The Absolute Solution

In 1938 tyranny attained unprecedented power: the Nazis annexed Austria and the Sudetenland, the Soviet purge reached its peak and the persecution of the Jews escalated into the horror of Kristallnacht. Nabokov frequently engaged with the subject of totalitarianism, but in 1938, on the eve of the Second World War, he responded to the political situation with an intensity unmatched at any other time in his career, writing three stories, a play and a novel, each warning of the danger of leaving tyranny unopposed. Offering fresh insights into all of Nabokov's works of 1938, this book focuses on a major new reading of The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, revealing that Nabokov's seemingly non-political novel contains a hidden subtext of espionage and totalitarian tyranny. Drawing on the popular British authors he admired as a boy, Nabokov weaves a covert narrative reminiscent of a Sherlock Holmes story, in which Sebastian Knight, a latter-day Scarlet Pimpernel, uncovers a world of Wellsian scientific misadventure that foreshadows the Holocaust. The Real Life of Sebastian Knight emerges as an antitotalitarian masterpiece, in which the «absolute solution» is both a dire prediction of the future and Nabokov's artistic answer to the problem of the time.

Autorentext

Andrew Caulton holds a doctorate in English from the University of Otago, New Zealand.

Inhalt

Contents: January, and Chapter 5 of The Gift - January to March, and the Genesis of The Real Life of Sebastian Knight - April to May, and «Tyrants Destroyed» - May to September, and The Waltz Invention - October, and «The Visit to the Museum» - November, and «Lik» - December, and the Writing of The Real Life of Sebastian Knight - Re-reading The Real Life of Sebastian Knight: The Covert Level Uncovered - Decrypting The Real Life of Sebastian Knight: Notes and Commentary.