Vladimir Nabokov: The Real Life Of Sebastian Knight

[Peder]

It was written on the back cover, of course.

That's cheating! /waaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh!/

 

[Peder]

Oh dear. Only page fifteen I get to before I have to reread already.

Steffee,
You and I are in about the same place, and the same predicament (even if I am rereading), so please don't think you are the only one flipping pages back and forth.
Peder

 

[steffee]

Not on Mine! British Version............?

Yup. Penguin Classics. I'm sure it should say Penguin Modern Classics or whatever they say, as other Nabokov titles do, but it doesn't. Sadly, it's the silver covered one, which I think look tacky. But, oh well...

Cover photo by Robert Greshoff.

 

[pontalba]

Pontalba,
BTW, Foster says it isn't always true.
Peder

Gulp/gagging/choking..........
Peder! I'm dyin' here.....

I need more confusion she said distractedly whilst thumbing the pages rapidly.......
mumbling reread, reread, reread....reread.................

 

[pontalba]

Yup. Penguin Classics. I'm sure it should say Penguin Modern Classics or whatever they say, as other Nabokov titles do, but it doesn't. Sadly, it's the silver covered one, which I think look tacky. But, oh well...

Cover photo by Robert Greshoff.

Ah HA! I have Vintage International...trade paperbacks. And no sucha name on the back.....gggrrrrrrr.........

 

[pontalba]

aaarrrggghhhhhhh!

Iffin I don't get dinner right now, it'll burn...
Back Later.....

 

[Peder]

The parallels were both interesting and distressing at the same time. A bit of "There but for the Grace of God go I (him)" It seemed to me at the time that love was the deciding factor of which path was taken. A mother's or lover's love, or lack of same.

Pontalba,
The original eerie feeling I had for similarity of Glory and Knight was based simply on similar time and locale. But when I ever got to page 6 and read the description of their father's first marriage (according to V's mother) these Nabokovian flashes of memory and recollection started shooting through my brain and passing before my eyes.

My father's first marriage had not been happy. A strange woman, a restless reckless being -- but not my father's kind of restlessness. His was a constant quest which changed its object only after having attained it.[Martin! Martin! Martin!] Hers was a half-hearted pursuit, capricious and rambling, now swerving wide off the mark, now forgetting it midway, as one forgets one's umbrella in a taxicab.[Sonia! Sonia! Sonia!]

After I read that I thought to myself "Hmh! So that's what would have happened to them if they had gotten married."
Spooky! Considering that we read these two books in this sequence only quite accidentally.
Peder

 

[steffee]

Awww, that's good to know Peder. I'm upto chapter 3 now and off to bed. It's late here.

I'll look forward to catching up with our SK (and you all) tomorrow.

 

[pontalba]

Pontalba,
After I read that I thought to myself "Hmh! So that's what would have happened to them if they had gotten married."
Spooky! Considering that we read these two books in this sequence only quite accidentally.
Peder

Actually, /she slowly said thinking as she typed/ since Martin's fate was in fact left open ended...................and.............we are not told the fathers name...........................

Naahhhh.....couldn't be.........................could it? /mischevious gleam in the eyes/

 

[Peder]

Actually, /she slowly said thinking as she typed/ since Martin's fate was in fact left open ended...................and.............we are not told the fathers name...........................

Naahhhh.....couldn't be.........................could it? /mischevious gleam in the eyes/

Oh boy Pontalba!
You are within a hair's breadth of success there! And you really drove me to double check. But the wife in the comparison unfortunately was Virginia (Knight). But OTOH, since the names don't have to match up, then it it could be a perfect match that Martin and Sonia reappear here under two other names. Nabokov sure seems to have had that kind of matchup on his mind long enough; the two novels were written five novels apart! But still with Glory first. It shows he had something in mind, for sure.
You definitely get Toes! on that one!
Now it's time for bed,
I'm bushed,
CU tmw,
Peder

 

[pontalba]

Well, now just a minute. The reason I didn't think it really worked was the time span involved. VN wrote Glory in 1930.....Sebastian in 1941, remember it was the last novel written in Europe. In a sense that doesn't matter....compressed time and all that. I mean........what is time?
In Glory there was a suspicion of Sonia dabbling in espionage. On what scale--who knows? Admitedly more than likely very minor. But could it have been enough for her to have to change her name....was her father Edward Knight?

All silliness and highly unlikely. All of it. But. No, its all silliness.


Right?

 

[Peder]

Well, now just a minute. The reason I didn't think it really worked was the time span involved. VN wrote Glory in 1930.....Sebastian in 1941, remember it was the last novel written in Europe. In a sense that doesn't matter....compressed time and all that. I mean........what is time?
In Glory there was a suspicion of Sonia dabbling in espionage. On what scale--who knows? Admitedly more than likely very minor. But could it have been enough for her to have to change her name....was her father Edward Knight?

All silliness and highly unlikely. All of it. But. No, its all silliness.


Right?

Absolutely right Pontalba!
If we look at it carefully I think both stories will be turning out to be happening around the early twenties, with both Martin and Sebastian attending Trinity College at Cambridge at nearly the same time. It would be silly in the extreme to imagine both parents and their children all strolling around touring the same college campus at the same time and all of approximately the same age. Why! We could have a whole town-full of Nabokovian characters walking around and saying hello to each other at the same time if we allowed that to happen! That would be silly in the extreme! OTOH Nabokov said he didn't believe in time. Perhaps he had another silly streak in himself as well? Just too silly to imagine!
PS And she would have had to change her name! Most definitely!

And let's see. When last we heard of her (allegedly in 1909), as the Baker Street Irregulars informed me on an index card (p.9),

...during the last months of her life she roamed all over the South of France, staying for a day or two at small hot provincial towns, rarely visited by tourists -- feverish, alone (she had abandoned her lover) and probably very unhappy. One might think she was fleeing from someone or something as she doubled and re-crossed her tracks; on the other hand, to anyone who knew her moods that dashing might seem but a final exaggeration of her usual restlessness..."

I am definitely moving that card to the front of my stack of clues.
Silly, but so.
Peder

 

[steffee]

Well, now just a minute. The reason I didn't think it really worked was the time span involved. VN wrote Glory in 1930.....Sebastian in 1941, remember it was the last novel written in Europe. In a sense that doesn't matter....compressed time and all that. I mean........what is time?
In Glory there was a suspicion of Sonia dabbling in espionage. On what scale--who knows? Admitedly more than likely very minor. But could it have been enough for her to have to change her name....was her father Edward Knight?

All silliness and highly unlikely. All of it. But. No, its all silliness.


Right?

Espionage?

Am I to take it from the last few posts that we don't find out who killed SK? Or is this discussion for the purposes of speculation, for want of a better word?

I never did finish Glory... wonder if that's necessary...

Why! We could have a whole town-full of Nabokovian characters walking around and saying hello to each other at the same time if we allowed that to happen! That would be silly in the extreme!

That would be Nabokov.

Nabokov said he didn't believe in time.

Oh, of course. But then again, Nabokov detested Freud (Lolita, Pnin, all of them in fact?), religion (Pale Fire?), I'm sure there are others...

 

[Ms.]

32 replies, I shall have to get cracking on the novel

 

[steffee]

32 replies, I shall have to get cracking on the novel

You can expect nothing less from a bunch of Nabokovophiles!

 

[Peder]

Um, Steffee,
Let's see. I'll have to walk around the SK part carefully
But fair to say the last few posts were in the realm of forum-fun free fantasy and the smilies were not near big enough to indicate that.
Re Glory, espionage came up as a different kind of divergence from the text; call it fantasy also insofar as it related to Sonia. And no it is not necessary to finish Glory to read SK. It is not a prequel in any sense of the word. My posts were just my free-associations from similarities in VN's storytelling. But nobody is going to deter you from finishing Gloryeither But j/k in case you don't feel like it.
Re SK: On rereading just now, I have to say big OOPs for originally missing the final phrase here:

When for the first time in my life I visited Sebastian's small flat in London at 36 Oak Park Gardens, I had an empty feeling of having postponed an appointment until too late. Three rooms, a cold fireplace, silence. During the last few years he had not lived there very much, nor had he died there.

So I erred and misled completely in the opening post when I said that the body had been removed. It was never there, in that place! But now I do wonder the place, manner, means of his death -- even after having read the book, but please take that, so far, as only an indication of my all-to-fallible memory. I did not at all mean to imply or suggest that he hadn't actually died, especially when the book says he did. Oy! It sounds like it still has to become clear for me as well as for you. But we shall get there! Back to square one for me!
Sorry to have misled you (and others),
Don't mind me, just keep reading,
Peder

PS! Oh wait! He does die. It is one of the central episodes for understanding the story! I'm just slow. So indeed, keep on reasing.
C

 

[steffee]

But nobody is going to deter you from finishing Gloryeither But j/k in case you don't feel like it.

Hehe.

Seriously, I will finish it one day.

I did not at all mean to imply or suggest that he hadn't actually died, especially when the book says he did. Oy!

Hehe again.

It sounds like it still has to become clear for me as well as for you. But we shall get there! Back to square one for me!
Sorry to have misled you (and others),
Don't mind me, just keep reading,

Awww Peder, you are too modest.

PS! Oh wait! He does die. It is one of the central episodes for understanding the story! I'm just slow. So indeed, keep on reasing.
C

I will have to keep reading after that, won't I?

 

[Peder]

Steffee,

PS! Oh wait! He does die. It is one of the central episodes for understanding the story! I'm just slow. So indeed, keep on reasing. [sic]
)

Sometimes it just takes a little time for the fog to clear, and my spelling is never at its best either early in the morning either. And that was all before coffee. But I never had a doubt that the gripping saga of Sebastian Knight would keep you in thrall until the end. And, actually, if you miss the end of this one you will have missed possibly one of the most fantastic endings VN has ever written. Just IMO of course. But it knocked me down dead flat.
Toes! for sure.
Peder

 

[pontalba]

Steffee
Sorry I was doing a little "free association" back there, and got carried away. But truthfully I have to tell you Peder is just as bad as I am, but don't tell him I said that. He is right, you don't have to finish Glory to read Sebastian, its just so dishy the way Nabokov aligns his characters from various novels. I really believe that one has to read ALL of his novels to get any true picture of his mind set. And then only the edges.....but fascinating edges arn't they?

 

[steffee]

I really believe that one has to read ALL of his novels to get any true picture of his mind set.

All of his novels?

Oh, Cloud, Castle, Lake - it contains: The Admiralty Spire, Razor, A Russian Beauty, Signs and Symbols, and of course Cloud, Castle, Lake.

my spelling is never at its best either early in the morning either

But Peder, you posted at 2.40pm

And, actually, if you miss the end of this one you will have missed possibly one of the most fantastic endings VN has ever written. Just IMO of course. But it knocked me down dead flat.
Toes! for sure.

Oh really? I'm not sure I can wait now... might have to read the ending NOW!