No. Those the Souls book certainly do fit this. I was thinking more broadly. I'm saying that almost every game today owes something to Pale Fire and other works of ergodic literature. And, I wasn't even thinking of Souls. I was thinking more of System Shock(s) the Bioshocks, and every semi-modern RPG where background and context are provided by the player exploring and reading through books, journals, etc.
For sure, I understand. I was goin for a little joke because obviously book isn't a soulslike. No dragons for one thing.
Unless you believe he is mad and the claim of some other spy coming from him is a masked claim?
Yeah that's one part of it, but I see several other pieces of evidence that point to the conclusion. I mean he lovingly strokes a gun at one point while considering suicide.
The reading that I'm most partial to is that Kimbote is delusional and has entirely invented Zembla as a trauma response to his queer identity and the damage he's done to his marriage (perhaps necessitating his flight to New Wye). This interpretation proposes that he's actually Professor V. Botkin mentioned in the index. "Kin bote" is a reversal of the symbols "bot kin;" it's a near homonym of bodkin, an archaic term for a dagger, he also claims that Kinbote means king killer in Zemblanese. He's invented a personality that's a self-destroyer, at least on one level.
The reading in a nutshell: Botkin unconsciously invents the Kinbote personality as a way to deal with inner turmoil, meets Shade, sees an opportunity for this revered poet to legitimize his delusion through the act of writing a great poem, and harasses him by regaling the story of King Charles' romantic adventures all summer. Then a convict seeking revenge on the judge who sentenced him goes to the judge's home, who Kinbote happens to be renting. The convict mistakes elderly Shade for the judge and shoots him. Kinbote steals the manuscript in the confusion believing it to be the great Zembla poem. He discovers instead it's the intensely personal (and not very good) poem 'Pale Fire.' He's filled not only with feelings of disappointment and betrayal but also guilt and responsibility for Shade's death.
He escapes with the poem to a cabin he's previously booked and while he can't quite force himself to rewrite or alter the poem (at least completely, the poem does mention Zembla in one line which gives credence Kinbote did tamper with it a little, perhaps) he does conceive of commenting on it and manages to weasel his way into having publishing rights. He uses the commentary to finally and definitively tell his King Charles story, but on a deeper subconscious level he's also dealing with his trauma, guilt, and self-delusion. For example, he invents this whole character of Gradus to explain Shade's death and tie Shade and (imagined) Kinbote's lives together.
I believe on some level he does understand this is all a farce and has some recognition to the truth, no matter how much he tries to deny it. All the Kinbote/Charles/Zembla stuff is self-defense and self-delusion but I don't think he's pathologic in a way where he actually believes he's an exiled king. I see a part in his evasiveness that knows what he's done: stolen his friend's last work, and worse stolen it's artistic merit in order to aggrandize a fantasy.
He gets his whole stupid story down on paper, sends out his commentary to be published, achieves his goal and vindicated his delusion, and what's left? He knows and tells us when he says that despite Gradus failure to assassinate the king, there will always be another hitman after him and the next will be competent. He can say this with confidence because he knows exactly who that hitman is and why they will not fail.
So what we're left with is this odd document: a sorta okay but not spectacular poem followed by a bizarre adventure story masked as commentary. What does it amount to? Because ultimately what we have here is the story of a weird guy who didn't achieve anything other than making an odd document about how he's a weird guy who made an odd document.
I think an answer lies in the central irony of the book. The concept of 'Pale Fire' comes from (as Kinbote notes and yet fails to recognize) Timon of Athens where Shakespere uses the image of the moon reflecting the sun's light to invoke an idea of borrowed merit. Kinbote very clearly and shamelessly does this by forcing the poem to be about himself and steal its legitimacy as an art piece. But at the same time the book "Pale Fire" is far better, more interesting, better written (despite Kinbote's absurdities), and deeper in theme and expression than the poem 'Pale Fire' alone. Which is the sun and which is the moon? What part is elevated by what? There's a question and contradiction at the heart of everything about where inspiration or merit comes from; where value is engendered. I think that gives the book a lot of legitimacy itself and moves it past 'weird document of a wasted life.'
