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 entriesJohn 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 royaltyThe history of Zemblan royalty

Kinbote’s escape from ZemblaKinbote’s escape from Zembla

Kinbote’s escape from ZemblaKinbote’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 indexWord 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