The Real Life of Sebastian Knight (1941)

Nabokov's first foray into English, a story about a novelist, his brother, and the search to discover the 'real life' of the former. Nabokov's prove is not as sparkly as usual, as he is still becoming accustomed to English, but it still shines. Recommended to those who know the struggle of an artist's life, or Nabokov fans. ( )

Nabokov é incrível por sua imaginação e seu domínio da linguagem – atributos que ele mesmo admirava em outros escritores. O final é brilhante: o narrador se vê mais próximo do irmão do que nunca, velando o seu leito no hospital, apenas para descobrir que velava um desconhecido, e que seu irmão já estava morto. ( )

As Conrad Brenner wrote so aptly about the author in the Introduction to this novel - "He is NOT the author of only one book ("Lolita") and only one masterpiece. He is not a literary curiosity". True, Nabokov is mostly known for "Lolita" (which I am yet to read - having grown up in that part of the world where Nabokov's books were banned at the time), but I started with "The Real Life of Sebastian Knight" and found it very appealing, particularly because Nabokov's style (at least in this book) has so reminded me of one of my favorite authors - W.S.Maugham. Knowing only the basic facts of Nabokov's life, I nevertheless felt that this book was at least in some small part autobiographical. It greatly impressed me that in spite of the fact that this novel was Nabokov's first book written in English (and not a translation from Russian) - his mastery of the language and the richness of expression are incredibly high. A very worthy read. ( )

This is an interesting book on the theme of whether or not we can ever really know a person. Nabokov subtely gives us different views of Sebastian Knight through the guise of the narrator writing a biography of his half-brother. The narrator gives the family view of the man from personal accounts. Knight's view of himself is given through his works of fiction, which are extensively quoted. And we see the public's view of a writer through the words of Mr. Goodman, a literary agent that writes a biography of Knight for a quick profit and uses all the cliches of a tortured writer in doing so. The title is a bit of irony, because we never see the "real" Sebastian Knight, if there could be such a thing, instead we see how a man is different things to different people, and that everybody has many more layers than can be quickly stereotyped by our relation to them. Probably the key line of the book comes near the end when the narrator says that he has learned that, "... the soul is but a manner of being--not a constant state--that any soul may be yours, if you find and follow its undulations." Nabokov goes on to tease readers and critics that want to speculate whether The Real Life of Sebastian Knight is somewhat autobiographical (as I for one did) by having his narrator say, "the hereafter may be the full ability of consciously living in any chosen soul, in any number of souls, all of them unconscious of their interchangeable burden. Thus--I am Sebastian Knight."
On a side note, I have read in various places that people speculate that Nabokov was highly functioning autistic. There are some interesting suggestions of that in this book. When he talks about Sebastian dying in 1936 and how that date resembles the man; or this quote from Sebastian, "every ordinary act which, as a matter of course, I had to perform, took on such a complicated appearance, provoked such a multitude of associative ideas in my mind, and these associations were so tricky and obscure, so utterly useless for practical application, that I would either shirk the business at hand or else make a mess of it out of sheer nervousness." My favorite line in the book is where Knight compares himself to a "color-blind chameleon", someone who tries to fit in, but doesn't know how. Of course, maybe these are the feelings of Knight, or the narrator, and not Nabokov, but they seem to be very insightful images of an autistic mind. ( )

http://www.bostonbibliophile.com/2009/11/review-real-life-of-sebastian-knight-by... ( )