listened to Carla Bruni all day. think i have conjunctivitis.

'Nabokov's art grows out of Romanticism in the Platonic tradition; because
he sees this world as a pale reflection of another, his novels abound in
doublings, mirrorings and inversions. 4 The glimmerings of another existence
beyond our own may occasionally be discerned in nature, in fate's workings,
and in art; the puzzles and rich referentiality of Nabokov's texts are designed
to send the reader on a quest for the transcendent.'

'beyond the 'real', a word Nabokov said must always be used with quotation marks'

'structured on the idea that reality has an infinite succession
of false bottoms.'

'If we consider Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde as an allegory - the
struggle between Good and Evil within every man - then this allegory is
tasteless and childish.' - Nabokov

'the double theme began to be popularized in ways that trivialized the real/ideal opposition, reducing it to an allegory of Good/ Evil. Double tales illustrating German Romantic philosophy depict the dilemma of the impossibility of embodying the ideal in the real world; characters go mad attempting to reconcile the irreconcilable'

'The varieties of doubling convey how difficult it is to discern the ideal through the veil of the everyday; Nabokov uses them to show art and reality intertwine. The mirrors reflect a succession of (illusory?) images of eternity barely perceptible from the shifting vantage points of our world. Zemblan, the "tongue of the mirror" (note to line 678), reflects these resemblances.'

...cross referencing makes into further hall of mirrors.