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If so, Field can expect some latenight calls. For VN is not only a revision of His Life in Part but a revisionist view of the man and much of his art. The literary icon Field once cryptically defined as a "Russian-American writer of our time and of his own reality" is now called a "great Russian-American Narcissus." Late novels such as Ada and Look at the Harlequins! are seen as works of a "garden-variety egotist." Both books have their share of self-indulgence and preening; neither approaches the level of masterpieces like Lolita and Pale Fire, the last word on the mad pursuit of biographical reality. But viewed against the body of Nabokov's fiction, the narcissist label seems inadequate, a bit trendy and more than a little disingenuous. Field made his name studying the work and the man. Better than most outsiders, he knows the sources of Nabokov's genius, his gifts for showmanship and parody, his eccentricities and vanities. To discover at this late date that his hero was not Mother Teresa seems peculiar. --By R.Z. Sheppard