I found it interesting that while re-reading "Bend Sinister", Nabokov's description of a world at its tyrannical worst, is also his supposed ideal state of being. Was it not Nabokov's ultimate desire to be able to escape the confines of one's singular consciousness, and enter into others at will? Seems this state of being is also, perversely, his description of hell too (from Paduk via the village radio, Chapter 6):
"Your groping individualities will become interchangeable and, instead of crouching in the prison cell of an illegal ego, the naked soul will be in contact with that of every other man in this land; nay, more: each of you will be able to make his abode in the elastic inner self of any other citizen, and flutter from one to another, until you know not whether you are Peter or John, so closely locked will you be in the embrace of the State... "
Thoughts?
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