I am currently reading with enjoyment Paul Russell's
fictionalized autobiography The Unreal Life of Sergey Nabokov.
Russell copes interestingly with the challenge of creating an
engrossing fictional bildungsroman while remaining faithful to very
scant documentary materials, including letters by Sergey. After
breaking with his emigre family and settling in Paris, Sergey has
frequent encounters with Diaghilev and the many creative artists in his
circle; indeed, Diaghilev makes cameo appearances in nearly every
chapter. The composer Nicolas Nabokov gets a few mentions as well.
There have been several contributions to the list recently
concerning the name Sirin. In The Unreal Life... Sergey N.
offers this clarification to an acquaintance who asks him if he's read
V. Sirin's King, Queen, Knave: "He's my brother. Sirin's a
pseudonym, obviously."
"Someone told me it meant 'firebird.''
"No," I said, feeling a spasm of dread. "More like 'siren,'
though the Russian siren has wings and lives in the forest rather than
on the rocks of the seacoast..."
Russell's book is definitely worth a look by Nabokov scholars.
Barry Warren