There is one interesting detail that adds strength to your
position.
If we check the "Index" in PF we will find the names "Shade, John
Francis, poet and scholar" and "Kinbote, Charles,Dr." (
i.e Mr. Shade and Dr. Kinbote ).
But, at the same time, re-reading VN's "Lectures on Literature", I found
VN's quotes on Stevenson's "A Gossip on Romance", where value was
set on "[ the highest]" ... "the plastic part of
literature: to embody character, thought, or emotion in some act or attitude
that shall be remarkably striking to the mind's eye".
I interpreted his
lecture as emphasizing verbal rendering, alliterations, hidden sounds as the
main elements that provide the transformation of events instead
of stressing, particularly, their materialization, as in the
crude image of Hyde/Jekyll.
By the way:
1. in my copy of the (Fredson Bowers) Lectures I found
the reproduction of VN's own "pocket book" edition whose hideous
cover he hid underneath something that looks like a sheet of paper,
with tape fixing the corners of an illustration that
carries the words " Ex libbris V.Nabokov" below.
At first glance
we see a guy riding a bicycle in the image glued on the
recovered cover and yet, his bicycle is very peculiar with no pedals and a
strange handle-bar with a seat for the elbow. Has anyone explained this "Ex
libris"?
2. What did VN mean when, in an interview, he described himself as "a
monist"?
Jansy