Networked literature:
Hypertextuality inside and
outside Vladimir Nabakov’s
Pale Fire
RKE Symposium
3rd
February 2011
Simon.rowberry@winchester.ac.uk

• Pale Fire in 2 minutes
• A brief introduction to graph theory
• The network inside Pale Fire
• Pale Fire as a microcosm of literature
• The Critic as networked individual

• 3 layers:
• John Shade’s final poem ‘Pale Fire’
• Jack Gray’s botched murder of
Shade through mistaken identity
• Charles Kinbote’s story of Zembla
and his exile as the catalyst for
• How do these layers connect?
• Kinbote’s role of editor within the
text
• How much of it can we be sure
about?
• It is the reader’s connections that
make the text work on any
fundamental level
• The debate about authorship (which
has now become self-parody)

John Shade and Charles
Kinbote’s index entries
John Shade and Charles
Kinbote’s index entries
Kinbote’s index entry for
variants (mostly his!)
Kinbote’s index entry for
variants (mostly his!)
The history of Zemblan
royalty
The history of Zemblan
royalty
Kinbote’s escape from
Zembla
Kinbote’s escape from
Zembla
Kinbote’s escape from
Zembla
Kinbote’s escape from
Zembla
Index entries without
references. Including
Zembla
Index entries without
references. Including
Zembla
The puzzle of
the crown jewels
in the index
The puzzle of
the crown jewels
in the index
Word golf
in the index
Word golf
in the index

• the real subject of ‘Pale Fire’ (the poem) is its own
intertextuality” (Williams 2002:22)
• Evokes images of cybernetics and feedback cycles. Particularly
in the index. But is it self-regulating?
• Search nodes in the text
• ‘the good reader is one who has imagination, memory, a
dictionary and some artistic sense’ (Nabokov 2002:3)
• T. S. Eliot as ‘Toilets’.
• Microcosm of literature
• One does not need a ‘Borgesian library [of Babel]’ (Boyd
2001:37). C.f. WWW
• ‘The text is so complex and so baffling that even a
deconstructionist would reasonably fear becoming Nabokov's
dupe.’ (Couturier 1998)
• The network is MORE complex than Nabokov’s intentions

• ‘Detection is even more difficult for the Nabokov
fan than it is for his unsophisticated reader: the
devotee's antennae will locate as many false clues
as true ones, for author-antagonist Nabokov drops
these false leads in the same places he plants true
ones’ (Williams 1963:29-30)
• The critic adds to the network of literature.
• ‘For better or for worse, the critic has the last
word’ (Nabokov 1962:25)
• Barry Wellman’s concept of Networked Individual
• The critic can only get so far by themselves in
isolation
• Literary criticism is a social enterprise