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[NABOKOV-L] Fran Assa and Alexey Sklyarenko: KRUG/The Circle
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Dear Fran and List,
You inquired more about "Krug", after Alexey's new link [ I notice that one of the characters in Zamyatin's story Detskaya ("The Nursery", 1920) is captain Krug.)
With time in my hands ( and "repetition"), I set myself the task of recovering items about Nabokov's story "The Circle" ( Krug) and data, linking BS's Adam Krug, the image of the Ouroborus (the snake or dragon biting its own tail), to all sorts of exciting themes, by Nina Kressova.*
Nabokov's short-story THE CIRCLE (Krug) starts with: "IN THE second place, because he was possessed by a sudden mad hankering after Russia. In the third place, finally, because he regretted those years of youth and everything associated with it..."
Its last lines are: "Suddenly Innokentiy grasped a wonderful fact: nothing is lost, nothing whatever; memory accumulates treasures, stored-up secrets grow in darkness and dust, and one day a transient visitor at a lending library wants a book that has not once been asked for in twenty-two years. He-got up from his seat, made his adieux...What a dreadful feeling of uneasiness. He felt that way for several reasons. In the first place, because Tanya had remained as enchanting and as invulnerable as she had been in the past...."#
Information THE CIRCLE (page 371) written by Vladimir Nabokov (Cf. The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov, Knopf, 1995)
"By the middle of 1936, not long before leaving Berlin forever and finishing Dar (The Gift) in France, I must have completed at least four-fifths of its last chapter when at some point a small satellite separated itself from the main body of the novel and started to revolve around it. Psychologically, the separation may have been sparked either by the mention of Tanya's baby in her brother's letter or by his recalling the village schoolmaster in a doomful dream. Technically, the circle which the present corollary describes (its last sentence existing implicitly before its first one) belongs to the same serpent-biting-its-tail type as the circular structure of the fourth chapter in Dar (or, for that matter, Finnegans Wake, which it preceded). A knowledge of the novel is not required for the enjoyment of the corollary which has its own orbit and colored fire, but some practical help may be derived from the reader's knowing that the action of The Gift starts on April 1, 1926, and ends on June 29, 1929[ ...] It may be added that the story will produce upon readers who are familiar with the novel a delightful effect of oblique recognition, of shifting shades enriched with new sense, owing to the world's being seen not through the eyes of Fyodor, but through those of an outsider less close to him than to old Russia's idealistic radicals ..." Krug was published in 1936, in Paris, but the exact date and periodical ( presumably, Poslednie Novosti) have not yet been established in bibliographic retrospect. It was reprintes twenty years later in the collection of my short stories Vesna v Fialte, Chekhov Publishing House, New York, 1956.
About the character "Adam Krug" in Bend Sinister, I direct those interested to the thesis written by Nina Kressova :"Bajo El Signo de Proteo: Estudio Comparado de Temas e Motivos en las Obras de Jorge Luis Borges y Vladimir Nabokov," where she examines in both authors the concepts of "repetition"**, "singularity", the "eternal return,", "mirrors"***
..............................................................
* - The bibliography about Bend Sinister is enormous. My choice to recommend Nina Kressova's thesis ( in Spanish) obeys a special whim: the present associations, in the Nab-List, of Nabokov and Borges through VN's parody of Borges' "soulful stance" and Freud's article (FortDa in "Beyond the Pleasure Principle"), which deals with trauma, the compulsion to repeat and introduces for the first time Freud's controversial "Death Drive" (Todestrieb). The circularity of "time" (Vico, Joyce, Krug) and the image of the "ourobouros" (snake or dragon) have been recurrent in the List, too.
** Lo refiere en algunas ocasiones, como, por ejemplo, en el diálogo del Profesor de Historia Moderna con el de Economía en Barra siniestra, donde el primero replica: “Mi cliente nunca se repite. Al menos cuando mi gente espera ansiosamente que se produzca una repetición. En realidad, Clío sólo puede repetirse inconscientemente. Porque tiene muy mala memoria. Como ocurre con tantos fenómenos de tiempo, las combinaciones recurrentes sólo son perceptibles como tales cuando ya no pueden afectarnos, cuando están aprisionados, por decirlo así, en el pasado que es el pasado precisamente porque está desinfectado”. Esta reflexión del Profesor de Historia Moderna su interlocutor, totalmente contrario a la opinión expresada, tacha de “puro krugismo” (Barra Siniestra, 56-57) El eco de la teoría platónica observamos en el estudio del padre de Fiodor Godunov-Cherdyncev en el segundo anexo a Dadiva, donde el autor de Mariposas del Imperio Ruso define “la especie” como “el original del ser”, “inexistente en nuestra realidad, pero único y determinado en la idea, <…> que repitiéndose sin cesar en el espejo de la naturaleza, genera infinitos reflejos”. “Cada uno de ellos, - prosigue el famoso entomólogo, - nuestra mente, reflejada en el mismo cristal y solamente allí hallada su realidad, percibe como un ejemplar vivo”.
*** En la obra de Borges el principio del espejo organiza la historia del universo, es el mecanismo del progreso que se desarrolla bajo el signo de “eterno regreso”. El hombre que cae en la trampa del speculum ludens identificando a si mismo con todos sus reflejos, no logra entender que en este mundo el concepto de singularidad es sólo una ilusión creada para las mentes condicionadas por el tiempo y el espacio. “Entre los Inmortales, en cambio, cada acto (y cada pensamiento) es el eco de otros que en el pasado lo antecedieron, sin principio visible, o el fiel presagio de otros que en el futuro lo repetirán hasta el vértigo. No hay otra cosa que no esté como perdida entre infatigables espejos” (B: El Inmortal; I; 542). Ideas similares podemos encontrar en los textos de Nabókov. Así, el filosofo Adam Krug ofrece a sus lectores sacudir el “calidoscopio telescópico”, - “porque qué otra cosa es su universo que un aparato que contiene los pedacitos de cristal multicolores, que dependiendo de la configuración de los espejos se nos presentan en multitudes de formas simétricas”, - y lanzar esta “cosa estúpida” lo más lejos posible. (“La barra siniestra”).
(A través de los espejos y que es lo que vieron allí Borges y Nabókov.)
#other excerpts:
[...]on the threshold of this century, at a time when Godunov-Cherdyntsev had returned from his fifth expedition to central Asia and was spending the summer at Leshino, his estate in the Government of St. Petersburg, with his young wife (at forty he was twice as old as she)....
[...]Tanya used to say that they had relatives not only in the animal kingdom but also among plants and minerals. And, indeed, Russian and foreign naturalists had described under the specific name of "godunovi" a new pheasant, a new antelope, a new rhododendron, and there was even a whole Godunov Range (he himself described only insects)...[...] Innokentiy slept ...sometimes, however, a dream image would take an erotic turn, the force of its thrill would carry him out of the sleep circle, and for several moments he would remain lying as he was...
[...] Tanya came home, all her features fixed more clearly now by the etching needle of years...and without the least embarrassment recalling that distant summer, while he kept marveling that neither Tanya nor her mother mentioned the dead explorer and spoke so simply about the past, instead of bursting into the awful sobs...
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You inquired more about "Krug", after Alexey's new link [ I notice that one of the characters in Zamyatin's story Detskaya ("The Nursery", 1920) is captain Krug.)
With time in my hands ( and "repetition"), I set myself the task of recovering items about Nabokov's story "The Circle" ( Krug) and data, linking BS's Adam Krug, the image of the Ouroborus (the snake or dragon biting its own tail), to all sorts of exciting themes, by Nina Kressova.*
Nabokov's short-story THE CIRCLE (Krug) starts with: "IN THE second place, because he was possessed by a sudden mad hankering after Russia. In the third place, finally, because he regretted those years of youth and everything associated with it..."
Its last lines are: "Suddenly Innokentiy grasped a wonderful fact: nothing is lost, nothing whatever; memory accumulates treasures, stored-up secrets grow in darkness and dust, and one day a transient visitor at a lending library wants a book that has not once been asked for in twenty-two years. He-got up from his seat, made his adieux...What a dreadful feeling of uneasiness. He felt that way for several reasons. In the first place, because Tanya had remained as enchanting and as invulnerable as she had been in the past...."#
Information THE CIRCLE (page 371) written by Vladimir Nabokov (Cf. The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov, Knopf, 1995)
"By the middle of 1936, not long before leaving Berlin forever and finishing Dar (The Gift) in France, I must have completed at least four-fifths of its last chapter when at some point a small satellite separated itself from the main body of the novel and started to revolve around it. Psychologically, the separation may have been sparked either by the mention of Tanya's baby in her brother's letter or by his recalling the village schoolmaster in a doomful dream. Technically, the circle which the present corollary describes (its last sentence existing implicitly before its first one) belongs to the same serpent-biting-its-tail type as the circular structure of the fourth chapter in Dar (or, for that matter, Finnegans Wake, which it preceded). A knowledge of the novel is not required for the enjoyment of the corollary which has its own orbit and colored fire, but some practical help may be derived from the reader's knowing that the action of The Gift starts on April 1, 1926, and ends on June 29, 1929[ ...] It may be added that the story will produce upon readers who are familiar with the novel a delightful effect of oblique recognition, of shifting shades enriched with new sense, owing to the world's being seen not through the eyes of Fyodor, but through those of an outsider less close to him than to old Russia's idealistic radicals ..." Krug was published in 1936, in Paris, but the exact date and periodical ( presumably, Poslednie Novosti) have not yet been established in bibliographic retrospect. It was reprintes twenty years later in the collection of my short stories Vesna v Fialte, Chekhov Publishing House, New York, 1956.
About the character "Adam Krug" in Bend Sinister, I direct those interested to the thesis written by Nina Kressova :"Bajo El Signo de Proteo: Estudio Comparado de Temas e Motivos en las Obras de Jorge Luis Borges y Vladimir Nabokov," where she examines in both authors the concepts of "repetition"**, "singularity", the "eternal return,", "mirrors"***
..............................................................
* - The bibliography about Bend Sinister is enormous. My choice to recommend Nina Kressova's thesis ( in Spanish) obeys a special whim: the present associations, in the Nab-List, of Nabokov and Borges through VN's parody of Borges' "soulful stance" and Freud's article (FortDa in "Beyond the Pleasure Principle"), which deals with trauma, the compulsion to repeat and introduces for the first time Freud's controversial "Death Drive" (Todestrieb). The circularity of "time" (Vico, Joyce, Krug) and the image of the "ourobouros" (snake or dragon) have been recurrent in the List, too.
** Lo refiere en algunas ocasiones, como, por ejemplo, en el diálogo del Profesor de Historia Moderna con el de Economía en Barra siniestra, donde el primero replica: “Mi cliente nunca se repite. Al menos cuando mi gente espera ansiosamente que se produzca una repetición. En realidad, Clío sólo puede repetirse inconscientemente. Porque tiene muy mala memoria. Como ocurre con tantos fenómenos de tiempo, las combinaciones recurrentes sólo son perceptibles como tales cuando ya no pueden afectarnos, cuando están aprisionados, por decirlo así, en el pasado que es el pasado precisamente porque está desinfectado”. Esta reflexión del Profesor de Historia Moderna su interlocutor, totalmente contrario a la opinión expresada, tacha de “puro krugismo” (Barra Siniestra, 56-57) El eco de la teoría platónica observamos en el estudio del padre de Fiodor Godunov-Cherdyncev en el segundo anexo a Dadiva, donde el autor de Mariposas del Imperio Ruso define “la especie” como “el original del ser”, “inexistente en nuestra realidad, pero único y determinado en la idea, <…> que repitiéndose sin cesar en el espejo de la naturaleza, genera infinitos reflejos”. “Cada uno de ellos, - prosigue el famoso entomólogo, - nuestra mente, reflejada en el mismo cristal y solamente allí hallada su realidad, percibe como un ejemplar vivo”.
*** En la obra de Borges el principio del espejo organiza la historia del universo, es el mecanismo del progreso que se desarrolla bajo el signo de “eterno regreso”. El hombre que cae en la trampa del speculum ludens identificando a si mismo con todos sus reflejos, no logra entender que en este mundo el concepto de singularidad es sólo una ilusión creada para las mentes condicionadas por el tiempo y el espacio. “Entre los Inmortales, en cambio, cada acto (y cada pensamiento) es el eco de otros que en el pasado lo antecedieron, sin principio visible, o el fiel presagio de otros que en el futuro lo repetirán hasta el vértigo. No hay otra cosa que no esté como perdida entre infatigables espejos” (B: El Inmortal; I; 542). Ideas similares podemos encontrar en los textos de Nabókov. Así, el filosofo Adam Krug ofrece a sus lectores sacudir el “calidoscopio telescópico”, - “porque qué otra cosa es su universo que un aparato que contiene los pedacitos de cristal multicolores, que dependiendo de la configuración de los espejos se nos presentan en multitudes de formas simétricas”, - y lanzar esta “cosa estúpida” lo más lejos posible. (“La barra siniestra”).
(A través de los espejos y que es lo que vieron allí Borges y Nabókov.)
#other excerpts:
[...]on the threshold of this century, at a time when Godunov-Cherdyntsev had returned from his fifth expedition to central Asia and was spending the summer at Leshino, his estate in the Government of St. Petersburg, with his young wife (at forty he was twice as old as she)....
[...]Tanya used to say that they had relatives not only in the animal kingdom but also among plants and minerals. And, indeed, Russian and foreign naturalists had described under the specific name of "godunovi" a new pheasant, a new antelope, a new rhododendron, and there was even a whole Godunov Range (he himself described only insects)...[...] Innokentiy slept ...sometimes, however, a dream image would take an erotic turn, the force of its thrill would carry him out of the sleep circle, and for several moments he would remain lying as he was...
[...] Tanya came home, all her features fixed more clearly now by the etching needle of years...and without the least embarrassment recalling that distant summer, while he kept marveling that neither Tanya nor her mother mentioned the dead explorer and spoke so simply about the past, instead of bursting into the awful sobs...
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/