Erik Eklund: 2023 International Vladimir Nabokov Society (IVNS) Gennady Barabtarlo Best Essay Prize for best academic essay published on Nabokov

“The Name of God has priority”: "God" and the Apophatic Element in Vladimir Nabokov’s Pale Fire

However one might interpret Vladimir Nabokov’s self-styled ‘utter indifference’ to religion, mysticism, and theology, his 1962 metafictional masterpiece, Pale Fire, betrays a measured though nonetheless peculiar engagement with theological ideas and sources. Focusing on the novel’s theological centre—Charles Kinbote’s note to line 549 of John Shade’s poem (‘While snubbing gods, including the big G’), which records Kinbote’s conversation with Shade on 23 June 1959 about religion and God—this article uncovers Pale Fire’s direct engagement with core tenets of the apophatic theologies of St Augustine and St Thomas Aquinas, and argues, moreover, that this works to highlight the analogy which the novel seeks to express between theological and literary discourse.