“This comprehensive analysis offers a very close reading of the text that proves to be particularly revealing in terms of Nabokov’s method. … After giving essential background information on the genesis of the novel, … de Vries illuminates its extraordinary complexity. His insightful comments unveil the scope of the novel’s references and allusions.”— Irina Marchesini, University of Bologna, SEER, Vol. 96, No. 2“Gerard de Vries offers an elegant and persuasive plea for the act of annotation ... [The Real Life of Sebastian Knight] seems to call out for the kind of scholarship and detective work already richly devoted to Lolita and Ada. This is precisely what de Vries provides. After a long chapter of notes on specific textual moments, he presents three chapters of comment on motifs in the novel, centering on questions of narrative, identity, and ‘death and beyond.’”— Michael Wood, Princeton University, The Russian Review vol 76 no. 2, April 2017
