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"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 --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
Book Description
Spurred on by admiration for his novelist half-brother and irritation at the biography written about him by Mr Goodman ('his slapdash and very misleading book'), the narrator, V, sets out to record Sebastian Knight's life as he understands it. But buried amid the extensive quoting, digressions, seeming explanations and digs, Sebastian's erratic and troubled persona remains as elusive as ever. Nabokov's first novel written in English, "The Real Life of Sebastian Knight" is a nuanced, enigmatic potrayal of the conflict between the real and the unreal, and the futile quest for human truth.
--This text refers to an alternate
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First Sentence
SEBASTIAN KNIGHT was born on the thirty-first of December, 1899, in the former capital of my country. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
SEBASTIAN KNIGHT was born on the thirty-first of December, 1899, in the former capital of my country. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good lesser Vladimir,
By "michael_ellis_" (Main Street) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Real Life of Sebastian Knight (Paperback)
Vladimir Nabokov is perhaps my very favorite author, and so I approached this work withthe mindset of "it must be at least good." It is. It contains the subtlety and puzzling qualities and droll humor of his great works and still manages to work in its own little bit of beauty. It also has its duller stretches, it lacks a real point, and it is more than vaguely pretentious, but nothing unforgivable. As his first full-length work in English, perhaps it should be treated more as an experiment in compositional workability than anything else.The relative ease of reading this as compared to Nabokov's best, like 'Pale Fire' and 'Lolita,' may make it a good introduction to novices.
3.0 out of 5 stars
Caress the details, for there is nothing else!,
By Santiago Cobo (Hades) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Real Life of Sebastian Knight (Paperback)
My English not being my mother language has attracted me to Nabokov. And I admire him enourmously.But this novel was almost a disappointment, because, though it is so good at times, the almost plotless tale reaches a climax of the futile and bore when (we are already somewhere in the middle of the book)he narrator, who is by then in search of a lady, indulges in a series of inane dialogues whose aim eluded me. And the eighteenth chapter is wonderful, though I disliked also the final chapters, this simulacrum of impetus and parody of revelation on the very point of dying.
3.0 out of 5 stars
no batterflies please,
By alexei ivanov (Kitezh) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Real Life of Sebastian Knight (Paperback)
Nabokov intension, until he discovered for himself the wonderful world of pop-culture (cf. Lolita and Ada), was really to describe truth and beauty (see 'Luzhin's defense', 'Gift' etc.) in the tradition of the Old World, and play less with cheep riddles and collective phobias. His dealing with the issue of death, as in 'Ultima Thule' etc., appears also here; the last book written by Knight is, however, written about in a pale and uninspiring way (Nabokov could not make his vision clear?), and, surprisingly for Nabokov, is not free of commonplaces and dejavous. All in all the book is original and interesting, as nearly everything Nabokov wrote. And, by the way, the treatment of the relation narrator-genius (commonplace in itself, unfortunately) looks better than in Mann's Doctor Faustus, where it is taken quite heavily (one does not see the traces of the hammer blows). Side remark: the stars practice is really annoying: isn't there a way to write about books without grading them?
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