I can think of at least one other literary example of this - - isn't Dodgson's Alice forever arguing with herself when there are no animals about to talk to?

 

If Carolyn had read The Gift, she would have known of another of instance, when the protagonist, Fyodor Konstantinovich Godunov-Cherdyntsev, who several times in the novel (the chapters Two and Five) "is reciting a fictitious dialogue with himself as supplied by a self-teaching handbook of literary inspiration." Both times Fyodor's imaginary interelocutor is the poet Koncheev, who is, however, a separate character, not part of Fyodor's personality.

The strongest (even if indirect) argument in support of Carolyn's theory could be that in VN's earlier unfinished novel (Sirin's last), "Solus Rex" (that eventually appeared in the 1940s as two stories: Ultima Thule and Solus Rex), the hero, an artist named Sineusov, who recently lost his wife, imagines himself to be the King ("K." as he is designated in keeping with chess transcriptions) in a distant northern island (who is to lose soon, we learn from the note appended to the Solus Rex story by VN, his wife, Queen Belinda). In contrast to the situation in PF, Sineusov and K. never meet let alone speak to each other, at least not in the novel's published chapters. In fact, if there is in Ultima Thule a somewhat Kinbotian figure, it is Sineusov's "employer," the poet from that distant island (or from Norway, or Sweden), who asks Sineusov to draw illustrations for the long poem composed by him.   

 

As to the names of some of PF's characters, my attention was recently drawn by a book by a certain Andre Lirondelle (Sybil's maiden name was Irondelle, right?), "Le poete Alexis Tolstoi. L'homme a l'oeuvre," Paris, 1912. A. K. Tolstoi, 1817-1875 (who I think was a distant relative of Russian tsars), dubbed in occultism. For some reason, I suspect this book by his French biographer (which it seems to me VN would have known) to contain many interesting things. Unfortunately, I do not read French (or read it "through heavy tears" - very slowly) and won't have much time anyway to look it up in the near future.

Kindly pardon the intruder,

Alexey

 

p.s. there were several misprints in my previous message to the List. "Add" of course should be "ad."

I thank the people who responded to my request saying that they are ready to help, but I know that they are very busy themselves (much busier, in fact, than I am), so I hope very much there will be more volunteers.