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In an interview conducted (in English) for a German radio station in
2009, Adair himself called /And Then There Was No One /"a kind of
twisted homage to Nabokov" (
http://www.swr.de/swr2/programm/sendungen/swr2-forum-buch/-/id=4536774/property=download/nid=660234/1kidgr/swr2-forum-buch-20090405.pdf).
In addition to the allusions mentioned in the review cited by Jansy,
the
novel contains several other references to Nabokov. In some respects it
even reminded me of /The Original of Laura/ - although, of course,
Adair's book appeared almost a year before Nabokov's.
Unfortunately I cannot give any examples of references to Nabokov right
now because I have lent the book to a friend. One thing I remember is
that it takes one of its epigraphs from /Look at the Harlequins!/: "As
I
peered, [two words deleted] and traversed by opaline rays, into
another, far
deeper mirror, I saw the whole vista of my Russian books and was
satisfied and even thrilled by what I saw: /Tamara/, my first novel
(1925): a girl at sunrise in the mist of an orchard. A grandmaster
betrayed in /Pawn Takes Queen/. /Plenilune/, a moonburst of verse.
/Camera Lucida/, the spy's mocking eye among the meek blind. /The Red
Top Hat/ of decapitation in a country of total injustice. And my best
in
the series: young poet writes prose on a /Dare/."
Best regards,
Ludger Tolksdorf