The Story Archive

Pale Fire

Vladimir Nabokov · 1962 CE · Novel · Modern / American · Contemporary

A New England poet leaves behind a thousand-line poem about his daughter, and the neighbour who secures the manuscript supplies a foreword, a line-by-line commentary and an index. The commentary proves to be largely about the deposed king of a northern country called Zembla, and grows less interested in the poem the longer it runs. Assembled entirely out of scholarly apparatus, while Nabokov was finishing his commentary on Eugene Onegin.

Open Pale Fire in the archive — filters, lineage graph and full facet browsing.

Lineage

Attributes

Genre
PsychologicalMysterySatire
Theme
Art & CreationMadnessExile & HomecomingMemory & TimeIdentity & Self
Archetype (Jung / Campbell)
Anti-HeroThe DoubleTrickster
Plot structure
MetafictionUnreliable NarratorFrame Narrative
Symbol / motif
The Book / ManuscriptThe MirrorThe Crown
Conflict
vs Selfvs Society
Mode / tone
IronicMetafictionalElegiac
Culture / tradition
Modern / American

Closest analogues