Subject
Fwd: Re: QUERY: puzzle in Laughter in the Dark
From
Date
Body
David,
Some further thoughts on Nabokov and painting. The VN novel that most
significantly explores the visual arts is Pnin. In an episode midway through
the book, our hero, an instructor in Russian, tenuously employed, meets for
the first time the 15(?) year old son of his ex-wife, Eliza. The boy's
father is Dr. Eric Wind, a psychiatrist for whom Eliza left Pnin.
Victor, the son, is a prodigy of painting, and VN makes it clear that the
boy's unique clarity of vision is a spiritual honesty, a spiritual
forbearence, a gift for seeing the essential beauty of life. The boy knows
his, or perceives somehow, Pnin's status as an exile, and dreams at night of
a king, seated at a polished desk, the gleaming reflection of which presents
a dual image of the king (Rex), like a court card. Although Victor's mother
is careless and cruel (years earlier, in Paris, Pnin unreservedly gave her
his heart and soul and she callously dispensed with them), and his father
Eric Wind is an intellectual of a sort so immersed in theory as to be
literally blind to the beauty of life, Victor instantly recognizes Pnin as
his spiritual father, and a radiant human soul. Eliza unfeelingly jokes at
Pnin as the "water father," since Pnin is the one who paid for Eliza's
passage to America (she pretends to return to Pnin just so that he can pay
for her voyage to the U.S.), and Pnin pays Victor's passage as well, since
Victor exists then in Eliza's womb.
Victor perceives the nuances of beauty: the varying colors of shadows, the
dual existence of trees and sky as they are reflected in a parked car. His
first drawing of his mother is a delicately curved line, which he explains
is the shadow of her form on the kitchen refirgerator.
Victor, as one of the very view who recognize and appreciate the spiritual
beauty of Pnin, honors him with a gift of a aquamarine punch bowl of figured
glass. Pnin has no sense of the monetary value of the gift when it is
pointed out to him by a guest. But he does indeed recognize the gift as an
expression of love made manifest by the son he never had, but who has
claimed him, Pnin, as father,
Painting, and visual perceptions of events, actions, and objects, run all
through Pnin. A pattern composed of squirrels and leaves recurs and fades
and recurs again all through the book. When Pnin goes to the dentist to
have his terrible teeth removed, he entertains himself by wondering how the
objects he is seeing on his walk will look to him when he returns. When he
returns, he is blinded by the pain of the operation, but, as he becomes
accustomed to his new dentures, his sight returns in full force. It is after
this event, that he meets Victor. I may be mistaken, but I think Victor is
one of the view, perhaps the only, actual painter who appears as a major
character in Nabokov's work. There are many dilletantes and artistes manque,
but victorious Victor is a genuine artist, whose gift is analogous to
spiritual beauty.
I hope I haven't bored you with this lengthy reply.
AB
----- Original Message -----
From: "Donald B. Johnson" <chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu>
To: <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
Sent: Sunday, January 30, 2005 12:56 PM
Subject: QUERY: puzzle in Laughter in the Dark
> David,
>
> I'm not absolutely certain VN was doing this at the time that he was
writing
> KQK, but I believe that during VN's Berlin period, he at least once, and
> perhaps several times, supplemented his slender income by performing as an
> "extra" in films. One can pick up a decent day's pay (decent if one is in
> tight financial circumstances), even now, by applying for such work. VN
was
> a distinctively good-looking young man, and was an easy candidate for such
> scenes as a theatre crowd in evening attire.
>
> In any case, I've seen signs in VN's early novels that he was familiar
with
> the film director's practice of "story boarding." This artistic process --
> practiced in extreme detail by Alfred Hitchcock, for one, throughout his
> entire career -- the director and a sketch artist carefully draw the
scenes
> for each day's work. Through this technique the composition of every shot,
> every camera angle, the number of actors, and the position of all the
props,
> are drawn in what is sometimes called "skinny line" sketches, a term that
> comes from the artist's practice of using only a black marker to draw
broad
> strokes on a large white pad, about fourteen by seventeen or twenty
inches.
>
> By doing this in advance, directors can plan each day's work -- ideally,
> three minutes of usable film per day, about three story boards -- will
keep
> the film on time and within budget. Principle shooting of a 90 to a 120
> minute film is about 30 or 40 days. If all goes well (a rarity).
>
> In any case, it seems to me that one of VN's techniques for narrative
> compression (picnic, lightening) MAY have a filmic influence. Just a
theory
> of mine.
>
> AB
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Donald B. Johnson" <chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu>
> To: <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
> Sent: Saturday, January 29, 2005 7:48 PM
> Subject: QUERY: puzzle in Laughter in the Dark
>
>
> > I am not a Nabokov scholar, but rather a visual artist who is pursuing
> > a writing project for the magazine Cabinet, and this is my first
> > posting to Nabokov-L. My query concerns what seems to me to be a
> > puzzle planted in the text of Laughter in the Dark: at the very
> > beginning of the novel Albinus has a "beautiful idea"-- that a
> > hand-drawn animated film could be made in which a famous painting,
> > "preferably of the Dutch school," is brought to life, its actors moving
> > gradually into position through the implicit landscape of the painting.
> > It is in trying to realize this idea that Albinus meets his future
> > "friend" Axel Rex.
> >
> > At the end of Laughter, after Margot shoots Albinus, Nabokov's
> > description of the murder scene is a rather forensic set of "stage
> > directions": "Chair--lying close by dead body of man in a purplish
> > brown suit and felt slippers. Automatic pistol not visable. It is
> > under him." And etc.
> >
> > It occurs to me that the final crime scene description might be, in
> > some perversely dark manner, the realization of Albinus' "beautiful
> > idea." In other words, the entire novel might take the form of a
> > tableau vivant which leads up to all the objects in the scene finding
> > their precise position. Noting also that the gun is not visible, it
> > seems that much more likely that the tableau might be based on a
> > painting of an earlier age--if not the Dutch school, perhaps something
> > more recent (the original novel, Kamera Obscura as well as the two
> > English translations were done in the 1930's.)
> >
> > I have not yet found a painting with the required characteristics, but
> > am beginning to search through the Nabokov literature for clues. Any
> > helpful comments will be much appreciated. First and foremost: has
> > this puzzle been explored elsewhere?
> >
> > Thank you,
> > David B. Brody
> >
> > ----- End forwarded message -----
>
> ----- End forwarded message -----
----- End forwarded message -----
Some further thoughts on Nabokov and painting. The VN novel that most
significantly explores the visual arts is Pnin. In an episode midway through
the book, our hero, an instructor in Russian, tenuously employed, meets for
the first time the 15(?) year old son of his ex-wife, Eliza. The boy's
father is Dr. Eric Wind, a psychiatrist for whom Eliza left Pnin.
Victor, the son, is a prodigy of painting, and VN makes it clear that the
boy's unique clarity of vision is a spiritual honesty, a spiritual
forbearence, a gift for seeing the essential beauty of life. The boy knows
his, or perceives somehow, Pnin's status as an exile, and dreams at night of
a king, seated at a polished desk, the gleaming reflection of which presents
a dual image of the king (Rex), like a court card. Although Victor's mother
is careless and cruel (years earlier, in Paris, Pnin unreservedly gave her
his heart and soul and she callously dispensed with them), and his father
Eric Wind is an intellectual of a sort so immersed in theory as to be
literally blind to the beauty of life, Victor instantly recognizes Pnin as
his spiritual father, and a radiant human soul. Eliza unfeelingly jokes at
Pnin as the "water father," since Pnin is the one who paid for Eliza's
passage to America (she pretends to return to Pnin just so that he can pay
for her voyage to the U.S.), and Pnin pays Victor's passage as well, since
Victor exists then in Eliza's womb.
Victor perceives the nuances of beauty: the varying colors of shadows, the
dual existence of trees and sky as they are reflected in a parked car. His
first drawing of his mother is a delicately curved line, which he explains
is the shadow of her form on the kitchen refirgerator.
Victor, as one of the very view who recognize and appreciate the spiritual
beauty of Pnin, honors him with a gift of a aquamarine punch bowl of figured
glass. Pnin has no sense of the monetary value of the gift when it is
pointed out to him by a guest. But he does indeed recognize the gift as an
expression of love made manifest by the son he never had, but who has
claimed him, Pnin, as father,
Painting, and visual perceptions of events, actions, and objects, run all
through Pnin. A pattern composed of squirrels and leaves recurs and fades
and recurs again all through the book. When Pnin goes to the dentist to
have his terrible teeth removed, he entertains himself by wondering how the
objects he is seeing on his walk will look to him when he returns. When he
returns, he is blinded by the pain of the operation, but, as he becomes
accustomed to his new dentures, his sight returns in full force. It is after
this event, that he meets Victor. I may be mistaken, but I think Victor is
one of the view, perhaps the only, actual painter who appears as a major
character in Nabokov's work. There are many dilletantes and artistes manque,
but victorious Victor is a genuine artist, whose gift is analogous to
spiritual beauty.
I hope I haven't bored you with this lengthy reply.
AB
----- Original Message -----
From: "Donald B. Johnson" <chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu>
To: <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
Sent: Sunday, January 30, 2005 12:56 PM
Subject: QUERY: puzzle in Laughter in the Dark
> David,
>
> I'm not absolutely certain VN was doing this at the time that he was
writing
> KQK, but I believe that during VN's Berlin period, he at least once, and
> perhaps several times, supplemented his slender income by performing as an
> "extra" in films. One can pick up a decent day's pay (decent if one is in
> tight financial circumstances), even now, by applying for such work. VN
was
> a distinctively good-looking young man, and was an easy candidate for such
> scenes as a theatre crowd in evening attire.
>
> In any case, I've seen signs in VN's early novels that he was familiar
with
> the film director's practice of "story boarding." This artistic process --
> practiced in extreme detail by Alfred Hitchcock, for one, throughout his
> entire career -- the director and a sketch artist carefully draw the
scenes
> for each day's work. Through this technique the composition of every shot,
> every camera angle, the number of actors, and the position of all the
props,
> are drawn in what is sometimes called "skinny line" sketches, a term that
> comes from the artist's practice of using only a black marker to draw
broad
> strokes on a large white pad, about fourteen by seventeen or twenty
inches.
>
> By doing this in advance, directors can plan each day's work -- ideally,
> three minutes of usable film per day, about three story boards -- will
keep
> the film on time and within budget. Principle shooting of a 90 to a 120
> minute film is about 30 or 40 days. If all goes well (a rarity).
>
> In any case, it seems to me that one of VN's techniques for narrative
> compression (picnic, lightening) MAY have a filmic influence. Just a
theory
> of mine.
>
> AB
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Donald B. Johnson" <chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu>
> To: <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
> Sent: Saturday, January 29, 2005 7:48 PM
> Subject: QUERY: puzzle in Laughter in the Dark
>
>
> > I am not a Nabokov scholar, but rather a visual artist who is pursuing
> > a writing project for the magazine Cabinet, and this is my first
> > posting to Nabokov-L. My query concerns what seems to me to be a
> > puzzle planted in the text of Laughter in the Dark: at the very
> > beginning of the novel Albinus has a "beautiful idea"-- that a
> > hand-drawn animated film could be made in which a famous painting,
> > "preferably of the Dutch school," is brought to life, its actors moving
> > gradually into position through the implicit landscape of the painting.
> > It is in trying to realize this idea that Albinus meets his future
> > "friend" Axel Rex.
> >
> > At the end of Laughter, after Margot shoots Albinus, Nabokov's
> > description of the murder scene is a rather forensic set of "stage
> > directions": "Chair--lying close by dead body of man in a purplish
> > brown suit and felt slippers. Automatic pistol not visable. It is
> > under him." And etc.
> >
> > It occurs to me that the final crime scene description might be, in
> > some perversely dark manner, the realization of Albinus' "beautiful
> > idea." In other words, the entire novel might take the form of a
> > tableau vivant which leads up to all the objects in the scene finding
> > their precise position. Noting also that the gun is not visible, it
> > seems that much more likely that the tableau might be based on a
> > painting of an earlier age--if not the Dutch school, perhaps something
> > more recent (the original novel, Kamera Obscura as well as the two
> > English translations were done in the 1930's.)
> >
> > I have not yet found a painting with the required characteristics, but
> > am beginning to search through the Nabokov literature for clues. Any
> > helpful comments will be much appreciated. First and foremost: has
> > this puzzle been explored elsewhere?
> >
> > Thank you,
> > David B. Brody
> >
> > ----- End forwarded message -----
>
> ----- End forwarded message -----
----- End forwarded message -----