| Vladimir Nabokov once stated that the most interesting dynamic in a first-class work of fiction is the clash between the author and the reader. This study examines that encounter. My "Introduction" proposes a model based on Hegel's parable of the master-slave relationship. Nabokov's strategy is to outmaneuver his reader by means of covert plots, unapparent intertexts, and subtle rhetorical devices. Nabokov tests his reader's credulity and thus I read his texts defensively, look at them with a persevering eye. I demonstrate my approach with a wide look at "The Ballad of Longwood Glen." V., the protagonist of The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, is a credulous reader, the actual reader's "brother," as it were, and the reader who does not recognize and correct V.'s optical errors will duplicate them. Nabokov offers the reader a sirens' challenge in Lolita. This novel and its speaker are a lure, a seduction, and the reader must learn to navigate carefully through this insidiously attractive work, full of covert plots. Pale Fire glows with dubious radiance. The book makes a fool of the reader's eye, and I examine in detail its false depths, and stress also how pilfering (or, more politely, intertextuality) is central to Pale Fire. There are many things hidden in plain sight in Ada, and also a number of "supposed stories" with which Nabokov screens his secondary (main) ones. The principal "supposed story" we should reexamine is that of the nature of Van and Ada's relationship. I conclude with a close look at appearances in Nabokov's Transparent Things, a book with another bad surrogate reader, Hugh Person. I proceed on the conviction that guides me throughout this study: Nabokov's work holds much more than meets the eye, his art is carefully camouflaged, and the reader is often the artist's prey. The dialectical relationship between author and reader is fundamental to the Nabokov text. |
