Subject
Buhks Sorbonne VN Conference 1996
Date
Body
EDITOR'S COMMENT. Thanks to John Burt Foster, NABOKV-L is now able to run
many of the abstracts from papers delivered at the conference "Vladimir
Nabokov-Sirine: les annees europeenes" organized by Dr. Nora Buhks at the
Sorbonne in Paris on 28-30 November 1996. I have translated all of the
Russian abstracts and a few of the French ones. I understand that the
conference proceedinigs will be published later this year. The program is
given below as I received it, although I am not certain that all of the
papers listed were presented. I have listed first the papers for which I
have abstracts. Others, represented only by the names of the presenters
and titles, are listed afterward.
----------------------------------------------------------
Colloque international
"Vladimir NABOKOV-SIRINE: les annees europeennes"
(28-30 novembre 1996)
[ Note: accent marks have been lost as a result of
reformatting this program for e-mail transmission. ]
Prof. J. CONNOLLY (USA): "`The Flutter of Fantasy' in
Nabokov's Early Fiction."
Prof. J. FOSTER (USA): "Interpreting Nabokov in the
Thirties: Problems of Cultural Multiplicity and
Retrospective Insight"
Dr. M. GOURG (France): "Analyse de VESNA V FIAL'TE: temps,
hasard et predictibilite"
Prof. J.-C. LANNE (France): "La poesie russe de V. Nabokov,
ou les figures de l'exil"
Dr. M. MEDARIC (Croatia): "Mimikrija kak obraz mira (Na
materiale proizvedenij Nabokova i ego sovremennikov)"
Prof. D. RAMPTON (Canada): "La critique litteraire de
Nabokov dans les annees trente"
Prof. G. SHAPIRO (USA): "TJUREMNYE DOSUGI i PRIGLASENIE NA
KAZN'"
Dr. O. SKONECHNaIA (Russia):"Nabokov's DESPAIR & Sologub's THE PETTY
DEMON"
V. STARK (Russia): "Nabokov & Pushkin: Genealogical Intersections in their
Literary Reflections"
Dr. L. TROUBETSKOY (France): "L'EXPLOIT comme exorcisme:
le fantasme du retour en Russie de la poesie a la prose
de Nabokov"
Prof. W. TROUBETZKOY (France): "Le double de Vladimir
Nabokov."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
M. A. ARIEV (Russia): "Nabokov i `vragi' (O smysle liter-
aturnoj polemiki pisatelya)"
Prof. J. BONAMOUR (France): "`Mademoiselle O' et `Monsieur
l'Abbe'"
Dr. N. BUHKS (France): "Roman PODVIG kak kross-zanr"
Prof. J. CATTEAU (France): To be announced.
Prof. S. DAVYDOV (USA): "Po etu storonu fantastiki Nabokova"
Prof. A. MONNIER (France): "La ROUSSALKA de Pouchkine
terminee par V. Nabokov"
D. NABOKOV (Switzerland): To be announced.
Prof. G. NIVAT (Switzerland): To be announced.
Prof. E. SCHWARTZ et Prof. S. SENDEROVICH (USA): "Nabokov i
Evreinov"
Prof. SPROEDER (Germany): "O DARE Nabokova" (Specific Topic
to be announced)
Prof. L. TOKER (Israel) "O romane ZASCHITA LUZINA"
(Specific Topic to be announced)
I. TOLSTOI (Russia): "Neizdannyj roman: rekonstrucija i
tekst"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
================================================================
John Burt Foster, Jr. (George Mason University)
COMMENT INTERPRETER NABOKOV DANS LES ANNEES TRENTE?
Problemes de la multiplicite culturelle et de l'apercu retrospectif
Prenant comme point de depart mon travail deja publie sur cette
periode, _Nabokov's Art of Memory and European Modernism_ (1993), je ferai
ressortir quelques grands motifs d'incertitude et meme de controverse au
sujet de son developpement. Une question preliminaire concerne le titre
meme de ce colloque, "les annees europeannes," malgre son exactitude
envers les faits positifs de sa biographie i malgre la division de sa vie
que Nabokov lui-meme a proposee dans son autobiographie. Le rupture vers
1940 lorsqu'il commence a ecrire en anglais et se refugie aux Etats-Unis
parait moins important si l'on considere ses attitudes culturelles les
plus fondamentales. Par exemple, il semble evident que son premier roman
americain, _Bend Sinister_ (1946), reste tres europeenne en ce qu'il donne
un precise synthetique de l'Europe de l'entre-deux-guerres -- du point de
vue et de l'avant-garde litteraire et du milieu historique et politique.
Cette distinction initiale entre les milieux physiques et
culturels nous amene a la question de la multiplicite culturelle dans
l'oeuvre nabokovienne. Cette multiplicite, qui doit etre mise
en contraste avec le nationalisme culturel et surtout avec l'etat
monolingue, cree une situation pleine de dangers pour celui qui veut
analyser l'identite culturelle d'une ecrivain comme Nabokokv, parce que
presque tous ces critiques se lient beaucoup plus fortement que Nabokov a
une seule culture at a seule langue. Comment peut-on rendre justice a cet
aspect de Nabokov quand il nous manque, en quelque sorte, la meme
plenitude d'experience culturelle? Est-il possible, d'aillers, de
determiner si une etiquette unique comme "exrivain emigre russe" ou
"esthete francphile" ou "moderniste transnational" suffit pour designer sa
situation culturelle pendant les annees trente? La recherche sur les
ecivains polyglottes et sur la multiplicite culurelle tend a suggerer
qu'au lieu de nous casser une mentalite a plusieurs niveaux, dans laquelle
toutes ces possibilites coexistent, avec bien d'autres encore. Nous ne
devons pas oublier non plus que les annees trente etaient une period de
bouleversement extraordinaire, dans lequelle les attitudes culturelles,
meme les loyautes de beaucoup d'artisites et intellectuels se changeaient
avec une vitesse surprenante.
Une autre difficulte principale s'articule autour des
contradictions possibles entre de ce Nabokokv a tente de faire comme
ecrivain dans les annees trente et ce qu'il a dit la-dessus plus tard. Je
pense ici non seulement a ses prefaces aux traductions anglaises de son
oeuvre russe, mais aussi aux passages pertinents de sa correspondance avec
Edmund Wilcon, de se conferences a Cornell, ou de ses entrevues dans
_Strong opinions_ -- ou meme de ce qu'il a dit dans son autobiographie.
Dans une grande mesure, la documentation de notre periode commence
seulement apres coup, et par consequent se soumet a l'incertitude qui
accompagne toute documentation de ce genre. Ces apercus retrospectifs se
rapportent plus directement aux interests du present qu'aux evenements du
passe, bien qu'on ne puisse nier leur petinence possible. Un exemple, tire
de sa preface a _La Defense_ (1963), serait la question tres difficile de
determiner combien Nabokov s'interesse a la doctrine nietzsheenne du
retour eternel. Cette quetion assez limitee entraine des consequences plus
grandes, parce qu'elle suggere une certaine necessite de qualifier la
position habituellement negative que Nabokov prenait envers la culture
allemende et surtout envers ses discours theoriques.
----------------------------------------------------
J.-C. Lanne (Universite Lyon III)
NABOKOV'S RUSSIAN POETRY
or IMAGES OF EXILE
(A Brief Account)
This paper aims to demonstrate how VN's life abroad not only influenced
the poet's selection of themes, but also determined the original form of
expression, which, paradoxically, combined elements from the Russian
tradition and the contemporary European. Having arisen from Symbolism,
Nabokov's poetry gradually evolved from this initial system, turning
toward a Neoclassical, heirarchic, stylistic rigor, simultaneously
maintaining ambiguous and conflicting relations with artistic prose.
Continuing his search for originality of lyric expression, Nabokov attains
a compression of language to the point when poetic language is abolished
by being outside of the native idiom.
At the beginning of his poetic career, the "ideology" of Symbolism
provides the structure for his world-view and affords him a convenient
frame for the expression of exile. But the very experience of cultural
expatriation expedites his rejection of the principles of aesthetic
gnosticism and sets Nabokov's poetic work on the path of "Adamism," close
to the poetic art of the young post-Symbolist school of that name. The
form of VN's poetic utterance appears in several main themes (the loss of
his native land, the rupture of time, anxious reflection on the essence
of man, etc.), which constitute powerful networks of recurrent images and
determine the very method of the writer. The evolution of Nabokov's
poetics lead to a reworking of form, and the "disappearance of
narrativity" of the writer in his Russian works during his second exile
still more insistently emphasize the abstract "Mallarme-like" character of
this work whose first aim is the exorcism of the fatal, magical influence of
the absent.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Laure Troubetskoy
"GLORY as Exorcism:
The Dream of a Return to Russia in Nabokov's Poetry and Prose"
GLORY is not only one of Nabokov's most autobiographical novels
but actively interechos with his poetry. Indeed, GLORY's hero achieves the
dream that appears as a pervasive motif of Nabokov's poetry of the
twenties and early thirties -- an actual physical return to Russia. Being
objectified in the novel, this dream reveals its own ambivalence:
the craving for
the lost paradise (which is), in its own way,an attraction to death.
The hero's fate seems to serve as a catharsis, for after GLORY, Nabokov's
dream of a reurn is modified: the return to his native land is
increasingly conceived as a return though (artistic) creation (after
Martyn crosses the border, only Nabokov's anti-alter ego Vadim Vadimovich
does so), and the dark image of Zoorlandiya is isolated from the image of
the lost paradise.
The abrupt change in the treatment of the return theme is
conditioned by the peculiarities of Nabokov's poetics of the novel
(rommanyi poetiki). If in his poems the theme is treated chiefly in the
spirit of a Symbolist double world, in GLORY, the decisive episode is
shown only obliquely. We are dealing with a unique poetic catharsis
closely connected with the poetics of correspondences, patterns,
"enchantment," "unusual lining" of reality.
----------------------------------------------------
Wladimir Troubetzkoy
NABOKOV'S DOUBLE
In DESPAIR, VN demonstrates the intrinsic perversity of the
aesthetics of the double, pushingit to the pointof absurdity in the person
of his creature Hermann Karlovich, who is, consequently, reduced to
despair.
The question of the double, "a frightful bore," interests Nabokov
more than he realizes, for it is the question of the artist himself. The
double represents an unrealizable fantasm of absolute and complete control
over the text. The double is the shadow of himself which the
narrator-agent projects on the world in order to master illusorily, in
fact to vail its difference. The double figuresconsequently in the texture
of the text the impossibility of the text, and he is the literary illusion
which lulls Hermann Karlovich, narrating narrator of DESPAIR, in fact
narrator narrated by the real author. VN unmasks in the end his
"galley-slave," who is his excluded but at all times possible double.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Vadim Stark. Institute of Russ. Lit: Pushkin House; Nabokov Foundation,
Saint-Petersburg, Russia
NABOKOV AND PUSHKIN: GENEALOGICAL INTERSECTIONS IN THEIR
LITERARY REFLECTIONS
In 1936 Nabokov launched his autobiographical narrative which
would be finished in the Unites States (1947-51): CONCLUSIVE EVIDENCE,
SPEAK MEMORY, DRUGIE BEREGA, and AUTRES RIVAGES (1961). It was then
Nabokov regretted his "imprecise family memory." During his emigration,
his uncle Vladimir Golubtsov had furnished him with "certain curious bits
of information." The study of names introduced in one way or another in
his literary works lets us draw conclusions about a certain selectivity of
Nabokov-the-writer toward Pushkin's entourage, and which were at the same
time artistically productive. The verification of a communality of
positions, procedures, and methods of including genealogical materials in
the literary fabric is of particular interest. Nabokov's building of
bridges between himself and Pushkin sometimes led to farces of fate that
one can followed across Nabokov poem cycles of 1924,and of Pushkin in
1828, written on the occasion of their investigations of ill-fated
marriages. A parallel is obvious, reflected in Nabokokv's literary work
for the Rukavishnikov family, and in Pushkin's for the Hannibal family. My
work is based on unedited archive materials on Rukavishnikov family
history.
(Hastily & badly translated fromthe French by DBJ)
--------------------------------------------------------
Gavriel Shapiro (Cornell University)
_INVITATION TO A BEHEADING_ IN THE LIGHT OF "PRISON PASTIMES"
A prominent Russian statesman of the turn of the century, V.D.
Nabokov was among the leaders of the Constitutional Democratic (Kadet)
Party and of its faction in the First Duma. When in July of 1906 the Duma
was dissolved, Nabokov Sr., together with other deputies, protested their
dismissal in the Vyborg Manifesto. The Manifesto signators were tried and
in some cases sentenced to jail terms. V.D. Nabokokv was among the latter,
serving three months in St Petersburg's Kresty prison. His prison
experience and his thoughts on the Russian penal system are reflected in
his _Prision Pastimes_ (Tyuremne dosugi [1908]). Nabokov Jr. undoubtedly
understood the importance of this unique first-hand account by his father,
a distinguished criminalist, and apparently employed it in his _Invitation
to a Beheading_ (1935-36), a dystopian novel set in prison.
Comparison of the two texts points to similarities between them,
including everyday prison life and cell interiors, as well as style and
intonation. The novel also contains an allusion to Charles Dickens's
_American Notes_ (1842), pehaps inspired by its mention in _Prison
Pastimes_. Finally, _Invitation to a Beheading_ can be viewed as an
illustration of Nabokov pere's ideas on ethical and legal issues, such as
the correctional function of prison, solitaty confinement, and capital
punishment.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Julian Connolly, University of Virgina
"The Tremor of Fantasy"
The paper analyses the evolution of folkloric images and
Mythological fgures in Nabokov's early stories. The reader of these
stories meets a series of supernatural beings ranging from the tired
wood sprite of "Nezhit'" (The Sprite) to the vengeful angel of "Udar
kryla" (Wingstroke).
The appearance of these figures is of complex and many-sided
meaning. Behind the fantastic figures in Nabokov's work one can see
serious metaphysical reflection. Nabokov uses these images of mythological
figures in personal attempt to depict the themes of loss, death, and so
on.
One notes that with the passage of time such mythological images
become ever rarer in Nabokov's work but the author's striving for
metaphysical reflections do not disappear along with the these images. On
the contrary, the reader can find traces of this phenomenon even in
Nabokov's vey last works. My paper examines several stories of the
Twenties in which the initial stage of this thematic appears.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Marianne Gourg (France)
"An Attempted Analysis of the Tale "Spring in Fialta"
When Nabokov-Sirin wrote "Spring in Fialta" in 1936 he realized
that he soon would have to leave Germany (and probably Europe) and
become an English-language writer. In 1956 Nabokov, having become an American
writer, put out a small collection of fourteen Russian stories under the
title _Spring in Fialta_. The tale, one that VN especially valued, was
written parallel to the novel _The Gift (1932-38).
My paper traces the numerous intellectual ties existing between
"Spring in Fialta" and classical Russian literature and Silver Age poetry
on the one hand, and Western European experimental literature on the
other. I stress the kinship of "Spring in Fialta and _The Gift_, the
sharing of a series of motifs and certain plot ploys, generalizing their
orientation toward the meta-literary.
"Spring in Fialta" is, in its way, a miniaturization of _The
Gift_. In this tale one sees in concentrated form the literary evolution
of Nabokov from poetry to prose, from Russian to English or French. The
oscillations and movements accompanying this process are conveyed via
concrete motifs endowed with meta-literary significance and are connected
with literary polemics of the period, i.e., the polemic with the journal
_Chisla_, the rejection of litterature engage)."
Moreover, in a retrospective reading of "Spring in Fialta," one
can discover the presence of the sound system that generates, in the words
of the author, the novel _ADA_ (1969), i.e, or/ap/bl/pl/fl.... In the case
at hand, Russian and English form layers and jointly promote the
appearance of a basic creative layer of artistic consciousness. On careful
examination the short tale "Spring in Fialta" concentrates within itself
virtually all of Nabokov's creative process. This probably accounts for
the author's extraordinary partiality to this work.
Trans. D.B.Johnson
------------------------------------------------------------
Magalena Medaric (University of Zagreb)
MIMICRY AS A SYMBOLIC IMAGE OF THE WORLD
The paper discusses the possibility of adopting the concept of
"mimicry," a term generally accepted in the natural sciences, as a concept
in the history of culture as well. As such, this notion has served a
number of twentieth century authors as the basis of many illumintive
metaphors with which they brightened their image of the world.
The paper opens with a discussion of the term "mimicy" in VN's
writings. Particular attention is devoted to the views of Vladimir
Alexandrov, the scholar who pointed out the role of the concept of mimicry
in Nabokov's explicit and implicit poetics. Alexandrov also associates
this notion, so relevant for Nabokokv, with the literature of Russia's
Silver Age, in which he noted a similar treatment of the
word-concept-image in the works of Nikolai Evreinov and Petr Uspenskii.
Inspired by Alexandrov's work, I investigated in greater detail
the work of Evreinov and Uspenskii, possible predecessors on VN in the
Russian intellectual tradition, but discovered the word-image-concept
in question had currency in Western European culture of the time,
specifically in the work of some of Nabokov's contemporaries, i.e., R.
Cailois, J. Lacan, and Thomas Mann.
"The world as mimicry" is an illuminative metaphor and is, I
think, one of a series of similar metaphors that paint a symbolic picture
of the world. Other such metaphors include the labyrinth, the mirror, the
enigma, etc. (cited, for example, by G.R. Kocke as contemporary
culturological concepts).
My paper aims at defining the general semantic range of the notion
of mimicry in present-day culture and for this reason distinguishes and
compares the terminological and associative fields of the word in the
natural sciences and the humanities. With its semantic core, i.e., its
properties that suggested mimesis, the neologism "mimicry" (which
originally appeared as a 19th century biological term) inspired
interpreters in humanistic circles. The notion that nature can imitate
something or someone else is the central point of the interpretations of
this phenomenon and concept in the work of these authors. This means that
nature itself has mimetic abilities or even inclinations.
Particular attention is given to how the theme of mimicry is
confronted is the works of two leading European novelists of the 20th
century: Nabokov & Mann. these two writers--whose similarity has been
noted by critics, but also disputed, especially in the statements of the
younger artist -- turn up in relation to mimicry as two co-travellers in
literature. The paper analyses Mann's _Doktor Faustus_, especially the
function of the motif of mimicry at the level of character, plot,
composition, and image of the world. Next, conclusions from this novel are
compared to conclusions about the role of mimicry in Nabokov's texts.
These two writers present themselves as similar, not only in the way they
construct prose (leitmotifs as a means of structuring ornamental wholes of
prose), but also in aspects of their picture of the world ("art as
illusion": "mimicry as a cryptogram of a higher, unreachable, metaphyical
realisty"). However, they are also different. For Nabokov, mimicry bears
witness to the harmony of the inherent world, ethics and aesthetics are
not in conflict with one another; for Mann, mimicry is part of the
demonic, diabolical aspect of the world, ethics and aesthetics are found
in tragic conflict.
--------------------------------------------------------
Gavriel Shapiro (Cornell University)
_INVITATION TO A BEHEADING_ IN THE LIGHT OF "PRISON PASTIMES"
A prominent Russian statesman of the turn of the century, V.D.
Nabokov was among the leaders of the Constitutional Democratic (Kadet)
Party and of its faction in the First Duma. When in July of 1906 the Duma
was dissolved, Nabokov Sr., together with other deputies, protested their
dismissal in the Vyborg Manifesto. The Manifesto signators were tried and
in some cases sentenced to jail terms. V.D. Nabokokv was among the latter,
serving three months in St Petersburg's Kresty prison. His prison
experience and his thoughts on the Russian penal system are reflected in
his _Prision Pastimes_ (Tyuremne dosugi [1908]). Nabokov Jr. undoubtedly
understood the importance of this unique first-hand account by his father,
a distinguished criminalist, and apparently employed it in his _Invitation
to a Beheading_ (1935-36), a dystopian novel set in prison.
Comparison of the two texts points to similarities between them,
including everyday prison life and cell interiors, as well as style and
intonation. The novel also contains an allusion to Charles Dickens's
_American Notes_ (1842), pehaps inspired by its mention in _Prison
Pastimes_. Finally, _Invitation to a Beheading_ can be viewed as an
illustration of Nabokov pere's ideas on ethical and legal issues, such as
the correctional function of prison, solitaty confinement, and capital
punishment.
-------------------------------------------------------
Olga Skonechnaya (Moscow)
NABOKOV's _DESPAIR_ & SOLOGUB's _PETTY DEMON_
(Russian Symbolist traditions in Nabokov's Prose of the Twenties and Thirties)
C' etait G. Adamovitch qui pour la premiere fois avait compare _La
Meprise_ avec le fameux roman de Sologoub, ayant apprecie dans la figure
de Nabokov l'heritier de ce fil "fou" et "froid" de Sologoub, venant
encore "de la tradition de Gogol." Mais il faut noter que cette
observation fut plutot une reproche pas originale pour Nabobov, qui etais
accuse de la mediocrite metaphysique qu'une tentative d'analyse objective
des racines de son oeuvre.
Tout la meme le probleme de la relativisation de _Meprise_ de du
_Petit diable_ existe bien sur et peut se representer sous deux aspects:
celui de perception par Nabokov de la tradition de Sologoub et plus
largement -- des traditions du symbolismme russe et celui de reproduction
du _Petit Duiable_ dans le texte de _La Meprise_.
Nous connaissons que Nabokov considerait Sologoub comme l'ecrivain
bien mediocre. Nous ne pouvons donc faire approacher la conception du
monde et la poetique des deux ecrivains qu'au niveau tres general -- c'est
a dire, de l'approche d'oeuvre de Nbaokokv au systeme du symbolisme russe
tout entier. La modele de deux mondes, base sur l'idee de la divinisation
de l'individu creatif, et la variation pessimiste de ce modele avec les
motifs typiques pour ce dernier de la captivite de conscience humaine
trouverent sa place sans aucun doute dans la prose de Nabokov des annees
20-30. D'ailleurs la realisation de ce modele la plus proche a Nabokov
c'etait pas celle de Sologoub, bien monotone, mais son caractere plus
complique dans l'oeuvre des symbolists cadets: A. Blok et surtout A.
Belyj.
En meme temps la consideration du roman de Sologoub _Le Petit
diable_ comme une des allusions de _La Meprise_ est tres importante pour
la comprehension du texte de Nabokov. En ecrivant son anti-heros --
despote mediocre qui pretend au role du Createur, Nabokov reproduit et
developpe l'image du "petit diable," mise en monde par Sologoub et
penetree dans la culture symboliste. Les traits essentiels de cette image
-- calomnie au Createur, faussete de la Creation, trivialization de la
Beaute, trouvent un nouveau sens dans le texte de Nabokokv, s'enrichissent
et prennent des formes inconnues des allusions culturelles.
Le theme diabolique dans tous les deux romans se realise dans les
motifs de cecite, de peur des miroirs, de loup-garou, etc. Le sujet
d'assassinat du faux-double est transforme d'une maniere spirituelle par
Nabokov: le sens metaphysique profund du crime de Peredonov se reproduit
dans _La Meprise_ par plusiers details de Sologoub: canne, lettres
initiales demasquentes, repere sur le corps du victime ou assassin et
d'autres.
Une des proprietes les plus importantes de la poetique des
reminiscences de Nabokokv est la deguisement d'une allusion par l'autre,
qui est montree visiblement au lecteur. Si _Le Petit diable_ est cache
dans _La Meprise_ sous _La Dame de pique_ et _Les Ames mortes, _Crime et
Chatiment_ masque parmi les autres une allusion sur le sujet du "crime
parfait" _Des Caves du Vatican_ de A. Gide, J.-P. Sartre, en ressemblance
a Adamovitch, a identifie L'auteur de _Meprise_ avec Hermann Carlovitch et
les masques litteraires de ce dernier.
-------------------------------------------------------
David Rampton (University of Ottawa)
NABOKOV'S "POUCHKINE, OU LE VRAI ET LE VRAISEMBLABLE"
My contention in this paper is that Nabokov's 1937 article,
"Pouchkine, ou le vrai et le vraisemblable," has been unjustly neglected.
Ostensibly an appreciation of Russia's premier poet and a treatise on the
importance of making basic critical distinctions, it has, understandably
enough, been viewed as a casual sketch, something that was to be
splendidly superseded by the commentary in the multi-volume Pushkin
translation published some thirty years later. The more recondite, more
imaginative fiction Nabokov was producing in the 1930s has therefore
received the bulk of our attention. yet this article, like so much else in
Nabokov's work, is not exactlt what it seems, and deserves to be better
known.
I shall argue that it actually serves as a capsule summary of the
principal issues he was concurrently exploring in his fiction: the
multi-faceted nature of the "biographie romancee," the difficulties
attendant on any attempt to enter another's world, the importance of the
difference between the elite and plebian, and the task of preserving
Russian culture by resisting vulgar attempts to appropriate it. Not only
that: at the same time it reveals the determinedly pre-modernist aspects
of Nabokov's own critical assumptions, as he brilliantly refights the
battles of the 1840s and 50s in the 1930s. He published all of his Russian
novels in the most eminent of Parisian emigre jounals, and the Pushkin
piece in _Nouvelle Revue Francaise,_ yet the approach to the problems
posed by Pushkin's work reveals both Nabokokvs' quasi-total isolation from
twentieth-century literary and intellectual movements and the
fundamentally anti-theoretical foundations of his art. The author who
prided himself on travelling through life in a space helmet had a mind too
fine to be ravished by a modernist theory.
The whole process of stating a thesis, adducing relevant evidence,
making logical transitions, and moving toward a plausible conclusion is
somewhat alien to Nabokov's aesthetic sensibility, and the "Le vrai et le
vraisemblable" helps explain his aversion to and distain of the
expository mode as a means of exploring ideas about literature. Finally,
in its anatomy of a madman and its critique of his banal imaginings, it
offers an intriguing and proleptic look at where Nabokov was going, at
what the subject of his most audacious and successful fiction was to be.
many of the abstracts from papers delivered at the conference "Vladimir
Nabokov-Sirine: les annees europeenes" organized by Dr. Nora Buhks at the
Sorbonne in Paris on 28-30 November 1996. I have translated all of the
Russian abstracts and a few of the French ones. I understand that the
conference proceedinigs will be published later this year. The program is
given below as I received it, although I am not certain that all of the
papers listed were presented. I have listed first the papers for which I
have abstracts. Others, represented only by the names of the presenters
and titles, are listed afterward.
----------------------------------------------------------
Colloque international
"Vladimir NABOKOV-SIRINE: les annees europeennes"
(28-30 novembre 1996)
[ Note: accent marks have been lost as a result of
reformatting this program for e-mail transmission. ]
Prof. J. CONNOLLY (USA): "`The Flutter of Fantasy' in
Nabokov's Early Fiction."
Prof. J. FOSTER (USA): "Interpreting Nabokov in the
Thirties: Problems of Cultural Multiplicity and
Retrospective Insight"
Dr. M. GOURG (France): "Analyse de VESNA V FIAL'TE: temps,
hasard et predictibilite"
Prof. J.-C. LANNE (France): "La poesie russe de V. Nabokov,
ou les figures de l'exil"
Dr. M. MEDARIC (Croatia): "Mimikrija kak obraz mira (Na
materiale proizvedenij Nabokova i ego sovremennikov)"
Prof. D. RAMPTON (Canada): "La critique litteraire de
Nabokov dans les annees trente"
Prof. G. SHAPIRO (USA): "TJUREMNYE DOSUGI i PRIGLASENIE NA
KAZN'"
Dr. O. SKONECHNaIA (Russia):"Nabokov's DESPAIR & Sologub's THE PETTY
DEMON"
V. STARK (Russia): "Nabokov & Pushkin: Genealogical Intersections in their
Literary Reflections"
Dr. L. TROUBETSKOY (France): "L'EXPLOIT comme exorcisme:
le fantasme du retour en Russie de la poesie a la prose
de Nabokov"
Prof. W. TROUBETZKOY (France): "Le double de Vladimir
Nabokov."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
M. A. ARIEV (Russia): "Nabokov i `vragi' (O smysle liter-
aturnoj polemiki pisatelya)"
Prof. J. BONAMOUR (France): "`Mademoiselle O' et `Monsieur
l'Abbe'"
Dr. N. BUHKS (France): "Roman PODVIG kak kross-zanr"
Prof. J. CATTEAU (France): To be announced.
Prof. S. DAVYDOV (USA): "Po etu storonu fantastiki Nabokova"
Prof. A. MONNIER (France): "La ROUSSALKA de Pouchkine
terminee par V. Nabokov"
D. NABOKOV (Switzerland): To be announced.
Prof. G. NIVAT (Switzerland): To be announced.
Prof. E. SCHWARTZ et Prof. S. SENDEROVICH (USA): "Nabokov i
Evreinov"
Prof. SPROEDER (Germany): "O DARE Nabokova" (Specific Topic
to be announced)
Prof. L. TOKER (Israel) "O romane ZASCHITA LUZINA"
(Specific Topic to be announced)
I. TOLSTOI (Russia): "Neizdannyj roman: rekonstrucija i
tekst"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
================================================================
John Burt Foster, Jr. (George Mason University)
COMMENT INTERPRETER NABOKOV DANS LES ANNEES TRENTE?
Problemes de la multiplicite culturelle et de l'apercu retrospectif
Prenant comme point de depart mon travail deja publie sur cette
periode, _Nabokov's Art of Memory and European Modernism_ (1993), je ferai
ressortir quelques grands motifs d'incertitude et meme de controverse au
sujet de son developpement. Une question preliminaire concerne le titre
meme de ce colloque, "les annees europeannes," malgre son exactitude
envers les faits positifs de sa biographie i malgre la division de sa vie
que Nabokov lui-meme a proposee dans son autobiographie. Le rupture vers
1940 lorsqu'il commence a ecrire en anglais et se refugie aux Etats-Unis
parait moins important si l'on considere ses attitudes culturelles les
plus fondamentales. Par exemple, il semble evident que son premier roman
americain, _Bend Sinister_ (1946), reste tres europeenne en ce qu'il donne
un precise synthetique de l'Europe de l'entre-deux-guerres -- du point de
vue et de l'avant-garde litteraire et du milieu historique et politique.
Cette distinction initiale entre les milieux physiques et
culturels nous amene a la question de la multiplicite culturelle dans
l'oeuvre nabokovienne. Cette multiplicite, qui doit etre mise
en contraste avec le nationalisme culturel et surtout avec l'etat
monolingue, cree une situation pleine de dangers pour celui qui veut
analyser l'identite culturelle d'une ecrivain comme Nabokokv, parce que
presque tous ces critiques se lient beaucoup plus fortement que Nabokov a
une seule culture at a seule langue. Comment peut-on rendre justice a cet
aspect de Nabokov quand il nous manque, en quelque sorte, la meme
plenitude d'experience culturelle? Est-il possible, d'aillers, de
determiner si une etiquette unique comme "exrivain emigre russe" ou
"esthete francphile" ou "moderniste transnational" suffit pour designer sa
situation culturelle pendant les annees trente? La recherche sur les
ecivains polyglottes et sur la multiplicite culurelle tend a suggerer
qu'au lieu de nous casser une mentalite a plusieurs niveaux, dans laquelle
toutes ces possibilites coexistent, avec bien d'autres encore. Nous ne
devons pas oublier non plus que les annees trente etaient une period de
bouleversement extraordinaire, dans lequelle les attitudes culturelles,
meme les loyautes de beaucoup d'artisites et intellectuels se changeaient
avec une vitesse surprenante.
Une autre difficulte principale s'articule autour des
contradictions possibles entre de ce Nabokokv a tente de faire comme
ecrivain dans les annees trente et ce qu'il a dit la-dessus plus tard. Je
pense ici non seulement a ses prefaces aux traductions anglaises de son
oeuvre russe, mais aussi aux passages pertinents de sa correspondance avec
Edmund Wilcon, de se conferences a Cornell, ou de ses entrevues dans
_Strong opinions_ -- ou meme de ce qu'il a dit dans son autobiographie.
Dans une grande mesure, la documentation de notre periode commence
seulement apres coup, et par consequent se soumet a l'incertitude qui
accompagne toute documentation de ce genre. Ces apercus retrospectifs se
rapportent plus directement aux interests du present qu'aux evenements du
passe, bien qu'on ne puisse nier leur petinence possible. Un exemple, tire
de sa preface a _La Defense_ (1963), serait la question tres difficile de
determiner combien Nabokov s'interesse a la doctrine nietzsheenne du
retour eternel. Cette quetion assez limitee entraine des consequences plus
grandes, parce qu'elle suggere une certaine necessite de qualifier la
position habituellement negative que Nabokov prenait envers la culture
allemende et surtout envers ses discours theoriques.
----------------------------------------------------
J.-C. Lanne (Universite Lyon III)
NABOKOV'S RUSSIAN POETRY
or IMAGES OF EXILE
(A Brief Account)
This paper aims to demonstrate how VN's life abroad not only influenced
the poet's selection of themes, but also determined the original form of
expression, which, paradoxically, combined elements from the Russian
tradition and the contemporary European. Having arisen from Symbolism,
Nabokov's poetry gradually evolved from this initial system, turning
toward a Neoclassical, heirarchic, stylistic rigor, simultaneously
maintaining ambiguous and conflicting relations with artistic prose.
Continuing his search for originality of lyric expression, Nabokov attains
a compression of language to the point when poetic language is abolished
by being outside of the native idiom.
At the beginning of his poetic career, the "ideology" of Symbolism
provides the structure for his world-view and affords him a convenient
frame for the expression of exile. But the very experience of cultural
expatriation expedites his rejection of the principles of aesthetic
gnosticism and sets Nabokov's poetic work on the path of "Adamism," close
to the poetic art of the young post-Symbolist school of that name. The
form of VN's poetic utterance appears in several main themes (the loss of
his native land, the rupture of time, anxious reflection on the essence
of man, etc.), which constitute powerful networks of recurrent images and
determine the very method of the writer. The evolution of Nabokov's
poetics lead to a reworking of form, and the "disappearance of
narrativity" of the writer in his Russian works during his second exile
still more insistently emphasize the abstract "Mallarme-like" character of
this work whose first aim is the exorcism of the fatal, magical influence of
the absent.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Laure Troubetskoy
"GLORY as Exorcism:
The Dream of a Return to Russia in Nabokov's Poetry and Prose"
GLORY is not only one of Nabokov's most autobiographical novels
but actively interechos with his poetry. Indeed, GLORY's hero achieves the
dream that appears as a pervasive motif of Nabokov's poetry of the
twenties and early thirties -- an actual physical return to Russia. Being
objectified in the novel, this dream reveals its own ambivalence:
the craving for
the lost paradise (which is), in its own way,an attraction to death.
The hero's fate seems to serve as a catharsis, for after GLORY, Nabokov's
dream of a reurn is modified: the return to his native land is
increasingly conceived as a return though (artistic) creation (after
Martyn crosses the border, only Nabokov's anti-alter ego Vadim Vadimovich
does so), and the dark image of Zoorlandiya is isolated from the image of
the lost paradise.
The abrupt change in the treatment of the return theme is
conditioned by the peculiarities of Nabokov's poetics of the novel
(rommanyi poetiki). If in his poems the theme is treated chiefly in the
spirit of a Symbolist double world, in GLORY, the decisive episode is
shown only obliquely. We are dealing with a unique poetic catharsis
closely connected with the poetics of correspondences, patterns,
"enchantment," "unusual lining" of reality.
----------------------------------------------------
Wladimir Troubetzkoy
NABOKOV'S DOUBLE
In DESPAIR, VN demonstrates the intrinsic perversity of the
aesthetics of the double, pushingit to the pointof absurdity in the person
of his creature Hermann Karlovich, who is, consequently, reduced to
despair.
The question of the double, "a frightful bore," interests Nabokov
more than he realizes, for it is the question of the artist himself. The
double represents an unrealizable fantasm of absolute and complete control
over the text. The double is the shadow of himself which the
narrator-agent projects on the world in order to master illusorily, in
fact to vail its difference. The double figuresconsequently in the texture
of the text the impossibility of the text, and he is the literary illusion
which lulls Hermann Karlovich, narrating narrator of DESPAIR, in fact
narrator narrated by the real author. VN unmasks in the end his
"galley-slave," who is his excluded but at all times possible double.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Vadim Stark. Institute of Russ. Lit: Pushkin House; Nabokov Foundation,
Saint-Petersburg, Russia
NABOKOV AND PUSHKIN: GENEALOGICAL INTERSECTIONS IN THEIR
LITERARY REFLECTIONS
In 1936 Nabokov launched his autobiographical narrative which
would be finished in the Unites States (1947-51): CONCLUSIVE EVIDENCE,
SPEAK MEMORY, DRUGIE BEREGA, and AUTRES RIVAGES (1961). It was then
Nabokov regretted his "imprecise family memory." During his emigration,
his uncle Vladimir Golubtsov had furnished him with "certain curious bits
of information." The study of names introduced in one way or another in
his literary works lets us draw conclusions about a certain selectivity of
Nabokov-the-writer toward Pushkin's entourage, and which were at the same
time artistically productive. The verification of a communality of
positions, procedures, and methods of including genealogical materials in
the literary fabric is of particular interest. Nabokov's building of
bridges between himself and Pushkin sometimes led to farces of fate that
one can followed across Nabokov poem cycles of 1924,and of Pushkin in
1828, written on the occasion of their investigations of ill-fated
marriages. A parallel is obvious, reflected in Nabokokv's literary work
for the Rukavishnikov family, and in Pushkin's for the Hannibal family. My
work is based on unedited archive materials on Rukavishnikov family
history.
(Hastily & badly translated fromthe French by DBJ)
--------------------------------------------------------
Gavriel Shapiro (Cornell University)
_INVITATION TO A BEHEADING_ IN THE LIGHT OF "PRISON PASTIMES"
A prominent Russian statesman of the turn of the century, V.D.
Nabokov was among the leaders of the Constitutional Democratic (Kadet)
Party and of its faction in the First Duma. When in July of 1906 the Duma
was dissolved, Nabokov Sr., together with other deputies, protested their
dismissal in the Vyborg Manifesto. The Manifesto signators were tried and
in some cases sentenced to jail terms. V.D. Nabokokv was among the latter,
serving three months in St Petersburg's Kresty prison. His prison
experience and his thoughts on the Russian penal system are reflected in
his _Prision Pastimes_ (Tyuremne dosugi [1908]). Nabokov Jr. undoubtedly
understood the importance of this unique first-hand account by his father,
a distinguished criminalist, and apparently employed it in his _Invitation
to a Beheading_ (1935-36), a dystopian novel set in prison.
Comparison of the two texts points to similarities between them,
including everyday prison life and cell interiors, as well as style and
intonation. The novel also contains an allusion to Charles Dickens's
_American Notes_ (1842), pehaps inspired by its mention in _Prison
Pastimes_. Finally, _Invitation to a Beheading_ can be viewed as an
illustration of Nabokov pere's ideas on ethical and legal issues, such as
the correctional function of prison, solitaty confinement, and capital
punishment.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Julian Connolly, University of Virgina
"The Tremor of Fantasy"
The paper analyses the evolution of folkloric images and
Mythological fgures in Nabokov's early stories. The reader of these
stories meets a series of supernatural beings ranging from the tired
wood sprite of "Nezhit'" (The Sprite) to the vengeful angel of "Udar
kryla" (Wingstroke).
The appearance of these figures is of complex and many-sided
meaning. Behind the fantastic figures in Nabokov's work one can see
serious metaphysical reflection. Nabokov uses these images of mythological
figures in personal attempt to depict the themes of loss, death, and so
on.
One notes that with the passage of time such mythological images
become ever rarer in Nabokov's work but the author's striving for
metaphysical reflections do not disappear along with the these images. On
the contrary, the reader can find traces of this phenomenon even in
Nabokov's vey last works. My paper examines several stories of the
Twenties in which the initial stage of this thematic appears.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Marianne Gourg (France)
"An Attempted Analysis of the Tale "Spring in Fialta"
When Nabokov-Sirin wrote "Spring in Fialta" in 1936 he realized
that he soon would have to leave Germany (and probably Europe) and
become an English-language writer. In 1956 Nabokov, having become an American
writer, put out a small collection of fourteen Russian stories under the
title _Spring in Fialta_. The tale, one that VN especially valued, was
written parallel to the novel _The Gift (1932-38).
My paper traces the numerous intellectual ties existing between
"Spring in Fialta" and classical Russian literature and Silver Age poetry
on the one hand, and Western European experimental literature on the
other. I stress the kinship of "Spring in Fialta and _The Gift_, the
sharing of a series of motifs and certain plot ploys, generalizing their
orientation toward the meta-literary.
"Spring in Fialta" is, in its way, a miniaturization of _The
Gift_. In this tale one sees in concentrated form the literary evolution
of Nabokov from poetry to prose, from Russian to English or French. The
oscillations and movements accompanying this process are conveyed via
concrete motifs endowed with meta-literary significance and are connected
with literary polemics of the period, i.e., the polemic with the journal
_Chisla_, the rejection of litterature engage)."
Moreover, in a retrospective reading of "Spring in Fialta," one
can discover the presence of the sound system that generates, in the words
of the author, the novel _ADA_ (1969), i.e, or/ap/bl/pl/fl.... In the case
at hand, Russian and English form layers and jointly promote the
appearance of a basic creative layer of artistic consciousness. On careful
examination the short tale "Spring in Fialta" concentrates within itself
virtually all of Nabokov's creative process. This probably accounts for
the author's extraordinary partiality to this work.
Trans. D.B.Johnson
------------------------------------------------------------
Magalena Medaric (University of Zagreb)
MIMICRY AS A SYMBOLIC IMAGE OF THE WORLD
The paper discusses the possibility of adopting the concept of
"mimicry," a term generally accepted in the natural sciences, as a concept
in the history of culture as well. As such, this notion has served a
number of twentieth century authors as the basis of many illumintive
metaphors with which they brightened their image of the world.
The paper opens with a discussion of the term "mimicy" in VN's
writings. Particular attention is devoted to the views of Vladimir
Alexandrov, the scholar who pointed out the role of the concept of mimicry
in Nabokov's explicit and implicit poetics. Alexandrov also associates
this notion, so relevant for Nabokokv, with the literature of Russia's
Silver Age, in which he noted a similar treatment of the
word-concept-image in the works of Nikolai Evreinov and Petr Uspenskii.
Inspired by Alexandrov's work, I investigated in greater detail
the work of Evreinov and Uspenskii, possible predecessors on VN in the
Russian intellectual tradition, but discovered the word-image-concept
in question had currency in Western European culture of the time,
specifically in the work of some of Nabokov's contemporaries, i.e., R.
Cailois, J. Lacan, and Thomas Mann.
"The world as mimicry" is an illuminative metaphor and is, I
think, one of a series of similar metaphors that paint a symbolic picture
of the world. Other such metaphors include the labyrinth, the mirror, the
enigma, etc. (cited, for example, by G.R. Kocke as contemporary
culturological concepts).
My paper aims at defining the general semantic range of the notion
of mimicry in present-day culture and for this reason distinguishes and
compares the terminological and associative fields of the word in the
natural sciences and the humanities. With its semantic core, i.e., its
properties that suggested mimesis, the neologism "mimicry" (which
originally appeared as a 19th century biological term) inspired
interpreters in humanistic circles. The notion that nature can imitate
something or someone else is the central point of the interpretations of
this phenomenon and concept in the work of these authors. This means that
nature itself has mimetic abilities or even inclinations.
Particular attention is given to how the theme of mimicry is
confronted is the works of two leading European novelists of the 20th
century: Nabokov & Mann. these two writers--whose similarity has been
noted by critics, but also disputed, especially in the statements of the
younger artist -- turn up in relation to mimicry as two co-travellers in
literature. The paper analyses Mann's _Doktor Faustus_, especially the
function of the motif of mimicry at the level of character, plot,
composition, and image of the world. Next, conclusions from this novel are
compared to conclusions about the role of mimicry in Nabokov's texts.
These two writers present themselves as similar, not only in the way they
construct prose (leitmotifs as a means of structuring ornamental wholes of
prose), but also in aspects of their picture of the world ("art as
illusion": "mimicry as a cryptogram of a higher, unreachable, metaphyical
realisty"). However, they are also different. For Nabokov, mimicry bears
witness to the harmony of the inherent world, ethics and aesthetics are
not in conflict with one another; for Mann, mimicry is part of the
demonic, diabolical aspect of the world, ethics and aesthetics are found
in tragic conflict.
--------------------------------------------------------
Gavriel Shapiro (Cornell University)
_INVITATION TO A BEHEADING_ IN THE LIGHT OF "PRISON PASTIMES"
A prominent Russian statesman of the turn of the century, V.D.
Nabokov was among the leaders of the Constitutional Democratic (Kadet)
Party and of its faction in the First Duma. When in July of 1906 the Duma
was dissolved, Nabokov Sr., together with other deputies, protested their
dismissal in the Vyborg Manifesto. The Manifesto signators were tried and
in some cases sentenced to jail terms. V.D. Nabokokv was among the latter,
serving three months in St Petersburg's Kresty prison. His prison
experience and his thoughts on the Russian penal system are reflected in
his _Prision Pastimes_ (Tyuremne dosugi [1908]). Nabokov Jr. undoubtedly
understood the importance of this unique first-hand account by his father,
a distinguished criminalist, and apparently employed it in his _Invitation
to a Beheading_ (1935-36), a dystopian novel set in prison.
Comparison of the two texts points to similarities between them,
including everyday prison life and cell interiors, as well as style and
intonation. The novel also contains an allusion to Charles Dickens's
_American Notes_ (1842), pehaps inspired by its mention in _Prison
Pastimes_. Finally, _Invitation to a Beheading_ can be viewed as an
illustration of Nabokov pere's ideas on ethical and legal issues, such as
the correctional function of prison, solitaty confinement, and capital
punishment.
-------------------------------------------------------
Olga Skonechnaya (Moscow)
NABOKOV's _DESPAIR_ & SOLOGUB's _PETTY DEMON_
(Russian Symbolist traditions in Nabokov's Prose of the Twenties and Thirties)
C' etait G. Adamovitch qui pour la premiere fois avait compare _La
Meprise_ avec le fameux roman de Sologoub, ayant apprecie dans la figure
de Nabokov l'heritier de ce fil "fou" et "froid" de Sologoub, venant
encore "de la tradition de Gogol." Mais il faut noter que cette
observation fut plutot une reproche pas originale pour Nabobov, qui etais
accuse de la mediocrite metaphysique qu'une tentative d'analyse objective
des racines de son oeuvre.
Tout la meme le probleme de la relativisation de _Meprise_ de du
_Petit diable_ existe bien sur et peut se representer sous deux aspects:
celui de perception par Nabokov de la tradition de Sologoub et plus
largement -- des traditions du symbolismme russe et celui de reproduction
du _Petit Duiable_ dans le texte de _La Meprise_.
Nous connaissons que Nabokov considerait Sologoub comme l'ecrivain
bien mediocre. Nous ne pouvons donc faire approacher la conception du
monde et la poetique des deux ecrivains qu'au niveau tres general -- c'est
a dire, de l'approche d'oeuvre de Nbaokokv au systeme du symbolisme russe
tout entier. La modele de deux mondes, base sur l'idee de la divinisation
de l'individu creatif, et la variation pessimiste de ce modele avec les
motifs typiques pour ce dernier de la captivite de conscience humaine
trouverent sa place sans aucun doute dans la prose de Nabokov des annees
20-30. D'ailleurs la realisation de ce modele la plus proche a Nabokov
c'etait pas celle de Sologoub, bien monotone, mais son caractere plus
complique dans l'oeuvre des symbolists cadets: A. Blok et surtout A.
Belyj.
En meme temps la consideration du roman de Sologoub _Le Petit
diable_ comme une des allusions de _La Meprise_ est tres importante pour
la comprehension du texte de Nabokov. En ecrivant son anti-heros --
despote mediocre qui pretend au role du Createur, Nabokov reproduit et
developpe l'image du "petit diable," mise en monde par Sologoub et
penetree dans la culture symboliste. Les traits essentiels de cette image
-- calomnie au Createur, faussete de la Creation, trivialization de la
Beaute, trouvent un nouveau sens dans le texte de Nabokokv, s'enrichissent
et prennent des formes inconnues des allusions culturelles.
Le theme diabolique dans tous les deux romans se realise dans les
motifs de cecite, de peur des miroirs, de loup-garou, etc. Le sujet
d'assassinat du faux-double est transforme d'une maniere spirituelle par
Nabokov: le sens metaphysique profund du crime de Peredonov se reproduit
dans _La Meprise_ par plusiers details de Sologoub: canne, lettres
initiales demasquentes, repere sur le corps du victime ou assassin et
d'autres.
Une des proprietes les plus importantes de la poetique des
reminiscences de Nabokokv est la deguisement d'une allusion par l'autre,
qui est montree visiblement au lecteur. Si _Le Petit diable_ est cache
dans _La Meprise_ sous _La Dame de pique_ et _Les Ames mortes, _Crime et
Chatiment_ masque parmi les autres une allusion sur le sujet du "crime
parfait" _Des Caves du Vatican_ de A. Gide, J.-P. Sartre, en ressemblance
a Adamovitch, a identifie L'auteur de _Meprise_ avec Hermann Carlovitch et
les masques litteraires de ce dernier.
-------------------------------------------------------
David Rampton (University of Ottawa)
NABOKOV'S "POUCHKINE, OU LE VRAI ET LE VRAISEMBLABLE"
My contention in this paper is that Nabokov's 1937 article,
"Pouchkine, ou le vrai et le vraisemblable," has been unjustly neglected.
Ostensibly an appreciation of Russia's premier poet and a treatise on the
importance of making basic critical distinctions, it has, understandably
enough, been viewed as a casual sketch, something that was to be
splendidly superseded by the commentary in the multi-volume Pushkin
translation published some thirty years later. The more recondite, more
imaginative fiction Nabokov was producing in the 1930s has therefore
received the bulk of our attention. yet this article, like so much else in
Nabokov's work, is not exactlt what it seems, and deserves to be better
known.
I shall argue that it actually serves as a capsule summary of the
principal issues he was concurrently exploring in his fiction: the
multi-faceted nature of the "biographie romancee," the difficulties
attendant on any attempt to enter another's world, the importance of the
difference between the elite and plebian, and the task of preserving
Russian culture by resisting vulgar attempts to appropriate it. Not only
that: at the same time it reveals the determinedly pre-modernist aspects
of Nabokov's own critical assumptions, as he brilliantly refights the
battles of the 1840s and 50s in the 1930s. He published all of his Russian
novels in the most eminent of Parisian emigre jounals, and the Pushkin
piece in _Nouvelle Revue Francaise,_ yet the approach to the problems
posed by Pushkin's work reveals both Nabokokvs' quasi-total isolation from
twentieth-century literary and intellectual movements and the
fundamentally anti-theoretical foundations of his art. The author who
prided himself on travelling through life in a space helmet had a mind too
fine to be ravished by a modernist theory.
The whole process of stating a thesis, adducing relevant evidence,
making logical transitions, and moving toward a plausible conclusion is
somewhat alien to Nabokov's aesthetic sensibility, and the "Le vrai et le
vraisemblable" helps explain his aversion to and distain of the
expository mode as a means of exploring ideas about literature. Finally,
in its anatomy of a madman and its critique of his banal imaginings, it
offers an intriguing and proleptic look at where Nabokov was going, at
what the subject of his most audacious and successful fiction was to be.