Zembla as an ultima thule

According to Wikipedia, the term ultima thule is Latin for “farthest north,” and in medieval times was used to refer to any place that was beyond the “borders of the known world.” The first appearance of ultima thule in ancient literature is in the poems of Virgil (the Roman poet who wrote the Aeneid), who used the expression to symbolize a far off land and an unattainable goal. This concept of a mythic land fits nicely with Charles Kinbote’s “Zembla,” which in the index of Pale Fire is defined as “a distant northern land.” Whenever Kinbote brings up the topic of Zembla, he portrays it in a fantastic, almost heavenly manner, and even though he was exiled from Zembla he still holds the place in high regard. In a way, Kinbote’s descriptions make Zembla seem unrealistic. For example, in addition to describing the harmonious political situation during his reign as king, Kinbote mentions on page 75 that the people of Zembla had taken up parachuting as a hobby. Any country where the general populous can take up parachuting for fun must be a place of few worries or obligations. This small anecdote seems rather random and insignificant, which further adds to the country’s portrayal as peaceful and tranquil. Additionally, when Kinbote describes his escape from Zembla during the Zemblan Revolution, he mentions that there were many vacationers on the beach where he met Odon to flee the country. Indeed, it seems a little unlikely that a country could be in the midst of a violent revolution (the extremists were, after all, looking to kill the former king) yet still play host to foreigners on vacation. All of these descriptions of Zembla contribute to its depiction as an ultima thule, a fantastical land of innocent pursuits and great escapes, a land of, to borrow from Ibsen, “castles in the air.”

The next logical question regarding Zembla, after establishing its status as an ultima thule, would concern whether Zembla is a real place where Kinbote was king or whether the country is an invention of Kinbote’s imagination. Since Pale Fire is set in the middle of the twentieth century, the world would have already been thoroughly explored and mapped when Kinbote and John Shade were living in New Wye. Thus, if Zembla was “a distant northern land” that was outside the “borders of the known world,” it probably did not exist on Earth at all. This Zembla could have been an actual place in the time of Virgil, when the outer fringes of the world were still unknown, but in Kinbote’s time there would be no room for such a distant northern land on the map. Consequently, the unknown region where Zembla exists is most likely located completely within Kinbote’s imagination. If this were the case, some of the pieces of the puzzle would appear to fit together better. It would explain how the weak, elegant, and romantic Kinbote was able to be the king of a nation; as if the nation was his complete fabrication he would know best how to rule it. Zembla’s imaginary status would also account for some of the unlikely characteristics and apparent contradictions that Kinbote describes it as possessing – conditions which seem impossible for an actual country to exist in. Kinbote’s Zembla is thus no more tangible than Halvard Solness’s “castles in the air.”