Novel #2 - "The Real Life of Sebastian Knight" Part I: A Common Rhythm

" 'Sebastian Knight?' said a sudden voice in the mist, 'Who is speaking of Sebastian Knight?' " (Nabokov, 49).

Sebastian Knight. Light of my life, fire of my –

Let’s start again.

Sebastian Knight. The real Sebastian Knight. Sebastian Knight unveiled, uncloaked, unmasked. “The Real Life of Sebastian Knight.” Written in 1938-39 and published in 1941, “Sebastian Knight” showcases Nabokov's brilliant first attempt at grabbing the English language around its unsuspecting throat and forcing out some exceptional prose, despite it being his second language. That we can glimpse some of his linguistic struggles through Knight’s own difficulties makes Nabokov’s achievement all the more remarkable.

Initially, the structure of the novel seems straightforward. “The Real Life of Sebastian Knight” is a work of fiction that is presented as a biography. The ‘biography’ is written as a frame narrative: after the death of Sebastian Knight, the famous writer, his half-brother takes it upon himself to faithfully set down Knight’s enigmatic life. The frame of the novel shares the journey of the half-brother as he attempts to unearth Knight’s life, whereas the inner narrative is composed of his discoveries.

Thus, the novel begins by providing two very clear lenses for the reader to peer cautiously through (I’m learning that that’s how I need to read Nabokov: cautiously, with continuous checks of my rearview mirrors and blind spots, and the occasional clumsy feint. Apologies for the mixing of metaphors.)

To reiterate – two clear lenses: The story of Sebastian Knight emerges from the pen of the biographer, who emerges from the pen of Nabokov. It seems a very clear hierarchy: Nabokov – narrator – Knight. (“An … alliteration which it would have been a pity to withhold” (Nabokov, 1). Or, alternatively, “The tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth …” Ah, Humbert.)

So, to return to the opening quote, when a disembodied voice on the Cambridge campus inquires, “Who is speaking of Sebastian Knight?” it doesn’t seem like there needs to be much hesitation before you exclaim, “Well, his biographer!”

Let’s talk a bit about this biographer.

The first-person narrator/biographer, Sebastian Knight’s half-brother, is a fellow about whom we initially know remarkably little. He repeatedly insists that he wants to let “as little of himself as possible” permeate his treatise, but inevitably reveals more than he intends.

Here is what he explicitly reveals: He is Sebastian’s half-brother (same father, different mothers), he is six years younger than Sebastian, he owns a firm, he is Russian, and he is writing a biography about Sebastian Knight.

We also know that he is referred to as ‘V,’ his middle name is almost the same as his first name, and that he continually defines himself in relation to his brother.

It is interesting to note that a handful of his personal details match up with the personal details of Vladimir Nabokov. The ‘V’ is self-explanatory. The cultural history (Russian émigré) is a clear match as well. The issue of middle name is cleverly revealed – the narrator introduces himself to a character named Paul, and Paul laughs and responds with something to the effect of, “Sure, and I’m Pahl Pahlich.” (Amusingly, V continues to refer to him by this ironic name throughout the scene.) The connection to Nabokov is that his full name follows a similar pattern to Pahl Pahlich - Vladimir Vladimirovich. The last clear-cut detail (I’m sure there are more, these are only what I managed to extract) took a brief interlude of research, which, on my summer break, translates into no more than a Wikipedia visit.

However, I am proud to say that I was following a hunch.

The hypothesis in question concerned the father of V and Sebastian Knight. (When I say ‘V,’ I am referring to the half-brother.) V’s father was killed in a gun-duel for defending the honour of his first wife. V also bears his father’s name. (My thought process: “Now wouldn’t it be interesting if Nabokov’s father …) The connection? Nabokov’s father also went by the name of Vladimir Nabokov, and … was shot for defending the politician Pavel Miliukov.

I thought the similarities were a little more important than a friendly-neighbourhood case of ‘art imitating life’ (a phrase that I positively despise) and I had previously learned my lesson about passing things off as mere ‘coincidence’ (see post #3), so I decided to keep them in the back of my mind.

Back to V – what I think are more important than his parallels with Nabokov are his parallels with Sebastian. However, these similarities seem more like ripples in water than outright parallel tracks:

“I daresay Sebastian and I also had some kind of common rhythm; this might explain the curious “it-has-happened-before-feeling” which seizes me when following the bends of his life. And if, as often was the case with him, the “why’s” of his behaviour were as many X’s, I often find their meaning disclosed now in a subconscious turn of this or that sentence put down by me” (Nabokov, 32).

A little later in the novel, V observes a portrait of Sebastian that is painted as a reflection in a pond – thus, the viewer of the picture is given the illusion that he is “…mirrored, Narcissus-like in clear water … Thus Sebastian peers into a pool at himself” (Nabokov, 117). The image of V observing the portrait and Sebastian observing himself blend together as each man regards the same reflection.

Curiouser and curiouser.

Near the midpoint of the novel, V enters into an elaborate, borderline obsequious (as I perceive it) description of Knight’s own fiction. Among his detailed descriptions appears the following passage:

"He had a queer habit of endowing even his most grotesque characters with this or that idea, or impression, or desire which he himself might have toyed with ... The light of personal truth is hard to perceive in the shimmer of imaginary nature, but what is still harder to understand is the amazing fact of a man writing of things which he really felt at the time of writing, could have had the power to create simultaneously - and out of the very things which distressed his mind - a fictitious and faintly absurd character" (Nabokov, 112).

This passage did not immediately appear important to me - rather, it appeared somewhat ironic. My initial thought was, “Isn’t that quite common of art?” And I read onward. But then – then the book slowly began to take on characteristics of the Knightian style that had just been so painstakingly described. Then the true weight of the passage made itself apparent to me – it was a warning, a clue. (My words make it sound as though I am attempting to parody a detective investigation, something else that the novel accomplishes.)

Near the beginning of the novel, V expresses his desire for his investigation to take on the “turns of a well-oiled novel.” Of course, this is exactly what he gets. Direct parallels to Sebastian Knight’s novels – including what seemed to me a very Dostoevsky-like train journey of bleary eyes, banging shins and nightmarish dream sequences – slowly come into being. A dramatic detective sequence reveals the identity of Sebastian Knight’s hitherto unidentified Russian lover. A previously-described character from one of Knight’s novels appears and is the catalyst for the climax of the plot.

But if V is the biographer, and he has just been brought down to the level of a character by more or less walking into a Knight novel, then V must be a character possessing “…this or that idea, or impression, or desire which [the author] himself might have toyed with …”

Factor in the idea of V as Sebastian’s ghostly double, and suddenly, all of the leads are rescinded and this novel seems a lot less like a cut-and-dried fictional biography. The Nabokov-V-Knight hierarchy is more or less demolished as the lines between biographer and subject, writer and character become blurred.

My realization was not unlike the penny-dreadful staple: “But if we’re all here in the compartment … THEN WHO’S DRIVING THE TRAIN?”

I was reminded of the Humbert-Quilty tussle at the end of Lolita: “I rolled over him. We rolled over me. They rolled over him. We rolled over us.”

My preferred interpretation is this: It would seem that V is not, in fact, a biographer, but is merely another brilliant Sebastian Knight creation. Knight, the true fictional author, has structured a puzzle of a novel that mocks the conventions of detective stories, mocks the conventions of biography, mocks the conventions of his own fiction, and ultimately mocks the obsession with art-imitating-life-imitating-art.

The artist always wins.

And then, standing above the fray (or leaning over a suitcase arranged over a toilet as he wrote in the privacy of the bathroom, if Wikipedia has it right), adding yet another dimension, mind-bendingly, Russian-nesting-doll-style, wringing me of disconnected appositives, is Nabokov.

Nabokov, who has subtly aligned himself with the Cambridge-educated writer Knight, and the elusive V, factors himself into this equation. Because the puzzle, apparently created by Knight, is presided over by Nabokov. But just as V and Knight possessed a degree of doubling in their character-author relationship, so, perhaps, do Knight and Nabokov. The idea of Nabokov dropping clues in the form of ironic life-parallels seems to gesture to this, but is ultimately a reflexive hat-tip to his status as ultimate puppet-master. That image gives a powerful ring to the novel’s final words:

“I am Sebastian, or Sebastian is I, or perhaps we both are someone whom neither of us knows” (Nabokov, 203).

Because, of course, even if Sebastian created V, who created Sebastian?



Hi, Vladimir.

So, I ask again: “Who is speaking of Sebastian Knight?”

…

(Exeunt.)

P.S. For the next post, I hope to extract a cohesive sliver of an answer from the big ‘why’ that’s hanging over my head with respect to Nabokov’s game. And if Nabokov’s ‘why’s’ are so many X’s, I hope to find an echo of their meaning in a subconscious turn of a rambling post put down by me (Ha.) I shall also be reaching for the “What did I learn” button, in an attempt to fulfill my basic purpose – to learn about fiction. To supplement my discussion, I will hopefully draw from A.S. Byatt’s “Possession,” which is magical thus far and which I am excited to lose myself within. Meanwhile, I shall delve slowly into my third Nabokov – “Despair.” Onward we go!

Thanks for reading; comments are most appreciated.