Vladimir Nabokov woke up one morning and found himself in a big bedroom without any ornamentation except for a large bed of fused wrought iron and a single framed painting on the wall. He climbed out of bed and stepped barefoot, nightgown swooshing around his legs, up to the painting. On closer inspection he realized that it was actually a photograph, blurred like the ink had been streaked by wet fingers against wet photo paper. He strained to recognize the features of the man there, a man wearing a short old-fashioned hat – not quite a fedora – with a wry, a cynical, a vaguely superior smile. The man there, streaked as he was, would not interview without seeing questions in advance. He liked butterflies a little bit too much, and had little nice to say about communism. And that was the moment when Vladimir realized that he was just a character in someone else’s story.
“Son of a bitch!” he swore, and knew this was uncharacteristic.
How utterly ironic.