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Re: QUERY: RLSK and new edition of LATH in Spanish
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Dr. José J. Bermúdez (Dr.J): I have just bought a copy of a 2008 edition of LATH edited by Javier Aparicio Maydeu (Cátedra Letras Universales 405). In the bibliography section the editor states (the translation is mine): "under the pseudonym Sebastian Knight, Nabokov wrote the novels The prismatic bezel, Success, The comic (sic) mountain, Albinos in black, vaguely inspired at least in the herós name election by Laughter in the dark, The other side of the moon (sic again), The lost property and The strange asphodel, all of them without complete editions, just some fragments in the inside od other novels, like a Trojan horse. In case you can ead spanish out there" [...] Now, this is a most extraordinary nabokovian joke, by an expert in the subject [...] Have you ever found anything so funny in other foreign editions?
JM: Quite a joke! ( I understand that the Spanish editor has added another pseudonym to Nabokov's list, in the same stride as Nabokov's, in LATH, and independently from his narrator, who ennumerates the titles of his own novels, both in Russian and in English).
As regards RLSK*, in his preface, Conrad Brenner states that "in a vagrant sense, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight is Nabokov's contribution to the literature of identity."
LATH's editor in Spain, if I understand the information added by Dr. Bermúdez, wrote an article on " "Notes on alterity and autobiography in Nabokov́s fiction" Critical Studies, 12 (1989) - so J.A. Maydeu could have added LATH to the score of examples of "literature of identity," like Brenner.
Brenner also states that RLSK "... is also most obviously an outright literary trick...a book written to prove that there is no book here..." and, a little later he adds: "If this is not merely a literary trick, have we been tricked?"- for the narrator only allows us to "feed on the hint of a hint," whereas Sebastian's "books, in précis, have the feeling of Nabokov rejects - but he writes like an angel....(There is every reason for making a writer of the person pursued)."
In the sentence I underlined, Brenner is suggesting that Sebastian Knight could have been "made a writer," (by whom? by the novel's narrator, V.? by Nabokov himself?) - but this is not the same as what seems to await those who encounter J.A.Maydeu's playful inclusion of Sebastian Knight's name, in the Nabokov bibliography added to LATH: a new twist, perhaps a new loop, has been added to the quest for... identity?
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* - The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, New Directions, 1959, 2nd edition.
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
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JM: Quite a joke! ( I understand that the Spanish editor has added another pseudonym to Nabokov's list, in the same stride as Nabokov's, in LATH, and independently from his narrator, who ennumerates the titles of his own novels, both in Russian and in English).
As regards RLSK*, in his preface, Conrad Brenner states that "in a vagrant sense, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight is Nabokov's contribution to the literature of identity."
LATH's editor in Spain, if I understand the information added by Dr. Bermúdez, wrote an article on " "Notes on alterity and autobiography in Nabokov́s fiction" Critical Studies, 12 (1989) - so J.A. Maydeu could have added LATH to the score of examples of "literature of identity," like Brenner.
Brenner also states that RLSK "... is also most obviously an outright literary trick...a book written to prove that there is no book here..." and, a little later he adds: "If this is not merely a literary trick, have we been tricked?"- for the narrator only allows us to "feed on the hint of a hint," whereas Sebastian's "books, in précis, have the feeling of Nabokov rejects - but he writes like an angel....(There is every reason for making a writer of the person pursued)."
In the sentence I underlined, Brenner is suggesting that Sebastian Knight could have been "made a writer," (by whom? by the novel's narrator, V.? by Nabokov himself?) - but this is not the same as what seems to await those who encounter J.A.Maydeu's playful inclusion of Sebastian Knight's name, in the Nabokov bibliography added to LATH: a new twist, perhaps a new loop, has been added to the quest for... identity?
...................................
* - The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, New Directions, 1959, 2nd edition.
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/