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The Real Life of Sebastian Knight

3.95 of 5 stars 3.95 · rating details · 2,072 ratings · 129 reviews

A perversely, magical, literary detective story about the mysterious life of the famous writer, a biography as it were, narrated by his half brother.

Paperback, 181 pages

Published March 29th 2007 by Penguin Books (first published 1941)

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Jan 03, 2013 Meriam Kharbat rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: russian

While describing the prismatic Bezel, one of Sebastian Knight’s books, V, the narrator says: “I have tried my best to show the workings of this book, at least some of its workings. Its charm, humor and pathos can only be appreciated by direct reading”.

Sadly, this does not apply for this particular book. Now that I have finished it, I feel that there might be some depth to it that I couldn’t reach even with direct reading.

Although the deceiving title might lure you to thinking that this book is...more

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Feb 17, 2009 Black Elephants rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. It's been sitting at my desk for a year and a half, waiting for me to draw it forward from its position between two other novels I've already perused. But since Nabokov has quickly become one of my favorite authors, it didn't take a lot of mental work to decide to make The Real Life of Sebastian Knight my holiday read.

What I expected and what I got, of course, turned out to be entirely different. In some regards, this novel was the most of "uncouth" of all the Nabokov books I've read either beca...more It's been sitting at my desk for a year and a half, waiting for me to draw it forward from its position between two other novels I've already perused. But since Nabokov has quickly become one of my favorite authors, it didn't take a lot of mental work to decide to make The Real Life of Sebastian Knight my holiday read.

What I expected and what I got, of course, turned out to be entirely different. In some regards, this novel was the most of "uncouth" of all the Nabokov books I've read either because this is the author's first novel in English (Nabokov is a native speaker of Russian), or because the narrator, V, is the most inept wordsmith of the two protagonists I have known before. Before I opened the book, I somewhat expected a plot akin to Herman Hesse's Demian wherein a nameless narrator is pulled into a world of truth by a character of a "darker" nature. But once again, no such parallel came into existence.

So the plot? Here we go: V is the half-brother of Sebastian Knight, a famous novelist, who is dead throughout the entirety of the book. V is trying to write a truthful biography of his taciturn and secretive brother's life because Sebastian's old secretary published a less truthful one. He constantly voices his ineptness and his desire to keep out his own personal life in this history about Sebastian, but as the story progresses, the reader will notice how slender the information on Sebastian's life is. V respects and refuses to include information from his brother's personal papers. He never gets to interview Sebastian's lover of 6 years. He never confirms (or does he?) the identity and story of the woman who destroyed that relationship as well as Sebastian's final years of peace. V also never really has a real a full conversation between Sebastian and himself for years

The final revelation at the end, to my mind, is the most abrupt ending ever tacked onto a book. V has rushed to Sebastian's deathbed and is sitting outside his room, listening to him sleep. He feels so close and tender of his brother that might bridge years of estrangement only to discover he is at the wrong bedside. Sebastian died before he arrived.

The question of course is does anyone really know Sebastian Knight? But does it matter? All Sebastian's ghosts will play their parts, and any soul may belong to any person, depending on which person may decide to speak of them. The discovery of the soul depends on the waverings and mutations that occur between these different actors no matter whether they be secretary, lover, brother or stranger. There may be no argument over which story is more true.

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Jan 17, 2011 Pollopicu rated it 2 of 5 stars

Considering Lolita is my favorite novel in the entire world, I expected to feel somewhat of the same magic and enchantment reading Nabokov's The Real Life Of Sebastian Knight, but I had difficulty even making out Nabokov at all. But what do I know? out of all of his novels I've only read Lolita, and now Sebastian. My mistake was that I assumed that all of Nabokov's works would seduce me. I'll have to read some more of his novels and see what happens. The tale of Sebastian Knight is appealing eno...more

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Dec 03, 2012 Jay McNair rated it 4 of 5 stars

Both of Nabokov's novels that I've read so far have the same stages of reading. The first few pages sparkle and draw me in; then the rest of the first half is slowish going, somewhat uncompelling, difficult to get that interested in. Finally in the latter half the plot picks up and things are wonderful, emotional, surprising, and all the payoffs happen. And the reading at the end is coupled with a desire to go back, reread, plumb the details for clues, and finally read someone else's thoughts on...more

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Nov 18, 2012 René Pannekoek rated it 5 of 5 stars

Simply the best book I've ever read.

The Real Life of Sebastian Knight is Nabokov's first English novel. It tells an outwardly straightforward story, while suggesting the unreliability of the narrator (unnamed except for his last initial, which is V.) at every step in the way. Slowly, the reader feels himself becoming entangled in a web of suspicions and possibilities.

The story of the novel is told, in the first person, by a biographer in search of the life of his subject. This subject is his hal...more

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Oct 21, 2012 Patricia rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: literary, literature, brothers

A metafiction in the voice of the novelist's brother who wishes to write his biography. The brother's name is never revealed and I began to suspect that his identity was the same as the novelist. That would mirror another character's feigning to be someone else in order to string the inquisitive investigator along. The narrator searches for pieces of the deceased's life. He finds lovers and friends who reveal certain episodes: the composition and style and travels of SK, his fatal illness, his a...more

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Jan 10, 2012 Ido Hadanny rated it 4 of 5 stars

הספר הזה התגלגל לידי במקרה - קניתי ספר ליומולדת של גלית, ומסתבר שכבר אי אפשר לקנות ספר אחד, אלא רק "ארבע במאה". שני ספרים נתתי לאיש זר שהתקמצן לקנות לילד שלו וסגר איתי משום מה על 80/20, וזה הספר הרביעי.

הכתיבה של נבוקוב (מ1940!) תמיד מצליחה להצחיק אותי, לפעמים אפילו בקול רם, ואפילו שמדובר בסופר רוסי שכותב באנגלית שתורגמה לעברית:
"ירכו של שכני נדחפה אל ירכי שלי בשעה שעבר מסוג אחד של נחירה לסוג אחר, עצוב יותר". עוד מאותו מסע אומלל ברכבת:
"אה, המפלצת הענקית הזאת, המתגוללת לשמאלי, היא אישה. מי בושם וזי...more

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Dec 06, 2011 Palmyrah rated it 2 of 5 stars

I just put this book down, and as I did, I said to myself, ‘what a load of rubbish.' I was a little surprised at my own reaction.

Some of my favourite writing is by Nabokov. Much of it is in his short stories. I loved Pale Fire and enjoyed its tricksiness. I read Lolita and was seduced and appalled. Other books, like Laughter in the Dark, were less captivating, but throughout it all the brilliance of the author’s style was there to compensate me when my interest in the content flagged.

Maybe I hav...more I just put this book down, and as I did, I said to myself, ‘what a load of rubbish.' I was a little surprised at my own reaction.

Some of my favourite writing is by Nabokov. Much of it is in his short stories. I loved Pale Fire and enjoyed its tricksiness. I read Lolita and was seduced and appalled. Other books, like Laughter in the Dark, were less captivating, but throughout it all the brilliance of the author’s style was there to compensate me when my interest in the content flagged.

Maybe I have grown old and cynical, and – being myself a writer – a bit too much of a hack, to appreciate the art in this novel. Unfortunately, the art is all there is to appreciate. Sebastian Knight, the object of his own half-brother’s biographical quest, is a pretentious, neurotic snob. I found it difficult to take an interest in such a character when it is presented by the narrator as wholly admirable.

Mind you, the narrator – ‘V.’, Knight‘s half-brother – shares at least two of the above qualities. No surprise, since it is Nabokov’s humour to make us wonder whether the two are actually the same man, and if so, whether the man is Sebastian or his semi-sibling, or some monstrous literary Siamese twin. Doubtless it was also the author’s humour to portray a lonely, sick, mostly unhappy auctorial also-ran of unpleasant character as someone admirable, worthy of a biography. But that doesn’t really make me want to read any more about Sebastian Knight, and besides, I object to authors who entertain themselves at my expense unless they are able to entertain me at the same time.

All the other ‘postmodernist’ (really?) tricks – the way the plot of the novel takes on aspects of the plots of Sebastian’s handful of novels, so that fiction holds a mirror up to fiction, and the frequent chess references whose point, I am sorry to say, entirely escapes me – did not add interest or charm to a novel I found significantly lacking in both qualities.

And then, that famous Nabokovian prose... Apparently this was the first novel he wrote in English, so one shouldn’t be too harsh. But Nabokov was always an extreme stylist, one who liked to stretch an image or metaphor till it was on the verge of overbalancing and falling flat. Most of the time he got away with it – this was a man who could describe horse-dung in the act of production in breathtakingly beautiful prose – but for some reason his writing in this book strikes me as often no better than clumsily arch. Perhaps this was his way of portraying the untutored style of his narrator, V. The effect, sadly, is not always that of a bad writer rising above himself; too often it is that of a good writer – indeed, a great writer – missing the mark.

Which, I think, just about sums up this unfortunate novel.
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Mar 03, 2011 facebrooker rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: interesados en las obras y vida de Nabokov

Recommended to facebrooker by: nadie

Shelves: novela

Este libro despertó en mi sentimientos encontrados. Por una parte, el inicio me pareció un somnífero literario, estuve a punto de abandonar su lectura sin embargo, por una disciplina que he decidido seguir, continué leyéndolo. En términos generales puedo decir que no lo recomiendo, o en un momento dado lo recomendaría a aquellos estudiosos de la obra y vida de Nabokov ya que en sus páginas podrán encontrar borradores y pistas de cómo fue su vida como emigrado ruso. En la novela hay sólo dos pasa...more

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Sep 06, 2009 Natalie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: borrowed

Nabokov has such a masterful command of the English language - which wasn't even his native tongue - that I stand in awe of his glorious turns of phrase, alliterations, puns, and other linguistic tricks. He puns in French, too, while I weep with envy.

I personally thought Sebastian Knight was a much better book than Lolita, the Nabokov book that everyone's read. The nameless narrator, the half-brother of the eponymous character, spends the entirety of the novel attempting to piece together the li...more

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Jun 07, 2010 David rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: big-white-square

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. It's full of patterns and beautiful mistakes. And charming, interesting people. I loved it. It certainly left me puzzled, but not at all cross. I thought Nabakov would be horribly pretentious and intellectually snobbish, but he wasn't.

This was my favourite bit:
"One day I went for a long walk and found a place called Roquebrune. It was at Roquebrune that my mother had died thirteen years before. I well remember the day my father told me of her death and the name of the pension where it occurred....more It's full of patterns and beautiful mistakes. And charming, interesting people. I loved it. It certainly left me puzzled, but not at all cross. I thought Nabakov would be horribly pretentious and intellectually snobbish, but he wasn't.

This was my favourite bit:
"One day I went for a long walk and found a place called Roquebrune. It was at Roquebrune that my mother had died thirteen years before. I well remember the day my father told me of her death and the name of the pension where it occurred. The name was "Les Violettes". I asked a chauffeur whether he knew of such a house, but he did not. I came at last to a pinkish villa roofed with the typical Provence round red tiles, and I noticed a bunch of violets clumsily painted of the gate. So this was the house. I crossed the garden and spoke to the landlady. She said that she had only lately taken over the pension from the former owner and knew nothing of the past. I asked her permission to sit awhile in the garden. An old man, naked as far down as I could see, peered at me from a balcony, but otherwise there was no one about. I sat down on a blue bench under a great eucalyptus, its bark half stripped away, as seems always to be the case with this sort of tree. Then I tried to see the pink house and the tree and the whole complexion of the place as my mother had seen it. I regretted not knowing the exact window of her room. Judging by the villa's name, I felt sure that there had been before her eyes that same bed of purple pansies. Gradually I worked myself into such a state that for a moment the pink and green seemed to shimmer and float as if seen through a veil of mist. My mother, a dim slight figure in a large hat, went slowly up the steps which seemed to dissolve into water. A terrific thump made me regain consciousness. An orange had rolled down out of the paper bag on my lap. I picked it up and left the garden. Some months later in London I happened to meet a cousin of hers. A turn of the conversation led me to mention that I had visited the place where she had died. "Oh," he said, "but it was the other Roquebrune, the one in the Var."

But I think the following letter is the best thing I've read this year. In Sebastian Knight's book, it was discovered in a mailbag thrown clear from an aeroplane crash. It was in a misaddressed envelope. Had the plane not crashed, it would have been delivered to the man identified as "that ass Mortimer":
"This will smart, my poor love. Our picnic is finished; the dark road is bumpy and the smallest child in the car is about to be sick. A cheap fool would tell you: you must be brave. But then, anything I might tell you in the way of support or consolation is sure to be milk-puddingy, - you know what I mean. You always knew what I meant. Life with you was lovely - and when I say lovely, I mean doves and lilies, and velvet, and that soft pink 'v' in the middle and the way your tongue curved up to the long, lingering 'l'. Our life together was alliterative, and when I think of all the little things which will die, now that we cannot share them, I feel as if we were dead too. And perhaps we are. You see, the greater our happiness was, the hazier its edges grew, as if its outlines were melting, and now it has dissolved altogether. I have not stopped loving you; but something is dead in me, and I cannot see you in the mist. ... This is all poetry. I am lying to you. Lily-livered. There can be nothing more cowardly than a poet beating about the bush. I think you have guessed how things stand: the damned formula of 'another woman'. I am desperately unhappy with her - here is one thing which is true. And I think there is nothing much more to be said about that side of the business.
"I cannot help feeling there is something essentially wrong about love. Friends may quarrel or drift apart, close relations too, but there is not this pang, this pathos, this fatality which clings to love. Friendship never has that doomed look. Why, what is the matter? I have not stopped loving you, but because I cannot go on kissing your dim dear face, we must part, we must part. Why is it so? What is this mysterious exclusiveness? One may have a thousand friends, but only one love-mate. Harems have nothing to do with this matter: I am speaking of dance, not gymnastics. Or can one imagine a tremendous Turk loving every one of his four hundred wives as I love you? For if I say 'two' I have started to count and there is no end to it. There is only one real number: One. And love, apparently, is the best exponent of this singularity.
"Good-bye, my poor love. I shall never forget you and never replace you. It would be absurd of me to try and persuade you that you were the pure love, and that this other passion is but a comedy in the flesh. All is flesh and all is purity. But one thing is certain: I have been happy with you and now I am miserable with another. And so life will go on. I shall joke with the chaps at the office and enjoy my dinners (until I get dyspepsia), and read novels, and write verse, and keep an eye on the stocks - and generally behave as I have always behaved. But that does not mean that I shall be happy without you... Every small thing which will remind me of you – the look of disapproval about the furniture in the rooms where you have patted cushions and spoken to the poker, every small thing which we have described together – will always seem to me one half of a shall, one half of a penny, with the other half kept by you. Goody-bye. Go away, go away. Don't write. Marry Charlie or any other good man with a pipe in his teeth. Forget me now, but remember me afterwards, when the bitter part is forgotten. This blot is not due to a tear. My fountain pen has broken down and I am using a filthy pen in this filthy hotel room. The heat is terrific and I have not been able to clinch the business I was supposed to bring 'to a satisfactory close,' as that ass Mortimer says. I think you have got a book or two of mine – but that is not really important. Please don't write. L."

Quotes to remember:
"Well did he know that to flaunt one's contempt for moral code was but smuggled smugness and prejudice turned inside out."

"...she had quite inadvertently in her well-meaning innocence dallied at some pleasant sunlit corner of Sebastian's life, where Sebastian himself had not paused; and now she was left behind and did not know whether to try and catch up with him or attempt to call him back."

Approaching spring is "cold-limbed ballet-girls waiting in the wings"

"...but the author seemed to him a terrible snob, intellectually, at least. Asked to explain, he added that Knight seemed constantly to be playing some game of his own invention, without telling his partners its rules. He said he preferred books that made one think, and Knight's books didn't – they left you puzzled and cross."
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Nov 24, 2011 Ensiform rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

The first of Nabokov’s works to be written in English, it’s a very strange work. Since it’s Nabokov, it’s self-referential --- the narrator is describing a book which he has written, which of course is meant to be the book being read. The book is the unnamed author’s search for the “real” Sebastian Knight, who is his late half-brother and an author himself. During the course of the search, the narrator does do some detective work, but mostly gives us a series of his reminisces, some anecdotal, s...more

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Dec 03, 2012 Scott Zaramba rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is minor Nabokov, but minor Nabokov is still worth a read.

Our narrator is writing a biography of his late half-brother Sebastian Knight, a Russian who studied at Cambridge and wrote his novels in English. Sebastian's secretary, a Mr. Goodman, wrote a hack biography of his employer shortly after he died, and the narrator intends to correct Goodman's mistakes. First, Goodman has not mentioned Sebastian's second lover, a Russian, whom the narrator will track down later in his book; second, he...more This is minor Nabokov, but minor Nabokov is still worth a read.

Our narrator is writing a biography of his late half-brother Sebastian Knight, a Russian who studied at Cambridge and wrote his novels in English. Sebastian's secretary, a Mr. Goodman, wrote a hack biography of his employer shortly after he died, and the narrator intends to correct Goodman's mistakes. First, Goodman has not mentioned Sebastian's second lover, a Russian, whom the narrator will track down later in his book; second, he has omitted any mention of the narrator, who may or may not exist. "To readers of Goodman's book I am bound to appear non-existent - a bogus relative, a garrulous impostor; but Sebastian himself in his most autobiographical work (Lost Property) has some kind words to say about my mother - and I think she deserved them well."

Unfortunately for the narrator's authority, he and his half-brother never talked much, so the narrator has to stretch his sibling's writings to suit his own purposes.

Even worse, his search of Sebastian's room leads him to discover a classified ad in one of his desk drawers: "Author writing fictitious biography requires photos of gentleman, efficient appearance, plain, steady, teetotaler, bachelors preferred. Will pay for photos childhood, youth, manhood to appear in said book."

James-style, Nabokov never answers the question of his narrator's existence. None of the characters, after all, exist. The ambiguity never bothered me. I was too distracted by the vivid images: "The groan of a motor-lorry in the act of avoiding a furniture-van sent the birds wheeling across the sky. They settled among the pearl-gray and black frieze of the Arc de Triomphe and when some of them fluttered off again it seemed as if bits of the carved entablature were turned into flaky life."

But vivid sensory detail is constant in Nabokov's books, and this one simply has less of it. The themes that arise here rise still higher in other books: Charles Kinbote of Pale Fire is a better possibly nonexistent biographer than the narrator of The Real Life, having more of a personality; Fyodor of The Gift is a better literary theorist than Sebastian Knight, and we actually get to read his work; the weird transcendentalism of Transparent Things develops a theme that appears late in this novel.

All that said, it's a good book, and you shouldn't avoid it just because its author wrote better.(less)

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May 31, 2012 Jason Bates rated it 5 of 5 stars

"The answer to all questions of life and death, 'the absolute solution' was written all over the world he had known: it was like a traveller realising that the wild country he surveys is not an accidental assembly of natural phenomena, but the page in a book where these mountains and forests, and fields, and rivers are disposed in such a way as to form a coherent sentence; the vowel of a lake fusing with the consonant of a sibilant slope; the windings of a road writing its message in a round han...more

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Jul 31, 2007 Michael Venzke rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: essentials

book about a man who tries to discover the inner thoughts/beliefs of his half brother after his young death.

compelling for issues of public perception / how much people around you really know you, also for struggling writers or people who experienced similar loss.

has scenes that closely compete with salinger's franny and zooey as the best written description of real life I can remember reading.

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Jan 20, 2012 Andrew rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: meta-meta

This book is all made worth it by a single series of paragraphs. Sebastian Knight, a famed multilingual author, has passed away and his half-brother seeks to write a definitive biography of the enigmatic character. The book is written from the first person, the half-brother seeking out "the truth" about Sebastian, following many different leads regarding turning points in his life, coming across a handful of memorable characters.

In many ways, Sebastian is similar to Nabokov himself, particularly...more

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Sep 17, 2010 Pardis Parto rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

کلیت داستان را ماجراهای "و"، که به دنبال واقعیاتی از زندگی سباستین است، و " واقعیت سباستین نایت نویسنده " شکل می‏دهد. "و" به دنبال شناخت سباستین، سراغ معشوقه‏هایش می‏رود، داستان‏هایش را بازگو می‏کند، نقدهای آثارش را مطرح می‏کند و به حفره‏هایی که در آن‏ها اثری از سباستین دیده می‏شود، سرک می‏کشد. "و"، مانند راوی غالب داستان‏های ناباکوف، خود یک نویسنده است. او به دنبال سباستین می‏گردد، حال که گویی به دنبال خود است. او با زیرکی تمام، قسمت‏هایی از داستان‏ش را با آثار سباستین ترکیب و هر از گاهی یک تلن...more

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Aug 05, 2009 Adelina rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Брилянтният Набоков!

Със сигурност ще разгръщам тази книга отново и отново, тя не може да бъде прочетена от първия път и само веднъж...

(В романа има един образ - на Клеър Бишоп, чийто прототип си мислех, че е съпругата на Набоков Вера. Бях чела, че тя е неотлъчно до него през целия му живот, преписва на машина текстовете му, води кореспонденцията му, помага с преводите и макар, че Набоков я нарича своя муза, никога не я бил описвал в произведенията си. Изглежда не е съвсем така.)

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May 23, 2013 Tyler Jones rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I didn't expect to enjoy this as much as I did. Nabokov was the most literary of writers at a time when literature usually differentiated itself from mere fiction by excluding anything that might possibly be enjoyable from the text. I expected the book to be like one of the female characters within it; hinting and promising great delights but never delivering. I expected to be teased. I expected an entertainment-free mental boot-camp where conventions are to be mocked or ignored, and I got somet...more

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Dec 26, 2010 Ben Crandell rated it 5 of 5 stars

If I had to blurt out what my favorite book was, it would be this. What I love about this book, and most of Vladimir Nabokov's books, is the art with which it is written. This book keys in on an aspect of life which is so elusive, and beautiful, and ephemeral... That is what most of his books do, really. Somehow, V.N. tells the story of someone's life through dazzling plays of light and dream-like prose. Also, there is rich humor, and wonderful puns. And to keep it from being too fluffy, Nabokov...more

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Feb 25, 2013 Dita D'inchiostro rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

"La vera vita di Sebastian Knight" viene scritto tra il 1938 e il 1939, in condizioni assai provvisorie. Si tratta del primo libro di Nabokov scritto in inglese, la prima opera dopo quell' "addio" meraviglioso e malinconico costituito da "Il dono". Quest'ultimo era stato l'ultimo romanzo russo, un arrivederci fatto di mille sale e corridoi, intrecciati tra loro (romanzo di un esule, di un nobile, di un amante delle lettere del proprio Paese, romanzo fatto di romanzi ed eventi, legati tra loro in...more

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Feb 08, 2013 Gaurav Sethi rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I’m still trying to make some sense of this novel. As my sister has written, it warrants another reading. There is so much to process.

And this is because the novel occupies a very slippery place: fictional biography/mystery. It is one or the other or both. And Nabokov is definitely having fun with the various conventions and forms that these two genre frequently utilize.

A brother loses another brother. Both brothers are writers. Both brothers in some sense are strangers. The one searches for m...more I’m still trying to make some sense of this novel. As my sister has written, it warrants another reading. There is so much to process.

And this is because the novel occupies a very slippery place: fictional biography/mystery. It is one or the other or both. And Nabokov is definitely having fun with the various conventions and forms that these two genre frequently utilize.

A brother loses another brother. Both brothers are writers. Both brothers in some sense are strangers. The one searches for meaning in the other’s work. We search for meaning from the other. You are thinking that this is rather confusing without my mentioning names, but I’ve arrived at a conclusion: these names are meaningless. Most of the characters in this novel are cut-outs, they’re only loosely imagined. The one brother can be interchanged with the other, and Nabokov often plays with his layering/mirroring.

It is a novel about the written word and the power of story, specifically the way a story is shaped by it’s creator. We watch as V. (which stands for Victor by the way—thank you very much wikipedia) shapes the chronicle of Sebastian Knight’s life. Or is Sebastian Knight the real brother?

The reader must decide which reality to believe, which brother is the subject of this story. It seems very confusing and yet Nabokov provides this meta-narrative parody in the most simple and straight-forward ways.

It is as simple as a brother seeking out the various characters of the other brother’s life in an attempt to create some kind of truth. That we the reader know this is an impossibility, only makes this search that much more humorous.

Nabokov frequently laughs at his readers but I’ve never felt that more strongly than here in this novel. It was as if he was looking over my shoulder and poking me in the ribs. “Huh…uh….huh…you see that. Did you see that?!”

As in many of Nabokov’s novels, not much really occurs. Tea, train-rides, conversations in a garden, and yet so much is happening behind the scenes, in between these small moments.

On most book-covers for The Real Life of Sebastian Knight there is a chess-piece. The novel can and should be viewed as a kind of chess game. We see all the pieces, we see them from multiple angles, and no one is safe.

My sister might have some words with me but I dare say that this novel is almost (and it’s just a fleeting thought dear sister) my favourite of Nabokov’s novels.

I am not sure if I’m selling this novel properly to you, my casual blog/tumblr reader. The only way to really experience a Vladimir Nabokov novel is to pick one up and dive in. There are some things you will catch and then there are those that you will completely miss. The joy is in knowing that there is always more to discover. (less)

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Jan 02, 2013 Rohan rated it 4 of 5 stars

If this is Nabokov just stretching his fingers with his newly-adopted language, none of the strain shows and he is as deft as ever in his slightly cheeky attempt at portraiture. Painstakingly examining and re-examining the characteristically patchy impressions a normal life leaves behind, Nabokov's narrator tries, hilariously at times, frustratingly at others, to reconstruct the life of his almost-famous brother. In the end the novel does not quite work as an attempted subversion of the biograph...more

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Feb 24, 2010 Michael rated it 5 of 5 stars

I am always impressed by Nabokov. How he wasn't awarded the Nobel is shocking, but who cares about awards anyway when you have Lolita and Pale Fire on your resume. The novel is beautiful. He seems to build structures with his prose (kind alike Borges in a more entertaining way). He isn't so much writing a novel as drawing you a map. Though the book never really convinces you emotionally that doesn't seem the point. His first novel in English is self-reflexive and self-councious (meant as a compl...more

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May 14, 2013 Perry Whitford rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The half-brother of a recently deceased Russian emigre writer sets out to write his biography. A straight forward premise, but this is the master of the slight of hand and in typically delicious Nabokovian fashion nothing is as it seems. Even the veracity of the narrator himself is in doubt as a pre-existing biography, written by Sebastian Knight's secretary Mr. Goodman, makes no mention of a step-brother.
In addition, whilst looking through some of the papers that the deceased has left to his h...more

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Dec 04, 2010 Tommy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The construction is unique and interesting while the writing is amazing. I don't always enjoy Nabokov but one can never argue that he wrote beautifully. I personally enjoyed this more than Lolita and think it is a better book but both have some wonderful writing/sentences for people who enjoy good writing.

Also the version above has one of the worst introductions I've read in a while. More like a bad/boring discussion you'd get in a grad school lit course than an introduction with helpful insight...more

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Jul 11, 2010 Kaloyana rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Безкрайно много ми хареса книгата. Чудодейният Набоков! Толкова красиво пише, че все едно си в стая с изящни предмети, които дори и да не ти трябват в момента, е прекрасно да разгледаш. Просто заради чудото на красотата и заради неповторимата наслада, която изяществото носи. "Красота" и "изящество" са думите, с които определям писането на Набоков. Да, на моменти имаше леко отегчение от самия сюжет, но изказът, стилът, прозренията чрез метафорите, всичко това направо омагьосва. Тази книга може да...more

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Apr 24, 2010 Steve rated it 3 of 5 stars

This novel entails the fictionalised account of the narrator’s attempts to pen a biography of his elder half-brother, a novelist whose untimely death, in the subjective opinion of the narrator, may have deprived the world of the works of a literary genius. Nabokov wryly has his narrator include passages of this subject’s works which totally undermine the credibility of his claims of his brother’s literary merits. Moreover, it soon becomes apparent that our narrator can only offer a rather incomp...more

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Oct 20, 2010 Adam Floridia rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: nabokov

I knew I could count on Nabokov to saturate the literary drought befalling me of late. The beauty of his prose at times induces synaesthesia that assails the senses: the simple black ink typescript ascends from the page and makes the skin tingle lightly as if a gentle current is being applied; images coalesce, first slowly, then distinctly, to form a vibrant picture replete with sound, taste, smell, and, above all, feeling. “One thought-image, then another breaks upon the shore of consciousness,...more I knew I could count on Nabokov to saturate the literary drought befalling me of late. The beauty of his prose at times induces synaesthesia that assails the senses: the simple black ink typescript ascends from the page and makes the skin tingle lightly as if a gentle current is being applied; images coalesce, first slowly, then distinctly, to form a vibrant picture replete with sound, taste, smell, and, above all, feeling. “One thought-image, then another breaks upon the shore of consciousness, and we follow the thing or the being that has been evoked: stray remnants of a wrecked life; sluggish fancies which crawl and then unfurl eyed wings” (173). Some of these images fade as quickly as they appear, but others are so memorable that “the picture now stood motionless before my eyes…as a charmed thing doomed to its paralysed eternity” (23); for example “the story of a tortured child; an exile’s account of the life in a cruel country whence he fled; a meek lunatic with a black eye; a farmer kicking his dog—lustily, wickedly” (175). I will always be able to recall “Mr. Goodman’s large soft pinkish face [which] was, and is, remarkably like a cow’s udder” (58).

Even though this is Nabokov’s first book in his second language, there is one thing, at least, which he does not seem to share with his character(s):

“His struggle with words was unusually painful and this for two reasons. One was the common one with writers of his type: the bridging of the abyss lying between expression and thought; the maddening feeling that the right words, the only words are awaiting you on the opposite bank in the misty distance, and the shudderings of the still unclothed thought clamouring for them on this side of the abyss. He had no use for ready-made phrases because the things he wanted to say were of an exceptional build and he knew moreover that no real idea can be said to exist without the words made to measure. So that (to use a closer simile) the thought which only seemed naked was but pleading for the clothes it wore to become visible, while the words lurking afar were not empty shells as they seemed, but were only waiting for the thought they already concealed to set them aflame and in motion. At times he felt like a child given a farrago of wires and ordered to produce the wonder of light.” (82)

The plot is a simple fictitious biography of a fictitious author that is overwhelmingly complex. Easy to follow yet demanding to untangle and, like all of Nabokov’s puzzles, demanding to be untangled. Perhaps the key to discovering the secret at the heart of the tale is this: “Remember that what you are told is really threefold: shaped by the teller, reshaped by the listener, concealed from both by the dead man of the tale” (50). Finally, like his other works, this novel is obsessed with the confines of human consciousness, the limitations of memory, and the question, “Why was the past so rebellious?” (123).
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Sep 12, 2009 Петко Циков rated it 5 of 5 stars

Можеш ли да разбереш един човек, като късче по късче разбираш какво той не е? Сякаш нареждаш пъзел около неясен силует, с надеждата, че като придобиеш представа за неговата сянка, ще придобиеш представа за самия него.
На този въпрос се опитва да отговори Набоков в забележителния си роман. Разказвачът: В. (1) се опитва да напише биография на доведения си брат - човек емигрирал в Англия и в последствие станал известен писател. Приликите между Набоков, разказвачът и писателя от книгата са много и...more Можеш ли да разбереш един човек, като късче по късче разбираш какво той не е? Сякаш нареждаш пъзел около неясен силует, с надеждата, че като придобиеш представа за неговата сянка, ще придобиеш представа за самия него.
На този въпрос се опитва да отговори Набоков в забележителния си роман. Разказвачът: В. (1) се опитва да напише биография на доведения си брат - човек емигрирал в Англия и в последствие станал известен писател. Приликите между Набоков, разказвачът и писателя от книгата са много и направо объркващи. Мислите на не по-малко загадъчния разказвач В., са написани със същата стилистична красота, като всички други романи на автора Владимир, въпреки че първия не претендира да бъде новелист. В това виждаме желанието на втория да не губи от естетиката на езика за каузата ,,достоверност".
Междувпрочем Набоков води много литературно-идеологически битки в този свой роман. С блестящата си проза разсича грешните (за него) практики, унижава ги, и дори споменава за това в самата книга. (И така за пореден път създава у читателя усещането, че чете книга в книгата в книгата... Като матрьошки, непрекъснато изненадващи ви, че има по-малка в последната) Авторът, разказвачът и писателят - Себастиан са като армия, едновременно много и едновременно един човек, но винаги с еднаква литературна мисия.
След като прочетох романа (а последните страници четох без да мигам и дишам) и обърнах книгата да разгледам корицата, се зачудих дали Набоков може да ме изненада с още един подобен шадьовър. ,,Ще почетем и ще видим". След ,,Лолита" не можех да повярвам, че ще открия дори по-добра книга. Да! ,,Истинският живот" е по-добра...
Това е първия роман на Набоков, който пише на английски език. Превода на български е от Иглика Василева.
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1 Почти всички книги на този автор са изключително автобиографични... За самият Набоков, ,,въображението е форма на паметта" (2)
2 Набоков в интервю публикувано в ,,Литературни въпроси" 1988 кн. 10 стр. 174(less)

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About Vladimir Nabokov

Russian: Владимир Владимирович Набоков

Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Russian, then rose to international prominence as a master English prose stylist. He also made significant contributions to lepidoptery and had an interest in chess problems.

Nabokov's Lolita (1955) is frequently cited as his most important novel, and is at any rate his most widely known one, exhibiting the love of intrica...more

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“Suddenly for no earthly reason I felt immensely sorry for him and longed to say something real, something with wings and a heart, but the birds I wanted settled on my shoulders and head only later when I was alone and not in need of words.” — 47 people liked it

“There is only one real number: one. And love, apparently, is the best exponent of this singularity.” — 17 people liked it

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