''Vladimir Nabokov's Comic Quest for Reality' - Nottingham eTheses

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means by this:
by 'finding
...
and following the undulations'
of Sebastian's soul, V. strengthens
that part of him that is like Sebastian,
the 'psychological affinities' they show
as brothers. This process continues until
the Sebastian in V. becomes dominant.
Charles Nicol sees this experience of V's as brought
about through his total immersion in Sebastian's books,
particularly The Doubtful Asphodel, the central situ-
ation of which, Nicol says, V relives in his own life.
"It is... through his attention to Knight's novels...
that V. becomes Sebastian Knight. "50 Nicol quotes for
his interpretation an essay by Jorge Luis Borges: "A
New Refutation of Time", in which Borges develops the
theory of two "identical moments in the minds of two
individuals who do not know each other but in whom the
same process works. " Borges continues:
Is not one single repeated term sufficient
to break down and confuse the series of
time? Do not the fervent readers who sur-'
render themselves to Shakespeare become,
literally, Shakespeare? 51
Yet another explanation suggests itself. It seems
somewhat risky to affirm as confidently as John Updike
does that "Nabokov is a mystic"52, even though some of
his statements, among them the one that Updike quotes
in support, point to this conclusion: Nabokov once
replied to the question whether he believed in God:
I know more than I can express in words,
and the little I can express would not,
have been expressed had I not known more.
53
It can however be said that it is legitimate and natu-
ral to suppose that Nabokov, approaching reality in so
many different ways, should also have thought of mys-