Frances Assa: "When
Tolstoy did happen to find it in himself, in the splendor of his creative
imagination, then, almost unconsciously, he was on the right
path. "
Not
surprisingly, Nabokov says we may find truth internally, guided by
imagination. Although, it seems Nabokov, unlike Tolstoy, was not looking
for it.
Jansy Mello: Judging from
his various careful commentaries, I suspect that Nabokov was in
fact looking for "istina," but never as a prophet. It was a
private quest, at times indirectly assumed by wordings such as the
lines in RLSK ( if we give credit to SK's half-brother's
fictive testimony*) : "As often was
the way with Sebastian Knight he used parody as a kind of springboard for
leaping into the highest region of serious emotion. J. L. Coleman has called it
'al clown developing wings, an angel mimicking a tumbler pigeon', and the
metaphor seems to me very apt. Based cunningly on a parody of certain tricks of
the literary trade, The Prismatic Bezel soars skyward."
............................................................................
* In his preface to
Maschenka, Nabokov confesses that he never fails being
fascinated by the fact that, in spite of some superimposed inventions,
a fictional account contains a more concentrated resolution
of personal reality than the scrupulously faithful description attained by
the autobiographer.
.