Vladimir Nabokov's Pale Fire begins with a 999 line poem by the Robert Frost-like American poet John Shade. The rest of the novel consists of scholarly apparatus, mostly footnotes to the poem concocted by the manuscript's erratic editor, Charles Kinbote, which tell the story of Charles the Beloved, the recently and most unfairly deposed king of Zembla ("a distant northern land").
The chatty index includes the following widely dispersed references to where the Zemblan crown jewels were hidden to keep them out of the hands of Communist revolutionaries.
From Kinbote's Index to Pale Fire:
- Andronnikov and Niagarin, two Soviet experts in quest of a buried treasure, 130, 681, 741; see Crown Jewels.- Crown Jewels, 130, 681; see Hiding Place.
- Hiding Place, potaynik (q.v.)
- Niagarin and Andronnikov, two Soviet "experts" still in quest of a buried treasure, 130, 681, 741; see Crown Jewels.
- Potaynik, taynik (q.v.)In 1986, inspired by Pale Fire, I wrote a computer manual that included (of course) the index entries:- Taynik, Russ., secret place; see Crown Jewels.
- Infinite Loop; see Loop, Infinite
- Loop, Infinite; see Infinite Loop
