The Real Life of Sebastian Knight

by Vladimir Nabokov

"I am very happy that you liked that little book," wrote Vladimir Nabokov to Edmund Wilson in 1941. "As I think I told you, I wrote it five years ago, in Paris, on the implement called bidet as a writing desk--because we lived in one room and I had to use our small bathroom as a study." The book in question was The Real Life of Sebastian Knight. And despite its humble origins, Nabokov's first novel in English showed him to be in absolute command of his adopted language.

Like many of the author's later triumphs, this one revolves around a question of identity. The late Sebastian Knight, we discover, was a transplanted Russian novelist whose taste for linguistic trickery bears a certain resemblance to Nabokov's. Now his half-brother is attempting to reconstruct the existence of this elusive figure. As he readily admits, the raw material isn't exactly the stuff of melodrama: "Sebastian's life, though far from being dull, lacked the terrific vigour of his literary style." But even the most mundane facts prove difficult for the narrator to nail down. He does, on the other hand, describe Sebastian's creative processes in exquisite and accurate detail:

His struggle with words was usually painful and this for two reasons. One was the common one with writers of his type: the bridging of the abyss lying between expression and thought; the maddening feeling that the right words, the only words are awaiting you on the opposite bank in the misty distance, and the shudderings of the still unclothed thought clamouring for them on this side of the abyss.

Sebastian's real life--or anybody's, for that matter--refuses to yield up a verbal equivalent. Still, the narrator manages a kind of fraternal fusion with his subject on the book's final page, which suggests a fluid and very Nabokovian view of identity itself. For this reason, and for the splendors of its prose, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight is a necessary read. It's also safe to say that it's the very best novel ever written on a bidet. --James Marcus

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Russia, Russian Literature, Novels, Literature, Literary Fiction

176 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1941

About the author

Russian: Владимир Набоков .

Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov, also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin, was a Russian-American novelist. Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Russian, then rose to international prominence as a master English prose stylist. He also made significant contributions to lepidoptery, and had a big interest in chess problems.

Nabokov's Lolita (1955) is frequently cited as his most important novel, and is at any rate his most widely known one, exhibiting the love of intricate wordplay and descriptive detail that characterized all his works.

Lolita was ranked fourth in the list of the Modern Library 100 Best Novels; Pale Fire (1962) was ranked 53rd on the same list, and his memoir, Speak, Memory (1951), was listed eighth on the publisher's list of the 20th century's greatest nonfiction. He was also a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction seven times.

Reviews

[Orsodimondo · Rating 4 out of 5]

IL NARRATORE INAFFIDABILE


”Citizen Kane – Quarto potere” il primo film di Orson Welles, scritto, diretto, prodotto, interpretato. 1941. Per l’AFI, la BBC e la rivista ‘Sight & Sound’ è il miglior film di sempre. Welles amava i giochi di prestigio, i conigli estratti dal cilindro, maschere e travestimenti, proprio come Nabokov era un campione di narratore inaffidabile, di scatole cinesi, di racconto nel racconto.

All’improvviso, senza nessunissimo motivo particolare, provai un’immensa compassione per lui e una gran voglia di dirgli qualcosa di reale, qualcosa che avesse un cuore e due ali, ma gli uccelli che desideravo mi si posarono sulle spalle e sul capo solo più tardi, quando ormai ero solo e non avevo più bisogno di parole.


”Mr Arkadin – Rapporto confidenziale", del 1955. Anche in questo caso Orson Welles fu factotum: sceneggiatore, interprete, regista, produttore.

Il narratore ha sei anni meno del soggetto narrato, il Sebastian Knight del titolo (il cognome di Sebastian fa riferimento agli scacchi nei quali l’inglese definisce ‘knight’ il cavallo, e bishop, cioè vescovo, l’alfiere: Clare Bishop è una donna importante nella vita di Sebastian Knight).
Il narratore è il fratellastro minore del soggetto narrato, condivide con il Sebastian del titolo lo stesso padre, ma madre diversa.
Il narratore si fa gioco e sbeffeggia una presunta biografia scritta dal segretario dello stesso Sebastian Knight, ne riporta ampie citazioni, che sono più o meno ovviamente parto dello stesso narratore, non del segretario, in quanto mai esistito, e neppure di Sebastian Knight, anche lui mai nato e men che meno morto.


”F for Fake – F come Falso: Verità e menzogna”, del 1973.

A meno che la creazione letteraria non possa essere considerata un parto, una nascita: alla quale non fa seguito alcuna morte, ma l’eternità che la letteratura regala.
Altrettanto farlocche, frutto di fantasia e non dato reale, sono le citazioni che il narratore regala al lettore presumibilmente tratte dalle opere composte da Sebastian Knight, principalmente una, intitolata Oggetti smarriti.


”Histoire immortelle – Storia immortale”, 1968, l’ennesimo film di Orson Welles, dove si manipola il racconto giocando con specchi e incastri, dove ciò che viene spacciato per vero lo è meno di quello che si crede inventato.

Quello che il narratore cela e non dice, l’unico aspetto che si avvicina alla verità, è che questo romanzo di una biografia ha sapor di autobiografia, in quanto Nabokov condivide esperienze di vita con Sebastian Knight. Non per niente del narratore conosciamo solo l’iniziale, V., che potrebbe appunto indicare Vladimir.
Ma per proseguire nella partita a scacchi che Nabokov ha ingaggiato con il lettore, partita per ora soprattutto di cavallo (knight) e alfiere (bishop), la presunta autobiografia è non solo parziale, ma anche piuttosto immaginaria perché i punti del romanzo che nulla hanno a che fare con la vera vita di Vladimir Nabokov sono di ben lunga più numerosi di quelli che invece potrebbero sovrapporsi.


”Les Trois couronnes du matelot” film del 1983 di Raoul Ruiz, regista cileno emigrato in Francia. Anche Ruiz amava inserire narratori inaffidabili.

A me par chiaro che a Mr Lolita quello che davvero interessa nel raccontarci di Sebastian Knight è l’impalcatura letteraria, il resoconto del tentativo di scrivere una biografia più che la vita di Sebastina Knight in sé. Nabokov procede per le poco più di duecento pagine dando un colpo al cerchio (la presunta vera vita di Sebastian Knight) e uno alla botte (la struttura a incastro e specchi, la matrioska, il racconto di un racconto di un racconto) con il doppio effetto che io lettore mi sono incuriosito e divertito seguendo il cerchio, e della botte ho goduto ben più di molto.
la maschera di Sebastian mi rimane incollata al viso, la somiglianza non potrà esser lavata via. Io sono Sebastian, o Sebastian è me, o forse siamo tutti e due qualcuno che né l’uno né l’altro conosce.



“L'hypothèse du tableau violé – L’ipotesi del quadro rubato” 1979, sempre di Raoul Ruiz.

Alla fine poche brevi ma preziose pagine di postfazione firmate Giorgio Manganelli:
Ma in primo luogo vorrei indugiare su questa “Vera vita” e sono certo che scacchi e farfalle troveranno il modo di venirci incontro. Poiché Nabokov è interessato non tanto alla narrazione, quanto al programma, al disegno del romanzo, la sua macchina…Il fratellastro di Sebastian Knight, geniale scrittore morto in giovane età, tenta di scriverne la vita; in teoria, il libro dovrebbe essere una biografia immaginaria: non lo è. È l’autobiografia del fratellastro durante i suoi tentativi di trovare materiale per questa “Vera vita”. Per conseguire questi risultati, egli dovrà fare delle ‘mosse’ – ecco gli scacchi.


Il “Fight Club” di David Fincher (1999) è un altro bell’esempio di narrazione inaffidabile. Così come pure Verbal Kent in “The Usual Suspects – I soliti sospetti” di Bryan Singer (1995), o il dott. Malcom Crowe in “The Sixth Sense – Il sesto senso” di Night Shyamalan (1999). Gli esempi sono tanti: ma quale narratore è più inaffidabile di un morto che parla come Joe Gillis in “Sunset Boulevard”?!

[Vit Babenco · Rating 5 out of 5]

How does the real life of a person relate to his overtly known biography? 

Sebastian’s image does not appear as part of my boyhood, thus subject to endless selection and development, nor does it appear as a succession of familiar visions, but it comes to me in a few bright patches, as if he were not a constant member of our family, but some erratic visitor passing across a lighted room and then for a long interval fading into the night. I explain this not so much by the fact that my own childish interests precluded any conscious relation with one who was not young enough to be my companion and not old enough to be my guide, but by Sebastian’s constant aloofness, which, although I loved him dearly, never allowed my affection either recognition or food. I could perhaps describe the way he walked, or laughed or sneezed, but all this would be no more than sundry bits of cinema-film cut away by scissors and having nothing in common with the essential drama.

The Real Life of Sebastian Knight is an investigation of the writer’s past, an attempt to get nearer to his genuine self… How close may an investigator come to the reality of the other person?

I collected one of the most precious pages of Sebastian’s life. A more systematic mind than mine would have placed them in the beginning of this book, but my quest had developed its own magic and logic and though I sometimes cannot help believing that it had gradually grown into a dream, that quest, using the pattern of reality for the weaving of its own fancies, I am forced to recognize that I was being led right, and that in striving to render Sebastian’s life I must now follow the same rhythmical interlacements.

The ways others see us, describe us and remember us are always the reflections distorted by their own consciousness…
The one’s ego can only be known to oneself.

[Fionnuala]

I've always had a problem with how I appear in photographs—the image I see never matches the image I have of myself, the one I’ve retained from looking in the mirror every morning of my life. I’ve often wondered what the difference is, and figured that, apart from the split in my hair being on the opposite side, it may be because the photo shows only what the camera sees, someone looking vaguely in its direction, while the mirror offers a more 'concentrated me', the ‘real me’, the one with eyes that really see instead of merely looking.

If I’ve been thinking about mirrors, it’s because this book prompts the reader to look beyond its obvious surface, and step into the mirror image beneath. That prompt didn’t reach me until the half-way line coincidently; I struggled on the ‘surface' side of the story for the first half, reading words without really seeing them.
Then suddenly I could ‘see’.
I’d found my way to the other side, and the characters in the story began to slot into their places as if they were pieces moving on a chess board. Speaking of chess boards, isn’t the half-way line on a chess board like the surface of a mirror? The chess pieces in their starting positions are reflections, not as a photo might show them but as a mirror does, queen opposite queen, king opposite king.

The starting positions of the characters in this book also offer mirror comparisons. There is the writer Sebastian Knight, author of several books, including an autobiography, the contents of which are revealed little by little.
There is his step-brother, the would-be writer of a biography of Sebastian, and the narrator of the book we are reading.
But this step-brother figure who mirrors Knight so closely is a mystery; we wonder if he really exists since Knight’s secretary announces at the beginning that he has never heard of him and that there had been no mention of him in Knight's autobiography. We begin to wonder if this unnamed narrator-brother is simply a mirror device to reveal ‘the real life of Sebastian Knight? Whatever his function, we become involved in his long slow quest to fill the gaps in Sebastian’s history. The narrator announces early on that he has never written anything before and Nabokov cleverly gives him a hesitant style at the beginning and has him resort to the odd cliché, 'waxing sentimental', 'to take pen in hand', 'to face the inevitable', but he soon gets into his stride.

We are given a brief account of the life of the mother of the mirror-image half-brothers in the first chapter, though it only increases the sense of mystery. We learn that she abandoned her husband and young Sebastian in order to lead a vagabond life in the company of various men friends.
But almost exactly in the middle of the book, a pivotal thing happens: we hear the details of the mother's story again but they refer to another character entirely. Nina Toorovetz (I had never seen a skin so evenly pale, the narrator says when he meets her), the woman who destroys Knight (although he dies of a heart condition, we see that it is she who has struck the blow) is almost the mirror image of his mother. We hear part of this 'white queen’s' story from her former husband, a man who resembles Knight's father, and who has remarried, as Sebastian’s father had, and is described caring for a small boy, a sort of mini-Sebastian.
There is an ‘assassin’ figure in this section who is a lynch-pin for the entire book. His name may be Anatole Schartz (black), he plays chess and is linked to Nina, but perhaps to Sebastian’s father and mother too, since Sebastian’s father was killed in a duel.
And while we’re on the chess theme, let’s not forget Claire Bishop, Sebastian’s lover who gets discarded early in the game book.

My interest really began to pick up from this midpoint onwards though the author continues to lead the reader on a convoluted trip, concealing while revealing in a series of spider moves, more often sideways than straight on, like raindrops on a window pane: they did not trickle straight but in a jerky dubious, zig-zag course, pausing every now and then, reminding us yet again of a chess board.

I became more and more aware of literary references and coincidences as I read on. All of of Knight's five ‘books’ are discussed. The first is a pastiche of the detective story genre which had me desperately chasing after ‘clues’ to a possible murder.
The second is about coincidences, those moments in people’s lives when unknowingly to one another they all but met, which made me even more attentive to the text, and I did find several examples of such missed meetings.
The third of Knight's ‘books’ is called ‘The Funny Mountain’ and as Sebastian spends some time at a mountain sanatorium, I thought of The Magic Mountain and started looking for parallels to that.
The Sebastian Knight ‘book’ most extensively quoted is his autobiography, ‘Lost Property’. Large sections of this are quoted, and we wonder why we are not simply reading 'Lost Property' instead of the book we are reading, another example of the mirroring theme.
Sebastian Knight's final book ‘The Doubtful Asphodel’ is the fifth example of mirroring. It recounts a search for truth about the moment of death. In this novel within a novel, several of the characters whom the narrator has tracked down in the ‘real’ novel we are reading, show up. The moment of truth is missed however when the author of 'The Doubtful Asphodel' turns away for a moment and death steals in and checkmates the man whose dying he has been observing. Then, back in the world of the reader's novel, the narrator strives to be present at his brother Sebastian’s death bed to hear whatever secret Sebastian has to share, but the narrator gets distracted and death is the winner once more.

In the second half of The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, a character, speaking about literature, said he preferred books that “made you think, and Knight’s books didn’t - they left you cross and puzzled.”
I’d like to paraphrase that and say that Nabokov’s books may leave you cross and puzzled for a while but they absolutely make you think, and when you’ve done your thinking, they reward you endlessly. I found clues in this book to Pnin and Pale Fire, both of which I've recently read, and I'm sure I'll be reminded of this book again when I read my next Nabokov.

[Steven Godin · Rating 5 out of 5]

It seems a little odd to give this top marks, only then to decide it's placed forth in my top 5 Nabokov reads so far. 'Pale Fire' is probably the best novel I have ever read (at least in my top three of all time), with 'Lolita' my second favourite Nab, and 'Laughter in the Dark' coming home in third claiming the Nab bronze medal. 'The Real Life of Sebastian Knight' written whilst Vlad was in Paris in the late 30's (and his first penned in the English language) caught me by complete surprise. Because to be honest, I didn't think it could get anywhere near the aforementioned novels. I believed it would be nothing more than a mid-afternoon snack, but it almost turned into a lavishing three course meal of the finest literature cuisine. And it's funny how I referred to dinner, as this now makes me want to gobble up as many Nabokov books as possible, maybe even one day with pipe and slippers completing a clean sweep!

The format of this novel made it highly addictive to read, but it isn't without the mind-boggling details and layers of narration that do create a challenge. Maybe even bringing on a mild headache. Nabokov combines the page-turning aspect of a the detective genre with the complexities and characteristics of highbrow literature, making it the sort of read for both a mahogany enriched library and a summer beach house. The Real Life of Sebastian Knight is the narrator, V.’s, biography of his recently deceased half brother, the renowned author Sebastian Knight. Nabokov’s book is supposedly written by V., who is writing about the works of another author, forming a dense, three-layered cake of authorship. While this could potentially bog the book down, turning it into a tiresome postmodernist exercise in metafiction, it does no such thing. Nabokov’s grace, wit and wonderful prose, keeps the narrative shimmering with life, with the lively narrator, splicing his often-humorous commentary with keen observations of his subject and the world around him making it all the more readable.

This could be looked at as Nabokov yet to hit the great heights that followed in the years to come, but the themes within The Real Life of Sebastian Knight were as interesting as anything I have read by him before. The heart of the novel consists of loving summaries of Sebastian’s own books, including copious quotations from them, which enable Nabokov to develop a philosophy of literature without seeming to do so. A voluble attack upon an earlier biography, 'The Tragedy of Sebastian Knight', written by Knight’s former secretary, which gives Nabokov the chance to mock certain tendencies in literary scholarship and criticism. And the half-bother narrator's quest for the truth about his love affairs with two different women. Clare, to whom Sebastian was sort of married for a few years, and the Russian woman for whom he left her for, even though she made him sick with misery.

Nabokov has the narrator doing an awful lot of travelling, from Russia, to Paris (where most of the novel takes place) to Berlin, trying to gather as much information as possible to write his own book on his beloved half-brother. As the story proceeds in a series of almost Knight moves,(the novel is full of chess allusions) it becomes a thoroughly engaging piece of writing. Whilst it can be relaxing to put your feet up with a good book that doesn't require much in the way of brain work, more often than not, it's the more challenging books that allow the reader to indulge fully with the text, even if we feel that the writer is trying to drive uncommitted and lazy readers up the wall.

I loved it. But it may be a novel only Nabokov lovers will appreciate the most. Not an ideal place to start for the Vladimir virgin.

[William2 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Second reading. This is the first novel Nabokov wrote in English, his previous novels were in Russian (later translated to English). In lieu of a study TRLOSK was written in the lavatory of a one-room Paris flat in the late 1930s; Nabokov said he used the bidet for a desk. See Dear Bunny, Dear Volodya: The Nabokov-Wilson Letters.

Jorge Luis Borges writes in an essay that a far more interesting task than simply writing a novel, would be to write a book about another book. See Selected Non-Fictions. That’s essentially what Vladimir Nabokov does here, and all the books are necessarily fictional.

The narrator is the half-brother of a famous novelist—born Russian who writes in English—who’s recently deceased. It is his loving younger half-brother’s wish to write a biography which undermines a previous volume of character assassination written by an enemy. That’s the form the book takes. In the end it is more about the younger half brother’s search for the details of his sibling’s sadly truncated life— he dies I believe at 37—than it is about the sibling himself. Many of the fictional novelist’s works are discussed, passages quoted, and that’s the Borges connection.

If you’ve read all of Nabokov’s novels, you will want to read this one too. But don’t start here. Start with Lolita or Despair or Pnin or King, Queen, Knave or Bend Sinister.

[Darwin8u · Rating 4 out of 5]

“There is only one real number: one. And love, apparently, is the best exponent of this singularity.”
― Vladimir Nabokov, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight



Nabokov's tenth novel and first published novel written in English, 'The Real Life of Sebastian Knight' for me seemed like a dry run at big, complex themes he would later use in Ada (funky plot structure) and Pale Fire (meta-fixation on another 'artists' literary work) along with a complex, Möbius-like narrative. Is this a story written by literary author Sebastian Knight about a real or imagined younger brother's search for himself? OR is it (as it first seems) a story about a younger brother writing a biography about a dead or imagined famous writer/brother, and following clues,etc about his half brother's life? Can it be both? How much of it is a funky memoir of Nabokov's own emotional state after leaving Russia?

To me Nabokov was writing on a chiral strip that appears to have two-sides, but might just have one. Clever? Absolutely, but just not in the same league as his great English novels (Pale Fire, Pnin, Lolita, Ada) or even his very, very good Russian novels (Despair, Glory, etc) . Still, for Nabokov's first novel written in a foreign (although no tongue for VN seems foreign), it dances and moves quite nicely.

I guess, besides the Möbius visual I got after finishing 'The Real Life of SK', I should also admit that Nabokov made it impossible to avoid chess images. Chess is a common theme in many of his novels (the Defense; King, Queen, Knave, etc.), but some novels are just shaded with opaque chess shadows, while others (like this one) seem to have every piece and the board thrown in. This novel kinda reminded me of a ruleless game of chess I played with my older brother (who died suddenly four years ago) when I was young. The pieces didn't behave (at least my Black pieces didn't behave) and at one point I totally drove my brother absolutely nuts because after nearly clearing the board we somehow managed to be left with just his White King and my Black King. I insisted we play till the game was over, but we just circled the board. I wouldn't let the fake game end in a draw, but the set up was impossible so I just chased him around and around and around the board. That fake game felt a lot like 'the Real Life of Sebastian Knight', just not nearly as literary and didn't end with both frustrated kings jammed up my nose.

[Kalliope · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I finished reading “The Real Life of Sebastian Knight” I felt that I had been checkmated by Nabokov. In response to my puzzlement, I immediately opened the book at the beginning again and began to read it for a second time. I wanted to trace the strategy that this Chess-player-of-an-author had mapped out and the moves he had deployed so as to corner me the way he had done.

I have read little of Nabokov and have been wanting to take him up for a while, but my recent read of Un revólver para salir de noche, awoke my curiosity anew and I felt an urgent read to read his work.

I know I am not being particularly perceptive by noticing the references in this novel to chess--from the names such as that of Sebastian Knight himself, and of Claire Bishop and her husband, (she married another Bishop), to those of other characters--like the one who is identified as Black and who holds a chess piece in his hands when he welcomes the Narrator. The most mischievous chess reference, though, is the inclusion of the Hospital of St Demier in France There is no such Saint in French; there is St Damien, but the word “Demier” is the French for a checkers board) .

I will not be making a very original contribution either by saying that this novel is a fine-spun parody of the literary genres of Biographies and Detective stories. I imagine most other reviewers have already elaborated on this. But for my own sake I would like to comment on some of these features. As a Prelude I will remind the reader of this text that the book presents a Russian émigré, vaguely identified as V (Vlad?)., who writes an account on how he prepared to write a biography of his half- brother, Sebastian Knight, who had become, prior to his early death (aged 35) a successful writer. We read the account as if it were the biography itself.

I admit that in my first reading I was at first taken by the Narrator but gradually I began to feel some cracks in the story. There certainly was a reasonable chronology, although it is not presented in succession; the events jump about as if on a two-dimensional board. That’s why in my second reading I plotted the lifeline of the various events, paying attention on whether there was any twist. I did not detect any, but I did wonder at how the Narrator reconstructed Knight’s life given that since they separated in their youth (1919) they had only met about four times. The Narrator (Vlad?) expounds on his sources on each occasion, which however does not dissolve our scepticism on the reliability of the whole story. May be suspecting our hesitation, the Narrator states that he “has an inner knowledge of Knight’s most intimate thoughts” – which almost made me laugh when I read it. That something was at stake on the way this narrative was constructed was blatant when the Narrator (and here I could hear Nabokov’s voice – as a reader I am surely also allowed to that ‘inner knowledge’) after a string of indications of what crosses Knight’s mind in a moment of meditative solitude, sort of gives up and suggests that “perhaps, we shall be near the truth in supposing that while Sebastian sat on that fence, his mind was a turmoil of words and fancies, incomplete fancies and insufficient words…”

The Narrator, when not able to interview direct witnesses, takes recourse to the books that Knight has published, extracting information from them, assuming that they are autobiographical. This raises the issue, not just on the veracity of biographies but on the limits of fiction, and we could imagine (again, my ‘inner feeling’) that Nabokov posits himself critical of this. And yet, her Claire Bishop--who types away and edits Knight’s books as well as manage all his literary engagements and negotiations—inevitably points at Véra Nabokov, who did exactly like the fictional Bishop.

And almost as a final twist we are told that Knight, for his final book was preparing a fake biography, for which he collected clippings from newspapers and even advertised for photographs of anonymous people. Could the Narrator (Vlad?) be doing something of the sort? About ten years after the publication of this novel Vladimir Nabokov gathered paper clippings that would help him in producing his most famous work.

Commenting further on the issues of Biographies/Fiction/Narrator/Authorship would lead me too much into the mined territory of SPOILERS. I will leave just say that, now that we all have to wear ours masks, I highly enjoyed this masked account.

There were other features that enriched further this reading, all of them testimonies to Nabokov’s literary and linguistic muscles. There are alliterations; jokes with dates and names; literary tricks such as end-of-chapter cliff hangers or the application of a literary style at the same time it is being censored (an example is the cinematic approach of creating a series of loose, unconnected scenes, but that simulate continuity by the way they are juxtaposed); some Russianness in the writing (such as the tendency to convert any noun into an adjective – ‘Aproned pedlar’). I also detected again his preference for the colour ‘violet’ (mentioned ten times), that I had already noticed in his Despair.

For my coveted future exploration of Nabokov’s work, I had thought I would start with his first novel in English, but now have decided that my next will be Invitation to a Beheading.

[Ian "Marvin" Graye · Rating 5 out of 5]

CRITIQUE:

The Continuum of the Rabbit Hole

Over the course of his writing career, Vladimir Nabokov would often return down the rabbit hole of his imagination to find styles, ideas, thoughts and expressions that he had used in past fiction or stored there for use in future fiction.

In his previous novel, "The Gift", a character encourages the narrator to write a "biographie romancée" (a biographical novel or fictitious biography) about a famous nineteenth century Russian writer.

Notwithstanding Nabokov's apparent scorn for the art form, "The Real Life" is just such a novel. It purports to be a biography of the narrator's half-brother, Sebastian (a novelist), but could, in fact, be a fiction about the narrator, or even Nabokov, himself (the narrator is known only as "V", "V. Sirin" being a nom de plume Nabokov used early in his career).

The Shaping of a Certain Lie

Despite his own diligent research (some of which required a private detective, in order to verify and "animate the past"), V warns us against unreliable narrators:

"Don't be too certain of learning the past from the lips of the present. Beware of the most honest broker. Remember that what you are told is really threefold: shaped by the teller, reshaped by the listener, concealed from both by the dead man of the tale.

"Who is speaking of Sebastian Knight?...And where is the third party? Rotting peacefully in the cemetery of St Damier. Laughing alive in five volumes [of his own writing]."

The Embedding of Nina Lecerf

Madame Nina Lecerf, a femme fatale who might have been Sebastian's last secret lover (albeit in a desperately unhappy relationship), and who proves adept at concealment, at least of her own identity and past, claims:

"I think writing a book about people you know is much more honest than making a hash of them and then presenting it as your own invention."

In response to V's pointed and persistent questioning, she declares:

"I am telling you what I know, and not what you'd like to know."

"I'll be disappointed in your book if it all ends in bed."

At times, Madame Lecerf seems to be the type of woman who would end up in bed in one of Graham Greene's entertainments. Indeed, V admits that he, too, considered the possibility of a tryst (even if Sebastian mightn't have).


Source

The Narcissism of the Reader/ Biographer/ Critic

As "Pale Fire" would subsequently do with respect to Charles Kinbote, "The Real Life" aims to correct the biographer/ critic, Mr Goodman's, erroneous factuality and misguided interpretation of Sebastian's life and literary works:

"Mr Goodman's method is as simple as his philosophy. His sole object is to show 'poor Knight' as the product and victim of what he calls 'our time' -- 'Post-war unrest', 'Post-war Generation' are to Mr Goodman magic words opening every door. There is, however, a certain kind of 'open sesame', which seems less a charm than a skeleton-key...

"But he is quite wrong in thinking that he found something once the lock had been forced. Not that I wish to suggest that Mr Goodman thinks. He could not if he tried. His book concerns itself only with such ideas as have been shown (commercially) to attract mediocre minds...

"His slapdash and very misleading book...paints in a few ill-chosen sentences a ridiculously wrong picture of Sebastian Knight's childhood..."

"No wonder this solemn biographer is out of tune with his hero at every point in the story."

"[Though]...Mr. Goodman's book 'The Tragedy of Sebastian Knight' has enjoyed a very good Press...[he] knew all along that his book was rubbish."

What is missing from Goodman's study is any fidelity to the text itself...All is self-indulgence of the reader/ biographer/ critic. Not to mention that it needs more cowbell.

The Ignition of a Controversy

You could say much the same thing about selfie-obsessed reviews that discuss "The Real Life" in terms of mirrors that ostensibly sit beneath the surface of the page (as far as I can recall, the word "mirror" only appears twice or three times in the novel, once as a metaphor [or simile] for narcissism - "they convey the impression that they are mirrored Narcissus-like in clear water").

In much the same way as Goodman errs, these (dearest of good) readers seem to believe that a mirror is a magic skeleton key that opens the lock of the door to every one of Nabokov's novels. They don't recognise that mirrors appear haphazardly in his fiction, and, when they do, they have different connotations. Nabokov's novels differ from each other as much as they might resemble each other.

The "mirror" in the poem "Pale Fire" (where it is more appropriate to use the word) is actually a windowpane, not a mirror, even if it's reflective of the azure sky (more than the butterfly).

Not afraid to ignite a controversy (even amongst his own readers), throughout "The Real Life", Nabokov is more concerned with the narcissism of readers or critics, who look into a book, only to find an image of themselves or of their own making (even if they're not content with the veracity of the image, believing, as they do, that they're more attractive than their image).

V writes of some women "who see everyday things merely as familiar mirrors of their own femininity". Presumably, men fall victim to the same folly.

It's a wonder that such readers, like their slapdash and misleading reviews, aren't "slain by the false azure of the windowpane" and turned into a "smudge of ashen fluff", the fate of the butterfly in the "Pale Fire" poem.

Hopeless Gropings Among the Author's Drawers

Nabokov would write elsewhere that readers themselves are [flawed] mirror images of the author:

"For I do not exist: there exist but the thousands of mirrors that reflect me. With every acquaintance I make, the population of phantoms resembling me increases. Somewhere they live, somewhere they multiply. I alone do not exist."

These mirror images are subjective, misleading phantom images of the author. Readers make up or invent their own version or image of the novel they think the author was trying to write. Likewise, reviews are readers' attempts to see themselves in somebody else's work of the imagination. They are, in fact, poorly disguised acts of narcissism.

V describes them as "the leaden sluggishness of dream endeavour" and "hopeless gropings among dissolving things".

The novel's meaning and beauty dissolve under the onslaught of the self-obsessed reader.

The Darlings of Oblivion

Equally narcissistic are those nicholites, pontificators, copyists and acolytes whose practice is little more than to pronounce or declare postmodernist, lost and buried fiction "masterpieces" (the implicit promise of the pontificator being that they would know a masterpiece if they saw one), even if these fictions have done little to advance literature beyond the experiments of the modernists.

As Sebastian says in one of his books, "Little things like that are the darlings of oblivion..."

The Cult of Narcissism

This novel is an author's attack on the cult and culture of narcissism, whatever the variety - academic, intellectual, anti-intellectual, or social media.

Posting reviews or "doing your own research" online is theoretically capable of being something more than expressing or vindicating your own preconceived opinion on a public platform. Surely, it can reveal something more substantive than a hunger for likes.

You have to wonder whether these mediocre minds of the interweb actually think (in the sense V uses in relation to Goodman) or read anything other than what they have posted themselves.

Nabokov asserts and defends the primacy of (at least his own) fiction against such readerly and critical mediocrity.

In his eyes, just as we must beware of unreliable narrators, we must be wary of unreliable readers/ reviewers/ critics.

The Alliterative Life

Meanwhile, stylistically, Nabokov anticipates the famous alliteration on the first page of "Lolita".

In his memoir, "Lost Property" (the title of which is evocative enough), Sebastian Knight writes:

"Life with you was lovely - and when I say lovely, I mean doves and lilies, and velvet, and that soft pink 'v' in the middle and the way your tongue curved up to the long, lingering 'l'.

"Our life together was alliterative, and when I think of all the little things which will die, now that we cannot share them, I feel as if we were dead too. And perhaps we are.

"You see, the greater our happiness was, the hazier its edges grew, as if its outlines were melting, and now it has dissolved altogether. I have not stopped loving you; but something is dead in me, and I cannot see you in the mist...

"This is all poetry. I am lying to you. Lily-livered. There can be nothing more cowardly than a poet beating about the bush. I think you have guessed how things stand: the damned formula of 'another woman'. I am desperately unhappy with her - here is one thing which is true."

Nabokov would later substitute l's and t's for l's and v's, even if there was a t (for tongue) in "velvet".

Working on Our Knight Moves

I haven't searched out all of the chess references in this novel (apart from the obvious connotation of Sebastian's surname, as well as the name of his first love interest, Clare Bishop), but it's worth mentioning that "the signature under each [of Sebastian Knight's] poem(s) was a little black chess-knight drawn in ink."

A character who V calls "Black" holds a black knight chess piece in his hand during their conversation.

Playing Numbers

Nabokov often likes to play with numbers.

Sebastian writes in "Lost Property" that "The only real number is one, the rest are mere repetition."

Later, he elaborates on the significance of the number one:

"There is only one real number: One. And love, apparently, is the best exponent of this singularity."

In "The Real Life", Nabokov postulates that, in love, we two are (both) one, and we are all one. We all constitute a singularity, narcissists excepted.


SOUNDTRACK:

Prince - "Controversy"

https://youtu.be/4gazNwzC4H0

Soft Cell - "Numbers"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhY7Y...

"...names make a person real
And there's no real people in these games..."

Spandau Ballet - "True"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AR8D2...

"Why do I find it hard to write the next line?
I want the truth to be said
I know this much is true..."

Bob Seger- "Night Moves"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mRFW...

Blue Oyster Cult - "Don't Fear the Reaper"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dy4HA...

"Love of two is one
Here but now they're gone
Came the last night of sadness
And it was clear she couldn't go on"

Bob Dylan - "Idiot Wind"

https://youtu.be/Ex05XUddWMk

Bettie Serveert - "Certainlie"

https://youtu.be/250fpn6qdjQ

Bettie Serveert - "Certainlie" [CSNY-esque Version]

https://youtu.be/UFlNO7V4XMY

Bettie Serveert - "Certainlie" (Live)

https://youtu.be/hDDHJugkG1U

[Helga · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading for the second time.

The keynote of Sebastian’s life was solitude.

In this Nabokov’s first novel written in the English language, our unnamed narrator is following his deceased half-brother, the novelist Sebastian Knight’s footsteps and interviewing people who knew him, in order to write his biography.
But did anyone know Sebastian? Who was the real Sebastian Knight?
Will he always remain an enigma?

Don’t be too certain of learning the past from the lips of the present… Remember that what you are told is really threefold: shaped by the teller, reshaped by the listener, concealed from both by the dead man of the tale.

[João Barradas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Segundo as boas normas do civismo, a vida em sociedade exige o respeito pelo outro, em toda a sua essência. De facto, o Homem, como animal de relações, vai deambulando estoicamente entre o seu onfalocentrismo egoísta e um altruísmo patológico, ambos gerados no ventre das suas dúvidas existenciais.

V. dedica a sua vida a desvendar os mistérios que o apartaram do seu grande modelo – Sebastian Knight, um escritor dotado mas desprezado, que, acima de tudo, é seu irmão. Nessa sua demanda, V. refaz os passos do outro, numa tentativa de escrever um livro dentro de um livro, lembrando as intermináveis matrioskas, para homenagear alguém, por ele, tão prezado. Parece um enredo simples mas Nabokov já nos acostomou a narradores não confiáveis…

Numa narrativa pejada de quebras da terceira folha (um vórtex frenético para o leitor?), a metalinguagem usada não é fácil nem coloquial, expondo ideias dispersas de forma não linear, notoriamente inspiradas em factos biográficos do próprio autor. Ainda assim, não apela a nenhuma emoção em particular – antes apresenta um estudo de uma vertente humana, tão disseminada nos dias de hoje.

Assiste-se, pois, à negação de uma alma vazia que, almejando um preenchimento pleno, atravessa um processo de transmutação. Nesse encontro de duas metades, matéria real e antimatéria ficcionada, surge a energia vital e um elefante que, não sendo branco, continua a não ter uma função clara.

"Aprendi que a alma é apenas uma forma de ser, não um estado constante, e que qualquer alma pode ser nossa se a captarmos e seguirmos as suas ondulações. O além talvez seja a plena capacidade de viver conscientemente em qualquer alma que se escolha, em qualquer conjunto de almas, todas elas inconscientes do fardo permutável que carregam." (pág. 187)

[David Katzman · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Real Life of Sebastian Knight is a tragic comedy. Or comic tragedy? It’s also a satire that mocks the glorification of writers.

The premise of The Real Life of Sebastian Knight is that of a biography (kind of) of an author—Sebastian Knight—being written by his half brother. The story is told by the half brother as he attempts to investigate his brother’s life. The authors half-brother is a hapless idiot. Rather dumb and with terrible luck. Not only that, but he seems to idolize his brother who not only never gave a shit about him and who seemed to be overall a self-absorbed asshole. The story being told by the writer’s dull-witted, clumsy brother is mostly about his stumbling efforts to piece together what his half brother was really like. We get very little understanding of Sebastian, mostly a view of how cringingly pitiable the narrator is instead.

Very close to the beginning of the story, the narrator enraged me by burning Sebastian’s letters. Sebastian asked him to burn them…and he thought about reading them instead but did burn them. Up in smoke goes the narrator's first chance to have any insight into the secret inner life of his brother. In fact, many of the letters were love letters and more than half the novel is about the narrator trying to figure out who Sebastian’s lover was. WHICH HE WOULD HAVE KNOWN IMMEDIATELY IF HE HAD READ THE LETTERS. The entire stumbling journey and mystery was utterly unnecessary out of some embarrassingly foolish desire to follow his dead brother’s wishes. Like...I'm going to investigate this mystery and begin by burning all my clues. The entire story is filled with questionable decisions by the narrator, which lead to very little understanding of anything on his part. It’s both hilarious to watch his dumb mistakes and deeply sad to see him pursuing the empty meaningless shadow of his scornful arrogant brother. Is Nabokov saying, ignore the author just read the damn books?

The narrator spends quite a bit of time too trying to tease out meaning from Sebastian’s books. In other words, literary criticism of imaginary texts. The books sound rather inventive and at the same time ridiculous too. Like an author who tried too hard out of insecurity. It’s never quite clear if we should believe that Sebastian was actually a worthwhile, skilled author or merely achieved some literary buzz for a few books that will not age well and will disappear once a little time has passed. This narrators “story” of Sebastian’s life won’t do much to cement his place his history, in fact, if anything, they will make him more of a laughingstock merely through the reflections of (in?) his half-brother. As a biography, it’s more of an anti-biography. The narrator specifically notes that he tried to “leave himself out of it” and only indirectly touch on his own life, but the story is almost entirely about his own sad quest, and he’s too oblivious to see it.

The Real Life of Sebastian Knight crucifies the idea of hero worship. And idolizing writers (or artists). The “Real Life” of Sebastian Knight leaves little to admire about the fellow.

Despite the obvious surface humor and satire of The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, there are many intriguing layers to it, such as a theme that addresses the impossibility of understand a “real self.” It’s an onion with layers that can't be peeled. Or, better to say, they can be peeled and peeled and peeled and you end up with nothing left. This narrator isn't even good at peeling. Dare I say...he was rather unapeeling? This book was a metaphysical detective story that ends up with nothing to show for it. The idea of a self is pure fiction. And representing that through the life of a fiction writer is an excellent metaphor. I found the narrator incredibly frustrating at times, in his obtuse choices and embarrassing hero-worship, but at the same time, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight was a rewarding and intriguing narrative.

[Tony Vacation · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nabokov's cold but never stylistically unsound first novel in English should make most said-language speaking writers go ahead and give up now before they embarrass themselves. The brainy, Russian bastard just leapfrogs from the lilly pad of his native language to the horizontally moving log of my native language with the ease of a joystick joggle of Frogger. Jealous gripes and grouses aside, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight is a formally inventive metaphysical detective story about a prissy, aristocratic narrator who goes sniffing around his recently deceased brother's past to gather material for a biography on his life. The dead brother went by the name Sebastian Knight and was an author of some esteemed repute with a respectable oeuvre of work to his name. The two brothers (half-brothers if we are being honest) shared a distant, oddly formal relationship while both were still alive, but this didn't weaken the narrator's sincere admiration for his brother's works. As the unnamed narrator - who Nabokov later revealed in a letter to an editor that his name was V - as V traces his brother's background, chatting up old lovers and colleagues, we also get his personal insight into his brother's novels, with V drawing comfort from shared remembrances of childhood that Sebastian later cannibalized for his fiction. As always, Nabokov is the great D & D dungeon master of literature, and metafictional hijinks abound throughout the novel's text. Remember when I said "cold" in the first sentence? Well, the emotional fury of Lolita is absent from this book. Sure, there are some sad, sympathetic moments but mostly this is a novel to be admired for all its well-crafted cogs and sprockets that go whizzz, whirrrl, and ba-doing, ba-doing!

[Isabela.]

No fue una historia para mí, sinceramente. El 90% de las veces lo leí sin pensarlo mucho y la información se negaba a estar almacenada en mi cerebro. Es como si la historia de Sebastián simplemente se negara a ser digerida por mi y yo tampoco coloque gran esfuerzo en entenderla. Es la primera vez que leo a Nabokov y si estoy un poquito decepcionada. Le daré otra oportunidad a futuro, pero espero que su narrativa no sea tan aburrida y confunsa en el resto de sus obras.

[Chrissie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Here’s a story about two half-brothers. They are Russian émigrés--one was nineteen and the other thirteen when they fled Russia to Finland in 1918 during the Russian Revolution. The eponymous Sebastian Knight, the older brother by six years, has recently died. The year is now 1936. The younger brother sets out to write his biography--a good biography. Sebastian had become a renowned novelist and for this reason a biography had already been written, but the younger brother deemed it to be both misleading and inadequate. The younger brother is referred to only as V. In writing about his brother, he sees no need to give information about himself. His full name and other personal details are therefore unnecessary, or so he claims at the start!

By the novel’s end one questions who the novel is really about and how close one can get to the truth in a biography. The person about whom one writes often does not reveal what lies closest to their heart. Secondly, authors are influenced by their own experiences, making it difficult to view others without bias. Thirdly, the information gathered from disparate sources can rarely be taken at face value.

This is metafiction. We have in our hands the book the younger brother has written. The Tragedy of Sebastian Knight, the earlier biography written by Mr. Goodman which V vehemently criticizes, and Sebastian’s own books, of which there are five, are all analyzed. None of these, of course, actually exist, except this one here by Vladimir Nabokov.

How the book is told matches perfectly the novel that it is--the central character’s task is to gather, assess and then judge the conflicting information received from others. The Information is not presented in an orderly fashion—it would be unrealistic to do so. The sources of information vary. Each of the characters know different bits. V must analyze, evaluate and make sense of all that he has learned collected.

The Real Life of Sebastian Knight can be read on different levels. It can be read as a mystery, as a detective novel--V seeks to uncover who Sebastian’s lovers have been. Or, one can draw parallels between the brothers in the novel and Nabokov and his brother, Sergey. Similarities abound. Finally, one can read the book simply for Nabokov’s marvelous writing. He plays with words, juxtaposing them in unusual ways.

This is the first novel Nabokov wrote in English. The preceding nine were written in Russian and under the alias V. Sirin. Do note the V in the pseudonym!

Luke Daniels narrates the audiobook very well. He dramatizes but doesn’t carry this too far. He does a marvelous job of imitating a woman with a stuffed nose. This did make me smile! The speed is perfect, and every word can be heard. Four stars for the narration.

**************

*Lolita 5 stars
*Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle 5 stars
*Speak, Memory 5 stars
*Mary 4 stars
*Laughter in the Dark 4 stars
*Glory 4 stars
*The Real Life of Sebastian Knight 4 stars
*The Gift 3 stars
*King, Queen, Knave 3 stars
*Pale Fire 2 stars
*Pnin 1 star
*Despair 1 star
*Transparent Things 1 star

[Warwick · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was Nabokov's first novel written in English, and it's startling to learn that he only switched from Russian because he decided to enter it into a British literary competition. Famously, he wrote most of it perched on a bidet in his Paris apartment so as not to disturb his young son, a detail it is impossible to learn without trying to pin down a certain gushing, purgative quality to the prose…

It is, in fact, just as typically (if embryonically) Nabokovian as his later work, and in theme as well as language. Sebastian Knight is full of pre-echoes of the kind of things that will eventually dominate Nabokov's bigger, more famous books: identity, memory, literary pastiche, linguistic playfulness, formal games, and a direct, witty, elaborate narrative voice. It takes the form of a biography of a deceased writer (Sebastian Knight) written by his anonymous half-brother, identified only as ‘V.’ (recall that all of Nabokov's previous books had been written under the pen name of ‘V. Sirin’) – but it is quickly obvious that in fact we'll be hearing less about Knight himself than about V.'s attempts to research and write the book we are reading. The end result comes over as something like a cross between Tristram Shandy and Steve Aylett's Lint (though not as funny as either).

There are copious quotations from and comments on Knight's oeuvre (he was, we are told, the author of such bestsellers as Lost Property and The Doubtful Asphodel), and these allow Nabokov to outline a theory of literature from, as it were, a safe distance. Many of the effects Knight is credited with – words and phrases that almost mystically convey an impression of something, though you can't understand how – are effects that you can recognise in Nabokov's own writing, if not here then certainly later. Meanwhile a very funny subplot consists in our narrator's keen desire to rubbish the author of a previously-published biography of Knight which, V. insists, has got things all wrong. These sections allow for some sly pastiching of academic prose, as well as giving voice to Nabokov's distaste for the whole process of examining writers through their personal lives or their supposed relation to ‘world events’.

The bulk of the plot resides in those sections where the narrator is chasing down leads in the real world, trying to locate women that his brother had been involved with, and these sections at times play with the conventions of detective fiction. Sebastian Knight and the narrator, like Nabokov himself, grew up in Russia and had to flee after the Revolution, and there are some beautiful early descriptive passages that deal with St Petersberg:

the pure luxury of a cloudless sky designed not to warm the flesh, but solely to please the eye; the sheen of sledge-cuts on the hard-beaten snow of spacious streets with a tawny tinge about the middle tracks due to a rich mixture of horse-dung; the birghtly coloured bunch of toy-balloons hawked by an aproned pedlar; the soft curve of a cupola, its gold dimmed by the bloom of powdery frost; the birch trees in the public gardens, every tiniest twig outlined in white; the rasp and tinkle of winter traffic…

But ultimately Nabokov is never very interested in plot, and nor am I when I read him – what I'm interested in are the aesthetic effects. There are plenty here, but they still feel like they're looking forward to what's to come. Partisans of this novel say, a little defensively, that it can be enjoyed for its own sake and not just as an early curiosity, but I couldn't help feeling that the most interesting aspects of Sebastian Knight are things seen to more triumphant effect in Pale Fire, Lolita or Ada. But Nabokov being Nabokov, there is still lots to enjoy and to be suspicious of – the stress on mistaken identity and authorial secrecy make you wonder if, perhaps, Sebastian Knight and ‘V.’ are really one and the same, engaged in a perpetual game of mirrors that ultimately points back to the puppeteer behind both of them, hunched gleefully on his bidet in 1930s Paris…

[Ed · Rating 4 out of 5]

An unreliable narrator, a Russian émigré in Paris, frequent allusions to chess… We are definitely in Nabokov territory. All that’s missing are the butterflies.

His first English novel is about a man seeking a posthumous connection with his estranged half-brother. The novel is an exploration of identity, of the relationship between life and art, and also a tragic reminder of the transience of life. This appears to be a very personal novel: in the accounts of a Russian author learning to write in English, adapting to a new culture, and in the concern over artistic legacy and interpretation, Nabokov appears at times to be speaking through both subject (S. Knight) and narrator (unnamed). Nabokov’s prose is not bad for someone writing his first novel in his third language (kidding, it’s outstanding - there is not even a hint of awkwardness or unfamiliarity).

For me, this was something of a slow burn. I felt a little disconnected at first, a little unsure of where Nabokov was leading me, but I was soon drawn into the depths of the mystery, and was moved by its poignant conclusion.

[Cosimo · Rating 5 out of 5]

“La nota fondamentale della vita di Sebastian era la solitudine, e quanto più il destino cercava benevolmente di farlo sentire a suo agio contraffacendo in modo ammirevole le cose che egli credeva di desiderare, tanto più avvertiva la propria incapacità di inserirsi nel quadro, - in qualsiasi quadro. Allorché infine comprese appieno questa realtà e cominciò a coltivare con accanimento il proprio disagio, come se si fosse trattato di un talento raro o di una passione, solo allora Sebastian trasse soddisfazione dalla crescita rigogliosa e mostruosa di quel disagio, cessando di preoccuparsi della sua scarsa facoltà di adattamento, - ma questo accadde molto tempo dopo”.

Questo capolavoro della mistificazione è un viaggio letterario alla scoperta di finzioni biografiche e di verità dell'anima conquistate attraverso e dentro la letteratura. Un capolavoro di parole e immagini che indossa la maschera dell'incantesimo, ci ricorda Giorgio Manganelli nel saggio che racchiude questo enigmatico romanzo, costruito come una partita a scacchi o un rebus, che ha come fondamenta la complessità e l'inutilità. Due magie scandalose e sublimi come farfalle, due donne meravigliose e infedeli, che per aver salva la vita devono vivere di inganni e di menzogne. Il narratore insegue la vita di Sebastian, viaggiatore che ha scritto diversi libri, elegante doppio nel quale si specchiano le personalità, i sogni e le fantasie del lettore: giocatore perduto nella trama del racconto, innamorato nostalgico di un'amante inesistente, fratello inconsolabile di un autore fantasma, Nabokov progetta nell'infinito oblio una mossa definitiva e conclusiva.

“A Sebastian Knight era sempre piaciuto fare giochi di prestigio con i suoi temi, portandoli a scontrarsi o mescolandoli astutamente, ottenendo che fossero loro a esprimere quel significato nascosto che poteva essere espresso solo in un susseguirsi di onde, come la musica di una boa cinese può farsi sentire solo per il fluttuare dell'acqua. Nell'Asfodelo incerto il suo metodo ha raggiunto la perfezione. Non sono le parti che contano, ma il loro modo di combinarsi”.

[Stian · Rating 4 out of 5]

A mysterious and at times almost sinister story with a somewhat curious ending (whose real meaning depends entirely on the reader) that leaves you with a lot to think about, written in a brilliant way by an astonishingly brilliant writer who knows that what you don't write is equally important as what you do write, and with that he plays with you in a deceptively simple narrative that is really anything but. If you don't pay attention, you'll gain little from Volodya.

[Kushagri · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is about the relationship of two brothers, V. and Sebastian Knight, Russian by birth. Sebastian Knight, an author, is portrayed dead since the beginning of the book and this book is a biography and about the process of writing this said biography of Knight by his half-brother V.

The keynote of Sebastian's life was solitude and the kindlier fate tried to make him feel at home by counterfeiting admirably the things he thought he wanted, the more he was aware of his inability to fit into the picture - into any kind of picture.
When at last he thoroughly understood this and grimly started to cultivate self-consciousness as if it had been some rare talent or passion, only then did Sebastian derive satisfaction from its rich and monstrous growth, ceasing to worry about his awkward uncongeniality - but that was much later.

V. idolizes and admires his elder brother, but due to circumstances and Sebastian’s aloof nature they become more-or-less estranged. But V. always had a longing for reconciliation and conveying his admiration to his brother. This book is about V. trying to unfurl Sebastian’s life and getting to know his life.

I have learnt one secret too, and namely: that the soul is but a manner of being - not a constant state - that any soul may be yours, if you find and follow its undulations. The hereafter may be the full ability of consciously living in any chosen soul, in any number of souls, all of them unconscious of their interchangeable burden. Thus - I am Sebastian Knight. I feel as if I were impersonating him on a lighted stage, with the people he knew coming and going - the dim figures of the few friends he had, the scholar, and the poet; and the painter - smoothly and noiselessly paying their graceful tribute;

So, Knight becomes an enchanting protagonist we do not meet but follow his brother’s journey in exploring his life, his toils, tribulations, and relationships.
I really liked the writing in this book. We also get excerpts from Sebastian Knight's books, and discover his literary prowess, which also gives an insight into his character.

[Jonfaith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Our life together was alliterative, and when I think of all the little things which will die, now that we cannot share them, I feel as if we were dead too. And perhaps we are. You see, the greater our happiness was, the hazier its edges grew, as if its outlines were melting, and now it has dissolved altogether.

This was magical book to devour as a winter storm descended on our quiet lives. There was a desperation to my reading. It wasn't mortal in natural, but perhaps moral. I wanted to be Nabokov's close-reader. I wanted to untie his puzzles without any ill affect on the mosaic. Did I prove excessively human in my efforts?

You bet.

I kept reading the fate of Nabokov's actual brother Sergei into the narrative, though his brother was still alive when N penned this novel, Nabokov's first in English. As the title indicates, it is a novel as investigation, an inchoate biography. The protagonist V is investigating the life of his half brother Sebastian, a (Nabokovian) novelist, who died apparently suddenly. V travels across Europe gathering slips and moments. What is left is something both Romantic and Modernist. It offers the trappings of farce but through a kaleidoscope. Despite the calculation it never appears contrived. It is a testament between siblings. I read much later in the night than I normally do during the week. The cottony snow outside appeared to compel: to summon and lead. I obeyed.

[Sentimental Surrealist · Rating 4 out of 5]

A few scattered reflections, both on the novel and Nabokov in general...

1. There are a number of ways one can take the novel's closing lines, which I of course won't give away for fear of being beheaded by the "no-spoilers" crowd. Suffice it to say that it's ambiguous, and that potential interpretations of it sit along a spectrum: it can be said to do everything from provide an imaginative and emotionally satisfying resolution to the narrator's arc to pulling one of those too-clever "bet you weren't expecting THAT" maneuvers, and I don't think I've digested the novel thoroughly enough yet to understand where along that spectrum it sits.

2. In some ways, you could compare Vladimir Nabokov, a.k.a. Vivian Darkbloom, a.k.a. Vladimir Sirin, to a supercomputer playing tic-tac-toe. Since reading a novel by the master of chain-yankery has inspired me to doing a little bit of chain-yankery myself, I'm not going to explain that.

3. Aside from Invitation to a Beheading and allegedly Bend Sinister, V.V.N. is the most prominent literary aesthete since Oscar Wilde. Since Invitation is my least favorite Nabokov novel by a wide margin so far, I therefore would prefer he remain this way.

4. I really want this to be Nabokov's first metafictional exercise, since it was his first English novel, and there would be a nice sense of "new language, new start" from that.

5. How is this man so fucking eloquent

6. There's this irritating tendency in Nabokov's otherwise-great novels to set up some moronic philistine character as a contrast to the genius of the well-spoken and usually upper-class protagonists. The treatment of Goodman is no exception, but I appreciate it just the same because a) it's funny and b) it's a nice shot at the sort of hangers-on creative types tend to attract, especially post-death.

7. I'm already itching to reread this, in search of more to support my theory that this is as much about the narrator as it is its subject, and that it in some ways functions as an ego trip for the narrator.

8. It's questionable how great Sebastian actually is, at least as a writer; the few passages we're offered of his work suggests that he's stilted and a little too clever for his own good. Much of Sebastian's greatness is given to us secondhand. Is this part of the point?

9. I have trouble buying that V. is actually Sebastian; I'm much more interested in, and see much more evidence for, the idea that Sebastian is an invention of V, because the novel raises the distinct possibility that Sebastian wasn't real at all and that V. spent the whole time chasing shadows, or at least making it look like he was chasing shadows. Makes me wonder what I could do with something like this.

10. I don't even need to tell you about this novel's autobiographical elements.

11. I think I like this more than Lolita and Pnin, and am now a lot more excited to dive into Nabokov than I had been beforehand.

[Ο σιδεράς · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Δεν υπάρχουν πολλά πράγματα στη ζωή που να συγκρίνονται με την απόλαυση της σάτιρας..”  σελ. 67.

Παίζει να είναι και το καλύτερο από τα δικά του που έχω διαβάσει (τα όχι πολλά), εκτός από το.. αυτό. 

Δύο πράγματα έχω στο μυαλό μου κάθε φορά που διαβάζω Ναμπόκοφ:

 1ον, δεν πρέπει να τον παίρνω καθόλου στα σοβαρά και

 2ον, πρέπει να τον παίρνω πολύ στα σοβαρά..

Ο Βλαδίμηρος ήταν ο πρώτος άνθρωπος που μ’ έκανε να νοιώσω το τι τρομερή γητειά είναι η λογοτεχνία, για μένα ισχυρότερη κι απ’ την ερωτική ζάλη, χειρότερη κι απ’ την έλξη που ασκεί το χείλος της αβύσσου. Τέτοια γητειά..  Είναι κι ένας άλλος γητευτής, απ’ την Κολομβία, αλλά γι’ αυτόν θα χρειαστώ 100 χρόνια για να ξεκαθαρίσω το τι στα κομμάτια μου προκάλεσε..

Ο Ναμπόκοφ είναι ο Δημιουργός που, όπως ο Μίκυ στη φαντασία του Ντίσνευ, στέκει στο βάθρο του με το ραβδάκι από κουφοξυλιά και  διατάζει τη δημιουργία συμπάντων, ολοκληρωμένων κόσμων. Έτσι, για την πλάκα του. Και αφού τα φτιάξει, κάθεται και παίζει με τα συστατικά τους (τις λέξεις) σαν παιδάκι με τα τουβλάκια του.  Τι να πούμε, ότι έχει χιούμορ ή (διαγαλαξιακή) αισθητική; Δεν έχω διαβάσει άλλον με τέτοιο απόλυτο έλεγχο στο  υλικό του, τόσο κυρίαρχο της (χαρακτηριστικά δικής του - ναμποκοφικής)  μανιέρας. Μ’ ένα ραβδάκι.. Και το λέω εγώ, που ο Άνθρωπος μου ήταν - και είναι-  ο Φίλιπ Ροθ..

Πάντως τo συγκεκριμένο έργο μου θυμίζει και λίγο το στυλ του Μπόρχες, (του οποίου όμως προηγήθηκε ο Σ.Ν. ) δηλαδή κάτοπτρο απέναντι σε κάτοπτρο:  το βιβλίο (του Ναμπόκοφ) αφορά στη διαδικασία συγγραφής ενός βιβλίου (του αδελφού, V. ) που ουσιαστικά αναφέρεται στην περιπέτεια της συγγραφής των βιβλίων ενός συγγραφέα (του Σ. Νάιτ, ενός ετερώνυμου του Βλαντ) με τη μορφή ημερολογιακών σημειώσεων, δαγκώνοντας την ουρά του..

Α, τι φινάλε!!

[Sketchbook · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting conundrum that reminds me of a dinner party at Le Grand Rire in midtown NYC, herewith a fable: in a private room hostess Flossie Fidget seated me next to Commodore Sackbut, said the placard, whom I've longed to meet. Over a fricasse of snails, fed, or rather purged with milk, and fritters of pompions and lovage, we got sauced discussing the pleasures of vice over virtue, and pain over politesse.-- (Topics in his book of collected essays). We also paid our respects to several bottles of champagne, which added to the gummy conviviality of our behaviour. At end of this marvelous party, I thanked Flossie Fidget for my placement. Oh, she said, I'm so sorry the Commodore couldn't come, but I'm glad your attention was engaged by his cousin, though I don't know his name. Who the devil was I amusing with conversation, I wondered. As I left Le Grand Rire, (first time there), the maitre'd tapped my shoulder and said knowingly, "Good to see you, Commodore Sackbut, soon again, I trust."

[Rita · Rating 4 out of 5]

O meu primeiro contacto com Nabokov foi com a sua obra mais popular (e controversa): Lolita. Lembro-me que fiquei algo que transtornada e confusa ao ler Lolita, não percebia se tinha gostado ou não, precisei mesmo de algum tempo para pôr as ideias em ordem. A conclusão que retirei foi esta: se Nabokov consegue causar tal sentimento no leitor então será certamente um grande escritor, e isso deve-se principalmente à sua escrita (muito delicada e bem estruturada). O passo seguinte foi procurar outra obra de Nabokov, dando preferência a uma cuja temática fosse mais leve.

A Verdadeira Vida de Sebastian Knight veio confirmar que nem eu, nem a maioria dos outros leitores, estávamos enganados, Nabokov é mesmo um grande escritor e a sua especialidade é deixar os leitores indignados e felizes! Ainda que Lolita tenha sido publicado quase 15 anos após A Verdadeira Vida de Sebastian Knight, não existe uma discrepância evidente entre as duas obras. Mantém-se o vocabulário rico e acessível, o nível de fluidez da leitura e as maravilhosas longas descrições (que, estranhamente, não são nada maçadoras).

Nesta obra a temática não é controversa nem tão sensível, tal como o nome sugere o autor conta-nos a vida de Sebastian, um escritor famoso cuja vida está envolta em mistério. A forma como Nabokov nos conta a história de Sebastian é por si só fascinante. Logo na primeira página sabemos que Sebastian está morto, e portanto não pode ser ele a contar-nos a sua história, essa tarefa cabe ao meio-irmão de Sebastian, cujo nome desconhecemos.

Fiquei com a sensação de que esta obra é quase auto-biográfica e que Nabokov se "desdobra" entre as duas personagens mais relevantes: Sebastian e o seu meio-irmão. O facto de nem sempre conseguirmos distinguir o que é real do que é imaginário, acaba por sustentar esta ideia.

"Aprendi que a alma é apenas uma forma de ser, não um estado constante, e que qualquer alma pode ser nossa se a captarmos e seguirmos as suas ondulações. O além talvez seja a plena capacidade de viver conscientemente em qualquer alma que se escolha, em qualquer conjunto de almas, todas elas inconscientes do fardo permutável que carregam."

A história em si não tem nada de extraordinário. Já perto da morte, Sebastian delega ao seu meio-irmão a missão de queimar todos os seus segredos e cuidar dos seus últimos pertences, e é nessa altura que cresce a curiosidade em conhecer o passado de Sebastian. Ao longo da história o autor vai revelando algumas características da personalidade de Sebastian, mas apenas no final sentimos que o conhecemos realmente. Esta obra torna-se assim num exercício de memória e numa busca de um passado desconhecido.

Não esperava revelações surpreendentes nem um final "tchanah" mas acabou por acontecer, e é mesmo disto que os leitores mais gostam. Vou continuar a procurar outras obras de Nabokov, fiquei com muita vontade de ler mais!

" Existe apenas um único número real: o número um. E o amor, aparentemente, é o melhor expoente dessa singularidade."

Opinião no blog:
http://clarocomoaagua.blogs.sapo.pt/o...

[Natalie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nabokov has such a masterful command of the English language - which wasn't even his native tongue - that I stand in awe of his glorious turns of phrase, alliterations, puns, and other linguistic tricks. He puns in French, too, while I weep with envy.

I personally thought Sebastian Knight was a much better book than Lolita, the Nabokov book that everyone's read. The nameless narrator, the half-brother of the eponymous character, spends the entirety of the novel attempting to piece together the life of his deceased brother, a famous writer - the two loves of his life, the circumstances surrounding the writing and publication of each of his books, his clueless and shady biographer, and his sad death.

I was reminded more than once of several of Roberto Bolano's novels, since Bolano tends to concentrate on writers and their work in his own fiction, and his prose is as equally purple as Nabokov's.

Thanks to Margaret for adding this one to a stack of books she loaned me, thinking I would like them. So far, she's not been wrong.

[Blair · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hmm, not entirely sure why this didn’t really click for me – perhaps it was just a case of bad timing, or not the best book to pick as my second taste of Nabokov... Whatever the reason, it took me a frustratingly long time to plough through a relatively short novel. Despite some beautiful sentences and plenty of wit, I was never particularly interested in the truth of writer Sebastian Knight’s life, nor his half-brother’s attempts to write about him.

TinyLetter | Linktree

[Οδυσσέας Μουζίλης · Rating 5 out of 5]

Αριστούργημα :p

https://pepperlines.blogspot.gr/2017/...

[Clif Hostetler · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novel is a fictional biography narrated by a fictional half brother of a deceased fictional author of numerous fictional books. Both of these fictional half brothers are Russians living in exile in Europe. The fact that the real life author of this book, Vladimir Nabokov, was also a Russian living in exile in Europe when this book was written leads to the suggestion that this book may be partly biographic. At any rate, there are plenty of exiled Russians in this novel.

We learn from the book that Sebastian Knight died in early 1936, and most of the book tells of the efforts of his half brother to collect information to write a biography about him. If the text is simply read for its surface meaning the story is quite uneventful. But along the way there are numerous references to the contents of the books written by SK and a variety of strange characters are introduced which if analyzed together can provide patterns and foreboding signs that create swoons of ecstasy for the literati. I'll not be able to provide that analysis here.

The book ends with the following words:

Thus — I am Sebastian Knight. I feel as if I were impersonating him on a lighted stage, with the people he knew coming and going — the dim figures of the few friends he had, the scholar, the poet, the painter, — smoothly and noiselessly paying their graceful tribute […]. And then the masquerade draws to a close. The bald little prompter shuts his book, as the light fades gently. The end, the end. They all go back to their everyday life (and Clare goes back to her grave) — but the hero remains, for, try as I may, I cannot get out of my part: Sebastian’s mask clings to my face, the likeness will not be washed off. I am Sebastian, or Sebastian is I, or perhaps we both are someone whom neither of us knows.

I happen to know that Nabokov used an unreliable narrator in Lolita, so my first thought when I read the above was to wonder about the reliablity of the narrator. Is this book an account of Nabokov struggling with two sides of himself?

From what I've read this book was not well received by critics or sales when first published. However after Lolita ended up being a best seller the critics took a second look and decided that it had literary merit after all. Apparently those early critics didn't have the time or energy to glean the morsels of literary gold—just like me.

An interview with PhD who studies Nabokov:
https://phdstudentstofollow.wordpress...

[Karina · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was strongly reminded of my Lolita reading experience. Nabokov makes you read every single word of every sentence. It's an intense reading experience and he makes me focus like no other author I've come across. I don't have too many thoughts and feelings towards the story itself. It was a bit exhausting to read and would definitely benefit from a reread or two. Just what I expected from Nabokov.

[persephone · Rating 5 out of 5]

My problem with male authors today is that they will never be Vladimir Nabokov