Like Pale Fire, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight (1941) has as its central theme the search for identity and the interpenetration of life and art. Satirical treatment of the academic community can also be found in Pnin; interestingly enough, the title character of that novel reappears in Pale Fire as Professor Pnin, the head of Wordsmith's "bloated Russian department," whose sole distinguishing feature seems to be his unpronounceable name.

The unreliable narrator appears in several of Nabokov's novels, most notably Despair (1937) and Ada (1969); although neither of those characters is as sympathetic as Kinbote; Despair is also an ironic treatment of the theme of the double.