146
PARTISAN REVIEW
independent, insouciant, and radi call y ineducabl e. IL was reall y a
stroke of genius on Fi eld 's pan to in vent thi s imbec il e as a fo il for hi s
subj ect, though sometimes the cari ca ture is so broad as to res ist a ll
credibility.
" Invent," to be sure, is no t quite the ri ght wo rd , sin ce thi s devi ce,
like so much else, a lso deri ves from Na bo kov's own practice. One o f hi s
most cheri shed methods of structuring hi s books is exemplified in
Pale
Fire,
where the grea t poet John Shade is researched , badgered, and
spani el'd-a t-heels by the luna ti c next door, who is the "a utho r" of the
book.
In
The R eal L ife of Sebastian Knigh t
the epon ymo us h ero, a
gifted noveli st, is researched by V., hi s ha lf brother, who took a course
in autho rship as prepara ti on fo r hi s jo b. T he pa ttern is tha t of a central
fi gure of genius wh ose life and wo rks have somehow fa ll en into the
hands of a foreground fi gure who, if no t a lways insane, is a lways
limited in some impo rtant way . Even Nabokov's 1941 book on Gogol
foll ows thi s schema to a certain extent, as does hi s brilli ant commen–
taryon Push kin 's
Eugene Onegin .
Both a re fo rerunners of Field 's basic
technique in thi s bi ography.
Andrew Fi eld 's book will be the startin g po int fo r a ll future
students of Nabo kov's life, but it will ta ke a very sa intl y future student
indeed to withh old impreca ti ons aga in st its cont empt fo r scho larship.
T hi s is of course the wo rk o f the dreadful Andrew, who revea ls
everywhere a surl y resentment aga in st the academy. Hi s ultima te act of
defi ance aga inst hi s grea t fri end is
to
omit the documenta tion , the one
element th a t Nabo kov is sa id to have apprec iated in a bi ography. No
no tes, no bibli ograph y, no index-no thin g. Una ttributed quo tations
and transla ti ons from un specifi ed sources swim dreamil y in and out o f
the text. Andrew sca rcely knows how
to
cong ra tul a te himself enough
fo r hi s dili gence in ferreting out o bscure ma teri a l
" - So you have even
found those books!
my subj ect sa id to me with a soft g rim sigh " (56),
but the reliability of a ll thi s mu st res t upon hi s exceedingly dubi ous
say-so. Th ere is no documenta ti on wh ere it is wanted , but on a very
periphera l topi c-the ques ti on whether the level of tes tosterone in the
bl ood mi ght affect sexua l o ri enta ti on-Andrew, who is nothing if no t
up to date, sends us to the
New England Journal of Med icine
fo r
November, 1971. The articl e in ques ti on was widel y repo rted in the
popul ar press, but Andrew will have us suppose tha t he chanced upon
it in hi s regul ar scanning of th e
New England Journal of Medicin e.
The odor of the commoner kinds of academi c fraud is se ldom entirely
absent from hi s di scourse.
But fasc ina ting as Andrew is, it is na lUra ll y the o th er, the rea l
