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Authors: Vladimir Nabokov
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steadily typing in one of the rooms ran after me and stopped me (queer — that Sebastian's Cambridge friend had also called me back).
'My name,' she said, 'is Helen Pratt. I have overheard as much of your conversation as I could stand and there is a little thing I want to ask you. Clare Bishop is a great friend of mine. There's something she wants to find out. Could I talk to you one of these days?'
I said yes, most certainly, and we fixed the time.
'I knew Mr Knight quite well,' she added, looking at me with bright round eyes.
'Oh, really,' said I, not quite knowing what else to say.
'Yes,' she went on, 'he was an amazing personality, and I don't mind telling you that I loathed Goodman's book about him.'
'What do you mean?' I asked. 'What book?'
'Oh, the one he has just written. I was going over the proofs with him this last week. Well, I must be running. Thank you so much.'
She darted away and very slowly I descended the steps. Mr Goodman's large soft pinkish face was, and is, remarkably like a cow's udder.
7
Mr Goodman's book The Tragedy of Sebastian Knight has enjoyed a very good Press. It has been lengthily reviewed in the leading dailies and weeklies. It has been called 'impressive and convincing'. The author has been credited with 'deep insight' into an 'essentially modem' character. Passages have been quoted to demonstrate his efficient handling of nutshells. One critic even went as far as to take his hat off to Mr Goodman — who, let it be added, had used his own merely to talk through it. In a word, Mr Goodman has been patted on the back when he ought to have been rapped on the knuckles.
I, for one, would have ignored that book altogether had it been just another bad book, doomed with the rest of its kind to oblivion by next spring. The Lethean Library, for all its incalculable volumes, is, I know, sadly incomplete without Mr Goodman's effort. But bad as the book may be, it is something else besides. Owing to the quality of its subject, it is bound to become quite mechanically the satellite of another man's enduring fame. As long as Sebastian Knight's name is remembered, there always will be some learned inquirer conscientiously climbing up a ladder to where The Tragedy of Sebastian Knight keeps half awake between Godfrey Goodman's Fall of Man and Samuel Goodrich's Recollections of a Lifetime. Thus, if I continue to harp on the subject, I do so for Sebastian Knight's sake.
Mr Goodman's method is as simple as his philosophy. His sole object is to show 'poor Knight' as the product and victim of what he calls 'our time' — though why some people are so keen to make others share in their chronometric concepts, has always been a mystery to me. 'Post-war Unrest'. 'Post-war Generation' are to Mr Goodman magic words opening every door. There is, however, a certain kind of 'open sesame' which seems less a charm than a skeleton-key, and this, I am afraid, is Mr Goodman's kind. But he is quite wrong in thinking that he found something once the lock had been forced. Not that I wish to suggest that Mr Goodman thinks. He could not if he tried. His book concerns itself only with such ideas as have been shown (commercially) to attract mediocre minds.
For Mr Goodman, young Sebastian Knight 'freshly emerged from the carved chrysalid of Cambridge' is a youth of acute sensibility in a cruel cold world. In this world, 'outside realities intrude so roughly upon one's most intimate dreams' that a young man's soul is forced into a state of siege before it is finally shattered. 'The War', says Mr Goodman without so much as a blush, 'had changed the face of the universe.' And with much gusto he goes on to describe those special aspects of post-war life which met a young man at 'the troubled dawn of his career': a feeling of some great deception; weariness of the soul and feverish physical excitement (such as the 'vapid lewdness of the foxtrot'); a sense of futility — and its result: gross liberty. Cruelty, too; the reek of
'My name,' she said, 'is Helen Pratt. I have overheard as much of your conversation as I could stand and there is a little thing I want to ask you. Clare Bishop is a great friend of mine. There's something she wants to find out. Could I talk to you one of these days?'
I said yes, most certainly, and we fixed the time.
'I knew Mr Knight quite well,' she added, looking at me with bright round eyes.
'Oh, really,' said I, not quite knowing what else to say.
'Yes,' she went on, 'he was an amazing personality, and I don't mind telling you that I loathed Goodman's book about him.'
'What do you mean?' I asked. 'What book?'
'Oh, the one he has just written. I was going over the proofs with him this last week. Well, I must be running. Thank you so much.'
She darted away and very slowly I descended the steps. Mr Goodman's large soft pinkish face was, and is, remarkably like a cow's udder.
7
Mr Goodman's book The Tragedy of Sebastian Knight has enjoyed a very good Press. It has been lengthily reviewed in the leading dailies and weeklies. It has been called 'impressive and convincing'. The author has been credited with 'deep insight' into an 'essentially modem' character. Passages have been quoted to demonstrate his efficient handling of nutshells. One critic even went as far as to take his hat off to Mr Goodman — who, let it be added, had used his own merely to talk through it. In a word, Mr Goodman has been patted on the back when he ought to have been rapped on the knuckles.
I, for one, would have ignored that book altogether had it been just another bad book, doomed with the rest of its kind to oblivion by next spring. The Lethean Library, for all its incalculable volumes, is, I know, sadly incomplete without Mr Goodman's effort. But bad as the book may be, it is something else besides. Owing to the quality of its subject, it is bound to become quite mechanically the satellite of another man's enduring fame. As long as Sebastian Knight's name is remembered, there always will be some learned inquirer conscientiously climbing up a ladder to where The Tragedy of Sebastian Knight keeps half awake between Godfrey Goodman's Fall of Man and Samuel Goodrich's Recollections of a Lifetime. Thus, if I continue to harp on the subject, I do so for Sebastian Knight's sake.
Mr Goodman's method is as simple as his philosophy. His sole object is to show 'poor Knight' as the product and victim of what he calls 'our time' — though why some people are so keen to make others share in their chronometric concepts, has always been a mystery to me. 'Post-war Unrest'. 'Post-war Generation' are to Mr Goodman magic words opening every door. There is, however, a certain kind of 'open sesame' which seems less a charm than a skeleton-key, and this, I am afraid, is Mr Goodman's kind. But he is quite wrong in thinking that he found something once the lock had been forced. Not that I wish to suggest that Mr Goodman thinks. He could not if he tried. His book concerns itself only with such ideas as have been shown (commercially) to attract mediocre minds.
For Mr Goodman, young Sebastian Knight 'freshly emerged from the carved chrysalid of Cambridge' is a youth of acute sensibility in a cruel cold world. In this world, 'outside realities intrude so roughly upon one's most intimate dreams' that a young man's soul is forced into a state of siege before it is finally shattered. 'The War', says Mr Goodman without so much as a blush, 'had changed the face of the universe.' And with much gusto he goes on to describe those special aspects of post-war life which met a young man at 'the troubled dawn of his career': a feeling of some great deception; weariness of the soul and feverish physical excitement (such as the 'vapid lewdness of the foxtrot'); a sense of futility — and its result: gross liberty. Cruelty, too; the reek of
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