Subject
"Spring in Fialta" (fwd)
Date
Body
From: Roy Johnson <Roy@mantex.demon.co.uk>
Those who see a Hitchcock-like walk-on part for Nabokov in the
figure of the Englishman in "Spring in Fialta" might be
interested in the following extract from my study of the story,
which will appear soon in the VN forum. In a later part of the
study I go on to draw parallels between VN and Ferdinand, but the
important point here (which is a hint at my interpretation of the
story) is Victor's reliability as a narrator. More soon!
===========================================
Victor notices an Englishman in plus fours, and it is this man's
lustful glance towards Nina which leads Victor to see her. Later,
the Englishman reappears in the restaurant where Nina, Victor and
Ferdinand are lunching: this time his gaze is attracted to a moth
which he catches in a pill box. Similarly, a young girl appears
briefly at the beginning of the story "with a string of beads
around her dusky neck" (p.2) then again later Victor notices "a
swarthy girl with beads around her pretty neck" (p.18).
These are some of the small details which form the pattern of the
"mosaic". But they are not just simple structural echoes or walk-
on-walk-off parts for secondary characters which in themselves
would make the story no more than choreographically interesting:
they also tell us something about Victor's reliability as a
narrator. In the first of these examples it seems that he
misjudged the Englishman, and in the second it is evident that
he himself fails to recognise the little girl on the second
occasion of seeing her. Are his senses as wide open as he
originally claimed they were?
Those who see a Hitchcock-like walk-on part for Nabokov in the
figure of the Englishman in "Spring in Fialta" might be
interested in the following extract from my study of the story,
which will appear soon in the VN forum. In a later part of the
study I go on to draw parallels between VN and Ferdinand, but the
important point here (which is a hint at my interpretation of the
story) is Victor's reliability as a narrator. More soon!
===========================================
Victor notices an Englishman in plus fours, and it is this man's
lustful glance towards Nina which leads Victor to see her. Later,
the Englishman reappears in the restaurant where Nina, Victor and
Ferdinand are lunching: this time his gaze is attracted to a moth
which he catches in a pill box. Similarly, a young girl appears
briefly at the beginning of the story "with a string of beads
around her dusky neck" (p.2) then again later Victor notices "a
swarthy girl with beads around her pretty neck" (p.18).
These are some of the small details which form the pattern of the
"mosaic". But they are not just simple structural echoes or walk-
on-walk-off parts for secondary characters which in themselves
would make the story no more than choreographically interesting:
they also tell us something about Victor's reliability as a
narrator. In the first of these examples it seems that he
misjudged the Englishman, and in the second it is evident that
he himself fails to recognise the little girl on the second
occasion of seeing her. Are his senses as wide open as he
originally claimed they were?