Dear SKB et al.:
I didn't intend the [sic] as a tut-tag; rather, in its most innocent
inflection to indicate that I had not introduced a typo into that
particular spelling of WS's name--which is the same one, I believe,
that appears several times in Bend Sinister.
Nice point about the subtleties of the "single-author" question.
Agreed, Rank's use of the New Testament is surprising in this context.
As for Homer, there are also the hymns--but their attribution is
apparently even more doubtful than that of the epics.
Nabokov seems to have been particularly fond of the "deliberately
ambiguous fictive author" device: it occurs, with varying degrees of
seriousness, in Despair, The Gift, RLSK, Lolita, PF, Pnin,
Transparent Things, and LATH; if one takes into account
the spectral intrusions in Ada's narration, we could add that
as well. In some ways The Eye is the initial of this series,
but the ambiguity seems to resolve itself by the end of that short
novel. At any rate, I think that this proclivity is something that
deserves some reflection in its own right.
I have not been able to keep up with the last two days' worth of PF
material, but I'm looking forward to catching up.
Stephen Blackwell