Blogmark, Blogbuoy: Sergei Nabokov & Sebastian Knight

Although my hands are Foe I wanted to blogmark/blogbuoy this for when I reread The Real Life of Sebastian Knight.

I know only a little bit about Nabokov's brother Sergei (gay, died in a concentration camp), but I didn't really know to look for him while reading the novel. The question is: How much of Sergei is in Sebastian?

Nabokov hardly mentions his brother elsewhere. In Nabokov's Selected Letters Sergei occupies a half-line and a footnote (letter is written to Nabokov's sister Elena in 1945): "What a joy that you are well, alive, in good spirits. Poor, poor, Seryozha . . . !" I believe (but I won't comb my closet for it) he's also briefly mentioned in the Nabokov-Wilson letters. And of course he's "in every corner" of Speak, Memory.

( See also "The gay Nabokov": http://dir.salon.com/story/books/feature/2000/05/17/nabokov/index.html?pn=1 )

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