----- Original Message -----

Sent: Wednesday, May 17, 2000 4:55 PM

Subject: Re: Salon article on Sergey Nabokov

The thing that puzzles me about this article is that it makes no reference to Charles Kinbote who is (if we separate him from the `is he Shade or is Shade Kinbote' controversy) the only gay narrator and main character of any of Nabokov's books. There is something very sad and touching about Kinbote's sexuality, the passage about the way he could love his wife fully in dreams but not reality always sticks in my mind. This, and his adolescent romance with the dead prince are so touching as to seem difficult to reconcile with Nabokov's homophobic attitudes. Still, I found Sergei's story fascinating, and it certainly adds a new perspective for me on many of the young men `palely loitering' through Nabokov's prose.