The article explicates Nabokov’s metaphors of crooked mirrors and false doubles in his novel Despair，which articulate his aesthetics that art is self-obvious deception. For Nabokov，art is neither superior to nor independent of reality，but is rather its inferior mimic. Thus Nabokov’s simulacrum always refers to the revered model：the author himself. Nabokov’s aesthetics challenges the readers to have a different attitude toward art：rather than sympathy or appreciation，we should instead cultivate our critical discernment by distinguishing between the simulacrum and the true model. In our age of post-truth，Nabokov’s aesthetics provides us an ethical paradigm where reality is concealed but not altogether cancelled，a reality that is rather the prize that the readers are invited to actively seek out.
Tsaiyi Wu (Sat,) studied this question.