Barabtarlo, Gennady. The Man Is the Book. 2006

While most Nabokov's books present diegetic problems (identity of the narrator, narrative tiers, unmarked transposition of the first and third person narration etc.), his first English novel contains a special narratological difficulty which defined the narrative system he employed in the subsequent series of English writings. A plausible resolution, or at least a correct definition, of that difficulty whose first trace can be seen, I argue, in RLSK's title and whose tail flashes so alluringly at the exit point is of principal urgency, comparable only to that of Pale Fire. My observations will attempt to describe the problem as I see it and offer a possible solution.