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New reading of The Real Life of Sebastian Knight
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As a follow-up to the posting on 31 July of John DeMoss's article on The
Real Life of Sebastian Knight I should like to draw the attention of
list members to my recently-completed PhD thesis, "Vladimir Nabokov,
1938: The Artistic Response to Tyranny." My thesis contains a
comprehensive new reading of The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, arguing
the existence of a covert subtext based on themes of totalitarian
tyranny, espionage, and revenge. My contention is that The Real Life of
Sebastian Knight is triadic or spiral in structure, presenting an
innocuous overt or thetical level which gives way to a covert or
antithetical level of horrors, before drawing the reader towards an
"absolute solution" or synthesis of artistic delight, as in Nabokov's
chess problem in Speak, Memory.
The thesis is held at the University of Otago library, Dunedin, New
Zealand.
Andrew Caulton
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Real Life of Sebastian Knight I should like to draw the attention of
list members to my recently-completed PhD thesis, "Vladimir Nabokov,
1938: The Artistic Response to Tyranny." My thesis contains a
comprehensive new reading of The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, arguing
the existence of a covert subtext based on themes of totalitarian
tyranny, espionage, and revenge. My contention is that The Real Life of
Sebastian Knight is triadic or spiral in structure, presenting an
innocuous overt or thetical level which gives way to a covert or
antithetical level of horrors, before drawing the reader towards an
"absolute solution" or synthesis of artistic delight, as in Nabokov's
chess problem in Speak, Memory.
The thesis is held at the University of Otago library, Dunedin, New
Zealand.
Andrew Caulton
#####################################################################################
This e-mail message has been scanned for Viruses and Content and cleared
by NetIQ MailMarshal
#####################################################################################
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu,chtodel@cox.net
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm