The Real Life of Sebastian Knight: Analysis of Major Characters
"The Real Life of Sebastian Knight" explores the complex lives of its main characters, particularly focusing on the enigmatic figure of Sebastian Knight, a Russian émigré writer whose literary talent is debated. The narrative unfolds through the perspective of his half-brother, V., who attempts to pen a biography of Sebastian following his premature death from congenital heart disease. V.’s journey is marked by his admitted lack of literary insight, leading to biased interpretations of Sebastian's life and works, which he struggles to connect with his brother’s personal experiences.
Sebastian’s relationships with influential women, notably Clare Bishop and the unidentified mystery woman at a sanatorium, shape his artistic expression and personal turmoil. Clare, initially his muse and lover, ultimately finds herself at odds with Sebastian’s disdain for the bohemian lifestyle she envisions. Meanwhile, Mr. Goodman, Sebastian’s secretary, presents a more critical but flawed account of Sebastian's character, further complicating V.’s understanding of his brother. The interplay of these characters reveals the nuances of influence and perception in art and biography, inviting readers to ponder the challenges of capturing a life through the lens of personal biases and fragmented relationships.
The Real Life of Sebastian Knight: Analysis of Major Characters
Author: Vladimir Nabokov
First published: 1941
Genre: Novel
Locale: Europe, primarily London and Paris
Plot: Biographical
Time: Early twentieth century
Sebastian Knight, a Russian émigré writer of dubious artistic talent and merit. His untimely death at the age of thirty-six from congenital heart disease prompts the investigation into his life by his half brother, V., that is the subject of the novel. Beginning with his college years at Cambridge, Sebastian takes great pains to affect English manners and tastes, although ample evidence exists that he never quite masters his adopted language. Occasional ham-handed quotations from his five published books of fiction, bearing such improbable titles as The Prismatic Bezel and The Doubtful Asphodel,at-test this (disputed) shortcoming. A difficult, aloof, even contemptuous man, Sebastian pens three early works under the “inspiration” of Clare Bishop, whom he meets during his student days. A second mystery woman encountered while at a sanatorium in Blauberg, Germany, may have exerted even more influence over his final writings, as well as his physical and psychological well-being. Sebastian's sometimes stilted and cumbrous prose ultimately belies his avowed pretensions to high art, and nagging suspicions persist as to just how autobiographically his fiction ought to be read.
V., Sebastian's younger half brother and arguably the novel's main character. His confessed lack of literary understanding hampers his attempt to write Sebastian's biography two months after the latter's demise. V. is at best a biased and unreliable interpreter of Sebastian's life and works. His various assessments often are debatable, if not laughably inaccurate, because they frequently are colored by his personal relationships with the writer and his circle of acquaintances. V.'s most common error is to assume a direct connection between life and art in Sebastian's oeuvre as he proceeds with his chronological research into the elusive life of this sibling, who barely took notice of his existence while alive. V.'s hasty character judgments and notable discomfort around the two most influential women in Sebastian's life render his literary biography even more suspect.
Mr. Goodman, Sebastian's invaluable secretary after his breakup with Clare, and the author of the critically acclaimed The Tragedy of Sebastian Knight, which scoops V.'s less reliable volume in the making. The disorganized and impractical Sebastian relies heavily on Goodman until the latter is discovered to have made an unauthorized deletion in one of his reissued works, after which Goodman is promptly dismissed. Although potentially as biased and unreliable a biographer as is V., Goodman generally paints a more accurate picture of the writer as distant and uncongenial. He suffers V.'s unwar-ranted ridicule for his apparently sound historical thesis depicting Sebastian as a modern idealist out of sync with his times. Goodman tries to dissuade V. from completing his planned rival biography; it becomes clear that his own work is rife with errors and omissions.
Clare Bishop, the attractive English art student who is for a time Sebastian's secretary, live-in lover, and muse. Clare remains with Sebastian until her literary ambitions for the author clash with his abhorrence of the bohemian circles and artsy soirees in which she foresees them mingling. An increasingly bored and surly Sebastian unceremoniously banishes her from the train platform when she tries to accompany him as a surprise on his trip to Blauberg. Clare later marries a man who refuses to allow V. to interview her about her relationship to Sebastian. She dies, possibly by her own hand, beside an empty cradle.
Mr. Silberman, a former toy salesman and detective of unknown origin, and a current hawker of leather goods. Silberman's chance encounter with V. on a train during the latter's return from unproductive inquiries in Blauberg concerning the mystery woman of Sebastian's last few months leads Silberman to promise that he will acquire the names of those women whose stay at the sanatorium coincided with Sebastian's. In exchange for the four possibilities he uncovers, Silberman asks only a minuscule fee and one copy of V.'s forthcoming biography.
Madame Lecerf, the unhappily married Parisian friend of Helene von Graun who invites V. to meet her constantly traveling former schoolmate at the Lecerf summer residence in Lescaux, France. V.'s suspicion that Helene is the most probable candidate to have been Sebastian's mystery woman in Blauberg leads him to conduct various interviews with Lecerf concerning what Helene has told her about the snobbish intellectual with whom she once carried on an affair. The fact that V. never meets Helene, that Lecerf volunteers to have Helene communicate to V. through her, and that Lecerf herself fits the personality description of the woman he believes ruined Sebastian leads V. to conclude, perhaps incorrectly, that Lecerf actually is Helene.