"Pale Fire": Diogenes the Cynic & an Anti-Soviet Jab
Nabokov was a Cynic (a good thing IMO)--in the sense that he shunned group affiliations and was never shy about questioning accepted beliefs. Though it's always dangerous to equate author and author's creation, certainly parts of Emma are Flaubert and parts of Shade and Kinbote are Nabokov. Connecting all the dots of course is impossible. Here's Kinbote on a good Zemblan Christian: In fact, a good Zemblan Christian is taught that true faith is not there to supply pictures or maps, but that it should quietly content itself with a warm haze of pleasurable anticipation. Here's Shade on the afterlife: SHADE: Life is a great surprise. I do not see why death should not be an even greater one. And here's Kinbote again (only a fraction of the whole foray), gently pushing against the idea of suicide as sin: The ideal drop is from an aircraft, your muscles relaxed, your pilot puzzled, your packed parachute shuffled off, cast off, shrugged off-- shootka (little chute)...