Charles Kinbote is the

unreliable narrator An unreliable narrator is a narrator whose credibility is compromised. They can be found in fiction and film, and range from children to mature characters. The term was coined in 1961 by Wayne C. Booth in ''The Rhetoric of Fiction''. While unr ...

Vladimir Nabokov Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (russian: link=no, Владимир Владимирович Набоков ; 2 July 1977), also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin (), was a Russian-American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Bor ...

's novel ''

Pale Fire ''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 co ...

''.

Academic work

Kinbote appears to be the scholarly author of the Foreword, Commentary and Index surrounding the text of the late

John Shade ''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 col ...

's poem "Pale Fire", which together form the text of Nabokov's novel. In the course of initially academic but increasingly deranged annotations to Shade's text, Kinbote's writing reveals a comic melange of

narcissism Narcissism is a self-centered personality style characterized as having an excessive interest in one's physical appearance or image and an excessive preoccupation with one's own needs, often at the expense of others. Narcissism exists on a co ...

and megalomania: he believes himself to be a royal figure, the exiled king of Zembla and the real target of the gunman who has in fact murdered Shade. Using the scholarly apparatus of reference and commentary, Kinbote first intertwines his own story with the commentary on Shade's poem, then allows the poem to slide into the background and his perhaps delusional world to move into the spotlight; as Kinbote had hoped John Shade would produce a poem about Zembla's exiled king, this shift provides some satisfaction for Kinbote.

Zembla

Kinbote's "distant northern land" may or may not exist in the world of the novel. In one interpretation, Kinbote is in fact a failed Eastern European academic probably named Vseslav Botkin, teaching at the same university as Shade. Botkin is desperate for recognition, ridiculed by most of the staff. Shade alone feels pity for him, and occasionally indulges Kinbote in long walks around New Wye, the college town where they live.

Structure and ''Pale Fire''s author

The reflexive structure of the novel, in which neither Kinbote nor Shade can really have the last word, together with apparent allusions to Kinbote's story in the poem, allow critics to argue various theories of authorship for ''Pale Fire'' as a whole, including the theory that Shade invented Kinbote and wrote the commentary himself, and the contrasting theory that Kinbote invented Shade. Brian Boyd's book ''Pale Fire: The Magic of Artistic Discovery'' thoroughly explores the authorship and interpretive options, eventually settling on a thesis involving intervention in the text by both Shade and his daughter Hazel after their respective deaths. Mary McCarthy, in her 1962 New Republic essay "A Bolt from the Blue" (in which she classed ''Pale Fire'' "one of the great works of art of the century") identified the book's author as Professor V. Botkin. Nabokov himself endorsed this reading, including in a list of possible interview-answers at the end of his 1962 diary, "I wonder if any reader will notice the following details: 1) that the nasty commentator is not an ex-king and not even Dr. Kinbote, but Prof. Vseslav Botkin, a Russian and a madman..." Brian Boyd, ''Vladimir Nabokov: The American Years'', Princeton: The

Princeton University Press Princeton University Press is an independent publisher with close connections to Princeton University. Its mission is to disseminate scholarship within academia and society at large. The press was founded by Whitney Darrow, with the financia ...

, 1990. p. 709. On the same page, Boyd includes another note from Nabokov's 1962 diary: On Kinbote: "He commits suicide before completing his index, leaving the last entry without p geref rences" Nabokov always liked—see '' Lolita'', ''

The Defense ''The Defense'' is the third novel written by Vladimir Nabokov after he had emigrated to Berlin. It was published in 1930. Publication The novel appeared first under Nabokov's pen name V. Sirin in the Russian emigre quarterly '' Sovremennye zapi ...

'', '' Glory'', '' Despair'', ''

King, Queen, Knave ''King, Queen, Knave'' was the second novel written by Vladimir Nabokov (under his pen name V. Sirin) while living in Berlin and sojourning at resorts in the Baltic. Written in the years 1927–8, it was published as ''Король, дама, � ...

'', '' Laughter in the Dark'', ''

Bend Sinister In heraldry, a bend is a band or strap running from the upper dexter (the bearer's right side and the viewer's left) corner of the shield to the lower sinister (the bearer's left side, and the viewer's right). Authorities differ as to how mu ...

''—to leave a body count.

Cultural influences

*A character was named after Kinbote in ''

The X-Files ''The X-Files'' is an American science fiction drama television series created by Chris Carter. The series revolves around Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Special Agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson), who ...

'' episode "

Jose Chung's From Outer Space "Jose Chung's ''From Outer Space''" is the 20th episode of the third season of the science fiction television series ''The X-Files''. The episode first aired in the United States on April 12, 1996, on Fox. It was written by Darin Morgan and d ...

References

{{authority control Kinbote, Charles Kinbote, Charles Fictional characters introduced in 1962