Silent Love
The Annotation and Interpretation of Nabokov's "The Real Life of Sebastian Knight"
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Academic Studies Press
Published:30th May '18
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
This paperback is available in another edition too:
- Hardback£77.99(9781618114990)
The Real Life of Sebastian Knight is one of Vladimir Nabokov’s most autobiographical novels and it has often been observed that Sebastian’s passionate affair with the femme fatale Nina Rechnoy is a dramatized extension of Nabokov’s infatuation with Irina Guadanini. In this book it is shown that the novel also conceals another, secluded, love affair Sebastian had with a man, which reflects the main episode in the life of Nabokov’s brother Sergey. By pursuing many biographical and literary references and allusions, and by disregarding the deceptive guiding by the narrator (Sebastian’s half-brother), this moving story about Sebastian’s silent love becomes brightly visible.
“This comprehensive analysis offers a very close reading of the text that proves to be particularly revealing in terms of Nabokov’s method. … After giving essential background information on the genesis of the novel, … de Vries illuminates its extraordinary complexity. His insightful comments unveil the scope of the novel’s references and allusions.”
— Irina Marchesini, University of Bologna, SEER, Vol. 96, No. 2
“Gerard de Vries offers an elegant and persuasive plea for the act of annotation ... [The Real Life of Sebastian Knight] seems to call out for the kind of scholarship and detective work already richly devoted to Lolita and Ada. This is precisely what de Vries provides. After a long chapter of notes on specific textual moments, he presents three chapters of comment on motifs in the novel, centering on questions of narrative, identity, and ‘death and beyond.’”
— Michael Wood, Princeton University, The Russian Review vol 76 no. 2, April 2017
ISBN: 9781618118332
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
232 pages