Nabokov has puzzled critics by reviling the concept of Doppelgänger while making extensive use of it.But his reasons are clear: he calls the allegory of the struggle between Good and Evil in Stevenson's 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde' "tasteless, childish, a superb Punch and Judy show" ...
Dear Jansy and Priscilla,
The quotation cited above from "See What the Sailor has Hidden" is flawed and very misleading. What VN actually wrote is something quite different:
I want to discuss fantasy and reality, and their mutual relationship. If we consider the "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" story as an allegory - - the struggle between Good and Evil within every man - - then this allegory is tasteless and childish. *
Clearly VN does not consider J&H an allegory, and this is stated in clearly in his lecture on that work:
"... Stevenson's story is - - God bless his pure soul - - lame as a detective story. Neither is it a parable nor an allegory, for it would be tasteless as either. ... It ... belongs to the same order of art as for instance Madame Bovary and Dead Souls.**
VN's admiration is not without limits however, and he also writes of J&H "There is a crack in the picture, a lack of unity." *** And in comparison to "the private nightmares" of Kafka and Gogol, "it is only a superb Punch-and-Judy show."****
It is clear that he very much enjoyed that superb Punch and Judy show and admired it., if not unreservedly.
Carolyn
* Lectures on Literature, p. 171 ** ibid, p 180 *** ibid, p. 252 **** ibid, p. 254