Subject
Nemo, Nikerbroker, Ulysses, Kinbote
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Date
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While I was searching for references to Nemo and Nobody (thinking about the
Odyssey, particularly after hearing two words in Greek, nostalgia and
something sounding like the German Niemand, in a movie about photography,
cinematography and memory called Ulysses Gaze - To Vlemma tou Odyssea -
by Theo Angelopoulos), and considering Kinbote and a trail of discussions in
the VN-L related to Nitko(b), I came to the fictional double Mr.
Nikerbroker in an article by Maria Lobytsyna. Curiously, I cannot remember
reading this part in Speak,Memory: one must always return to VNs texts,
over and over and still the story continues over the slabs of pieces Ive
forgotten.
Here is the quote:
The Nabokovian protagonist in most of his American Works is mythopoetic,
forcing his imagination to conjure the smallest details of those places of
his youth St. Petersburg and the Nabokovs estate, for example destroyed
during the revolution and the Civil Was of 1917-1921. Nabokov invented the
fictional double Mr.Nikerbroker Mr. Nobody to emphasise his obsessive
search for nothing and to reflect the indifference of cruelty of an
abstract history that moves people about like the chess-figures. Indeed,
the leitmotif of the chess-game becomes at once a crucial narrative device
and a symbol of human homelessness.
<https://www.academia.edu/9307302/HE_OTHER_SHORES_OF_VLADIMIR_NABOKOV>
https://www.academia.edu/9307302/HE_OTHER_SHORES_OF_VLADIMIR_NABOKOV
The Other Shores of Vladímir Nabokov, Maria Lobytsyna
A review of the Angelopoulos movie reproduced the words said by Harvey
Keitel/ Ulysses in the end and informed me that it derives from Homers
epic: After I return I shall arrive in another mans clothes, under a
different name and with different facts. Ill be back. This is the story of
humanity. A story that never ends.
I was reminded of Kinbotes words concerning the assassin Gradus but, when I
checked it in VNs text, I realized that I was, once again, under the
influence of Nabokovs referential mania: nothing warranted any
connections between the nostalgic Kinbote/Botkin(Nitko?) and the Greek hero,
nor the fact that Jakob Gradus also appears in police records as Ravus,
Ravenstone and dArgus (Ulysses dog, the first to recognize him under a
different guise, something that the initial Gradus didnt manage to do ).
Although the lines I recollected bore no actual similarity to any Homeric
allusion, my eerie feeling remained free-floating and unaltered:
I may pander to the simple tastes of theatrical critics and cook up a stage
play, an old-fashioned melodrama with three principles: a lunatic who
intends to kill an imaginary king, another lunatic who imagines himself to
be that king, and a distinguished old poet who stumbles by chance into the
line of fire, and perishes in the clash between the two figments. Oh, I may
do many things! History permitting, I may sail back to my recovered kingdom,
and with a great sob greet the gray coastline and the gleam of a roof in the
rain. I may huddle and groan in a madhouse. But whatever happens, wherever
the scene is laid, somebody, somewhere, will quietly set out somebody has
already set out, somebody still rather far away is buying a ticket, is
boarding a bus, a ship, a plane, has landed, is walking toward a million
photographers, and presently he will ring at my door a bigger, more
respectable, more competent Gradus. (CKs note on line 1000, the absent
line which our commentator interprets as reproducing the first line of the
poem ).
Search archive with Google:
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Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
AdaOnline: "http://www.ada.auckland.ac.nz/
The Nabokov Society of Japan's Annotations to Ada: http://vnjapan.org/main/ada/index.html
The VN Bibliography Blog: http://vnbiblio.com/
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Odyssey, particularly after hearing two words in Greek, nostalgia and
something sounding like the German Niemand, in a movie about photography,
cinematography and memory called Ulysses Gaze - To Vlemma tou Odyssea -
by Theo Angelopoulos), and considering Kinbote and a trail of discussions in
the VN-L related to Nitko(b), I came to the fictional double Mr.
Nikerbroker in an article by Maria Lobytsyna. Curiously, I cannot remember
reading this part in Speak,Memory: one must always return to VNs texts,
over and over and still the story continues over the slabs of pieces Ive
forgotten.
Here is the quote:
The Nabokovian protagonist in most of his American Works is mythopoetic,
forcing his imagination to conjure the smallest details of those places of
his youth St. Petersburg and the Nabokovs estate, for example destroyed
during the revolution and the Civil Was of 1917-1921. Nabokov invented the
fictional double Mr.Nikerbroker Mr. Nobody to emphasise his obsessive
search for nothing and to reflect the indifference of cruelty of an
abstract history that moves people about like the chess-figures. Indeed,
the leitmotif of the chess-game becomes at once a crucial narrative device
and a symbol of human homelessness.
<https://www.academia.edu/9307302/HE_OTHER_SHORES_OF_VLADIMIR_NABOKOV>
https://www.academia.edu/9307302/HE_OTHER_SHORES_OF_VLADIMIR_NABOKOV
The Other Shores of Vladímir Nabokov, Maria Lobytsyna
A review of the Angelopoulos movie reproduced the words said by Harvey
Keitel/ Ulysses in the end and informed me that it derives from Homers
epic: After I return I shall arrive in another mans clothes, under a
different name and with different facts. Ill be back. This is the story of
humanity. A story that never ends.
I was reminded of Kinbotes words concerning the assassin Gradus but, when I
checked it in VNs text, I realized that I was, once again, under the
influence of Nabokovs referential mania: nothing warranted any
connections between the nostalgic Kinbote/Botkin(Nitko?) and the Greek hero,
nor the fact that Jakob Gradus also appears in police records as Ravus,
Ravenstone and dArgus (Ulysses dog, the first to recognize him under a
different guise, something that the initial Gradus didnt manage to do ).
Although the lines I recollected bore no actual similarity to any Homeric
allusion, my eerie feeling remained free-floating and unaltered:
I may pander to the simple tastes of theatrical critics and cook up a stage
play, an old-fashioned melodrama with three principles: a lunatic who
intends to kill an imaginary king, another lunatic who imagines himself to
be that king, and a distinguished old poet who stumbles by chance into the
line of fire, and perishes in the clash between the two figments. Oh, I may
do many things! History permitting, I may sail back to my recovered kingdom,
and with a great sob greet the gray coastline and the gleam of a roof in the
rain. I may huddle and groan in a madhouse. But whatever happens, wherever
the scene is laid, somebody, somewhere, will quietly set out somebody has
already set out, somebody still rather far away is buying a ticket, is
boarding a bus, a ship, a plane, has landed, is walking toward a million
photographers, and presently he will ring at my door a bigger, more
respectable, more competent Gradus. (CKs note on line 1000, the absent
line which our commentator interprets as reproducing the first line of the
poem ).
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
Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
AdaOnline: "http://www.ada.auckland.ac.nz/
The Nabokov Society of Japan's Annotations to Ada: http://vnjapan.org/main/ada/index.html
The VN Bibliography Blog: http://vnbiblio.com/
Search the archive with L-Soft: https://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A0=NABOKV-L
Manage subscription options :http://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=NABOKV-L
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