obvious precursor in the Esalen- or Naropa-style spiritual learning center where John once gave a seminar, and which he gleefully satirizes in the poem as the "Institute of Preparation for the Hereafter"; in among a torrent of puns on the IPH acronym, he makes it clear that the place could give no useful guidance on coping with death or the afterlife.
Pale Fire / int_ab558564	featureApplicability	1.0
Pale Fire / int_ab558564	featureConfidence	1.0
Pale Fire	hasFeature	Pale Fire / int_ab558564
Pale Fire / int_bb18a227	type	It's All About Me
Pale Fire / int_bb18a227	comment	It's All About Me: The sentiment that allows Kinbote to write almost three hundred pages of "commentary" on his murdered neighbor's poem, imposing his own story upon it along the way.
Pale Fire / int_bb18a227	featureApplicability	1.0
Pale Fire / int_bb18a227	featureConfidence	1.0
Pale Fire	hasFeature	Pale Fire / int_bb18a227
Pale Fire / int_bf74d357	type	Ugly Guy, Hot Wife
Pale Fire / int_bf74d357	comment	Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: John and Sybil Shade.
Pale Fire / int_bf74d357	featureApplicability	1.0
Pale Fire / int_bf74d357	featureConfidence	1.0
Pale Fire	hasFeature	Pale Fire / int_bf74d357
Pale Fire / int_c75df49a	type	Shout-Out
Pale Fire / int_c75df49a	comment	Professor Pnin (from Nabokov's previous novel) makes a brief appearance near the end, as does "Hurricane Lolita."
Pale Fire / int_c75df49a	featureApplicability	1.0
Pale Fire / int_c75df49a	featureConfidence	1.0
Pale Fire	hasFeature	Pale Fire / int_c75df49a
Pale Fire / int_d05cf3f	type	Footnote Fever
Pale Fire / int_d05cf3f	comment	Footnote Fever: Nabokov occasionally has it, but Kinbote has it worse. The novel is not quite as loony as House of Leaves, but was clearly an inspiration for it.
Pale Fire / int_d05cf3f	featureApplicability	1.0
Pale Fire / int_d05cf3f	featureConfidence	1.0
Pale Fire	hasFeature	Pale Fire / int_d05cf3f
Pale Fire / int_d7531233	type	You Need a Breath Mint
Pale Fire / int_d7531233	comment	You Need a Breath Mint: After shanghai-ing Gerald Emerald into helping with a demonstration of Zemblan wrestling holds, Kinbote finds a note in his jacket pocket (probably left by Emerald) that says "You have h . . . . . . . s real bad, chum" — i.e. halitosis. Failing to see the significance of the number of dots, Kinbote thinks he's being accused of having hallucinations, which only adds to his resentment of his fellow lecturers; he also never addresses the problem of his bad breath because he never figures out what the note actually refers to. Justified in that Kinbote is strongly hinted to be an alcoholic.
Pale Fire / int_d7531233	featureApplicability	1.0
Pale Fire / int_d7531233	featureConfidence	1.0
Pale Fire	hasFeature	Pale Fire / int_d7531233
Pale Fire / int_daf81d3	type	Plain Jane
Pale Fire / int_daf81d3	comment	Plain Jane: Hazel Shade, John Shade's overweight, psoriasis-afflicted daughter.
Pale Fire / int_daf81d3	featureApplicability	1.0
Pale Fire / int_daf81d3	featureConfidence	1.0
Pale Fire	hasFeature	Pale Fire / int_daf81d3
Pale Fire / int_e5421161	type	Expy
Pale Fire / int_e5421161	comment	Expy: Professor Pnin (from Nabokov's previous novel) makes a brief appearance near the end, as does "Hurricane Lolita." Kinbote is perplexed by the use of the name "Lolita", commenting that it is a popular name for Spanish parrots but mentioning that there was no hurricane called Lolita in 1958.
Pale Fire / int_e5421161	featureApplicability	1.0
Pale Fire / int_e5421161	featureConfidence	1.0
Pale Fire	hasFeature	Pale Fire / int_e5421161
Pale Fire / int_e5467735	type	Expy Coexistence
Pale Fire / int_e5467735	comment	Expy Coexistence: Despite John Shade mentioning Robert Frost as a fellow poet, it seems clear that Nabokov based him on Frost — they are almost alike in appearance, share a vocation (university lecturer teaching literature), and have similarly evocative surnames.
Pale Fire / int_e5467735	featureApplicability	1.0
Pale Fire / int_e5467735	featureConfidence	1.0
Pale Fire	hasFeature	Pale Fire / int_e5467735
Pale Fire / int_eb8ec7c8	type	Jerkass
Pale Fire / int_eb8ec7c8	comment	Jerkass: Kinbote. Although he could fall anywhere on the scale between here and The Woobie, depending on how pathetic you think he is.
Pale Fire / int_eb8ec7c8	featureApplicability	1.0
Pale Fire / int_eb8ec7c8	featureConfidence	1.0
Pale Fire	hasFeature	Pale Fire / int_eb8ec7c8
Pale Fire / int_ef182bbd	type	Biography à Clef
Pale Fire / int_ef182bbd	comment	Biography à Clef: Kinbote more or less insists on reading Shade's poem in this fashion, and insists that real-life precedents exist for the thinnest allusions in Shade's poem, and presents his wild speculation and theory as proof of this.
Pale Fire / int_ef182bbd	featureApplicability	1.0
Pale Fire / int_ef182bbd	featureConfidence	1.0
Pale Fire	hasFeature	Pale Fire / int_ef182bbd
Pale Fire / int_name	type	ItemName
Pale Fire / int_name	comment
Pale Fire / int_name	featureApplicability	1.0
Pale Fire / int_name	featureConfidence	1.0
Pale Fire	hasFeature	Pale Fire / int_name
Pale Fire / int_name	itemName	Pale Fire

The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.

Pnin	seeAlso	Pale Fire
Pale Fire	hasFeature	All First-Person Narrators Write Like Novelists / int_a153a18d
Pale Fire	hasFeature	Deconstructor Fleet / int_a153a18d
Pale Fire	hasFeature	Faux Symbolism / int_a153a18d
Pale Fire	hasFeature	Fictional Province / int_a153a18d
Pale Fire	hasFeature	In the Original Klingon / int_a153a18d
Pale Fire	hasFeature	Longing for Fictionland / int_a153a18d
Pale Fire	hasFeature	Mary Suetopia / int_a153a18d
Pale Fire	hasFeature	Plain Jane / int_a153a18d
Pale Fire	hasFeature	Postmodernism / int_a153a18d
Pale Fire	hasFeature	Recursive Translation / int_a153a18d
Pale Fire	hasFeature	Secret Underground Passage / int_a153a18d
Pale Fire	hasFeature	The All-Concealing "I" / int_a153a18d

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