Read Online The Real Life of Sebastian Knight by Vladimir Nabokov - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Vladimir Nabokov
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blood still in the air; glaring picture palaces; dim couples in dark Hyde Park; the glories of standardization; the cult of machinery; the degradation of Beauty, Love, Honour, Art... and so on. It is really a wonder that Mr Goodman himself who, as far as I know, was Sebastian's coeval, managed to live through those terrific years.
But what Mr Goodman could stand, his Sebastian Knight apparently could not. We are given a picture of Sebastian restlessly pacing the rooms of his London flat in .1923, after a short trip to the Continent, which Continent 'shocked him indescribably by the vulgar glamour of its gambling hells'. Yes, 'pacing up and down... clutching at his temples... in a passion of discontent... angry with the world... alone... eager to do something, but weak, weak....' The dots are not Mr Goodman's tremolos, but denote sentences I have kindly left out. 'No,' Mr Goodman goes on, 'this was not the world for an artist to live in. It was all very well to flaunt a brave countenance, to make a great display of that cynicism which so irritates one in Knight's earlier work and so pains one in his last two volumes... it was all very well to appear contemptuous and ultrasophisticated, but the thorn was there, the sharp, poisonous thorn.' I don't know why, but the presence of this (perfectly mythical) thorn seems to give Mr Goodman a grim satisfaction.
It would be unfair of me if I let it seem that this first chapter of The Tragedy of Sebastian Knight consists exclusively of a thick flow of philosophical treacle. Word-pictures and anecdotes which form the body of the book (that is, when Mr Goodman arrives at the stage of Sebastian's life when he met him personally) appear here too, as rock cakes dotting the syrup. Mr Goodman was no Boswell; still, no doubt, he kept a notebook where he jotted down certain remarks of his employer — and apparently some of these related to his employer's past. In other words, we must imagine that Sebastian in between work would say: Do you know, my dear Goodman, this reminds me of a day in my life, some years ago, when... Here would come the story. Half a dozen of these seem to Mr Goodman sufficient to fill out what is to him a blank — Sebastian's youth in England.
The first of these stories (which Mr Goodman considers to be extremely typical of 'post-war undergraduate life} depicts Sebastian showing a girl friend from London the sights of Cambridge. 'And this is the Dean's window,' he said; then smashing the pane with a stone, he added: 'And this is the Dean.' Needless to say that Sebastian has been pulling Mr Goodman's leg: the story is as old as the University itself.
Let us look at the second one. During a short vacation trip to Germany (1921? 1922?) Sebastian, one night, being annoyed by the caterwauls in the street, started to pelt the offenders with miscellaneous objects including an egg. Presently, a policeman knocked at his door, bringing back all these objects minus the egg.
This is from an old (or, as Mr Goodman would say, pre-war') Jerome K. Jerome book. Leg-pulling again.
Third story: Sebastian speaking of his very first novel (unpublished and destroyed) explained that it was about a fat young student who travels home to find his mother married to his uncle; this uncle, an ear-specialist, had murdered the student's father.
Mr Goodman misses the joke.
Fourth: Sebastian in the summer of 1922 had overworked himself and, suffering from hallucinations, used to see a kind of optical ghost — a black-robed monk moving swiftly towards him from the sky.
This is a little harder: a short story by Chekhov.
Fifth:
But I think we had better stop, or else Mr Goodman might be in danger of becoming a centipede. Let us have him remain quadrupedal. I am sorry for him, but it cannot be helped. And if only he had not padded and commented these 'curious incidents and fancies' so ponderously, with such a rich crop of deductions! Churlish, capricious, mad Sebastian, struggling in a naughty
But what Mr Goodman could stand, his Sebastian Knight apparently could not. We are given a picture of Sebastian restlessly pacing the rooms of his London flat in .1923, after a short trip to the Continent, which Continent 'shocked him indescribably by the vulgar glamour of its gambling hells'. Yes, 'pacing up and down... clutching at his temples... in a passion of discontent... angry with the world... alone... eager to do something, but weak, weak....' The dots are not Mr Goodman's tremolos, but denote sentences I have kindly left out. 'No,' Mr Goodman goes on, 'this was not the world for an artist to live in. It was all very well to flaunt a brave countenance, to make a great display of that cynicism which so irritates one in Knight's earlier work and so pains one in his last two volumes... it was all very well to appear contemptuous and ultrasophisticated, but the thorn was there, the sharp, poisonous thorn.' I don't know why, but the presence of this (perfectly mythical) thorn seems to give Mr Goodman a grim satisfaction.
It would be unfair of me if I let it seem that this first chapter of The Tragedy of Sebastian Knight consists exclusively of a thick flow of philosophical treacle. Word-pictures and anecdotes which form the body of the book (that is, when Mr Goodman arrives at the stage of Sebastian's life when he met him personally) appear here too, as rock cakes dotting the syrup. Mr Goodman was no Boswell; still, no doubt, he kept a notebook where he jotted down certain remarks of his employer — and apparently some of these related to his employer's past. In other words, we must imagine that Sebastian in between work would say: Do you know, my dear Goodman, this reminds me of a day in my life, some years ago, when... Here would come the story. Half a dozen of these seem to Mr Goodman sufficient to fill out what is to him a blank — Sebastian's youth in England.
The first of these stories (which Mr Goodman considers to be extremely typical of 'post-war undergraduate life} depicts Sebastian showing a girl friend from London the sights of Cambridge. 'And this is the Dean's window,' he said; then smashing the pane with a stone, he added: 'And this is the Dean.' Needless to say that Sebastian has been pulling Mr Goodman's leg: the story is as old as the University itself.
Let us look at the second one. During a short vacation trip to Germany (1921? 1922?) Sebastian, one night, being annoyed by the caterwauls in the street, started to pelt the offenders with miscellaneous objects including an egg. Presently, a policeman knocked at his door, bringing back all these objects minus the egg.
This is from an old (or, as Mr Goodman would say, pre-war') Jerome K. Jerome book. Leg-pulling again.
Third story: Sebastian speaking of his very first novel (unpublished and destroyed) explained that it was about a fat young student who travels home to find his mother married to his uncle; this uncle, an ear-specialist, had murdered the student's father.
Mr Goodman misses the joke.
Fourth: Sebastian in the summer of 1922 had overworked himself and, suffering from hallucinations, used to see a kind of optical ghost — a black-robed monk moving swiftly towards him from the sky.
This is a little harder: a short story by Chekhov.
Fifth:
But I think we had better stop, or else Mr Goodman might be in danger of becoming a centipede. Let us have him remain quadrupedal. I am sorry for him, but it cannot be helped. And if only he had not padded and commented these 'curious incidents and fancies' so ponderously, with such a rich crop of deductions! Churlish, capricious, mad Sebastian, struggling in a naughty
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