Subject
Fw: Puzzlements regarding Godunov-Cherdintsev'Sr. in THE GIFT/Dar
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EDNOTE. Walter Miale raises someinteresting questions here. Fyodor's
portrait of his father does seem inconsistent in spots. On the other hand,
consistency is more a requirementr of art than life. Comments?
----- Original Message -----
From: "Walter Miale" <wmiale@acbm.qc.ca>
> ---------------- Message requiring your approval (141
lines) ------------------
> From: Walter Miale <mailto:wm@greenworldcenter.org>
> To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
> Sent: Wednesday, January 15, 2003
> Subject: Puzzlements regarding Dar
>
> I have not re-read the novel, much less re-re-read it, but a difficulty I
> sometimes have with chess studies and problems is the suspicion that there
> is no solution. I'm afraid in this case there may be simple overlooked
options
> on my part. In any case, I would be grateful for answers to at least some
> of the questions below.
>
> ********
>
> A little less than half way through Chapter Two of The Gift, the narrator
> tells of the time his mother on her own initiative undertook to journey
two
> thousand miles across Russia and central Asia to join his father, and of
> how the moment his father saw her, he "slit his eyes, and in a horribly
> unexpected voice spoke three words: 'You go home,'" and turned around to
> continue his conversation with some Cossacks. Before his mother got very
> far, his father overtook her and they evidently exchanged embraces at
> least, but she continued home, apparently without a word of explanation of
> her husband's conduct, about which Fyodor registers no surprise or takes
> any further interest.
>
> This rather tyrannical behavior of his father toward his mother does not
> appear to color Fyodor's attitude toward him, which seems to be one of
> unqualified adulation. I don't know if Godunov-Cherdyntsev senior had a
> mistress in his tent at the time or what, but is the vehemence with which
> he excludes his wife from his life compatible with the honor his son
> ascribes to him? Why does Fyodor report the incident without comment or
> reflection?
>
> Eight or ten pages later, following a passage in which Fyodor says that
his
> father had zero interest in ethnography and wouldn't go a short distance
> out of his way to visit Lhasa, which he referred to as "one more filthy
> little town," Fyodor, in a paragraph that begins with an account of his
> father's clock-stopping petulance, which could be triggered by a
> miscomputation by a steward or a flippant remark by a friend, writes, "He
> who in his time had slaughtered countless multitudes of birds. . . could
> not forgive me a Leshino sparrow wantonly shot down with a Montecristo
> rifle. . . . He. . .could not stand hypocrisy. . ." The irony here seems
to
> be unmistakable, but as far as I can see, this is out of keeping with the
> tone of the chapter and with Fyodor's attitude of unmodulated reverence
> toward his father. In short, the reader perceives G-Ch senior's faults,
> which appear in the first instance to amount to knavery, as Fyodor
recounts
> these happenings, even though Fyodor, as far as I can see, manifests no
> emotion concerning them. He actually describes his father in the paragraph
> cited as even tempered. What is VN doing? How "reliable" a narrator is
> Godunov with respect to his father? Does the novel, analagously to other
of
> Nabokov's novels, manifest a moral viewpoint that is not shared by the
> fictive author? How to account for the dissonance? I have heard that G-Ch
> senior was one of Nabokov's favorite characters. But could he have admired
> the character's character?
>
> ********
>
> Why is the portrayal of Zina, who is so eccentral a focus of the novel, so
> blurry?
>
> ********
>
> Godunov-Cherdyntsev/Nabokov expresses a faint bit of respect for N.G.
> Chernyshevsky's humane instincts and disposition, but the portrayal
overall
> is blistering. As Boyd puts it, "Fyodor treats Chernyshevsky as an
> intellectual buffoon whose ideas do not deserve the compliment of rational
> opposition." Of course Chernyshevsky the novelist and thinker was an easy
> target and, grandfather as he was (?) of socialist realism, a worthwhile
> target, but did he really deserve what Godunov and Nabokov heaped on him?
>
> Yes, not for nothing apparently was Chernyshevsky a favorite of Lenin;
yes,
> he manifested pronounced strains of crackpotism--if G-Ch's account is
> correct; yes, his prose was klonky, not to say cringey, and in poetry he
> preferred (G-Ch tells us) double dactyls to iambs and trochees, and he
> didn't think much of Poushkin. This was no doubt a manifestation of an
> impoverished aesthetic, but it was, wasn't it, an aesthetic that was
> altogether dominated by ethical values that the author(s) of the bio in
The
> Gift did not share, such as the importance of cooperation to achieve
social
> ends. Chernyshevsky did present his contemporaries with a vision, however
> ineptly drawn, of benevolent enterprise, of the founding of coops, a form
> of association that became the basis not of Soviet communism but of
Swedish
> economic democracy, and he apparently acted selflessly and heroically to
> further social change in the early days of Alexander II and the great
> reforms of the era. --But how significant was his political activity? It
is
> hard to tell from Nabokov's account, so light is it with regard to certain
> details, though heavy with ridicule. Was the general sense of
Chernyshevsky
> as a hero and a saint (which led to so unfriendly a reception of the
> monograph and the novel) so far fetched? Was it mistaken? Did fate really
> bring such suffering to Chernyshevsky because he was so muddled, or was a
> more important factor his acute and courageous social conscience? Should
we
> have expected Godunov and Nabokov to engage Chernyshevsky more on the
> latter's own terms? (For example: "Liberal landowners, liberal writers,
> liberal professors lull you with hopes in the progressive aims of our
> government.") Did the critics of Fyodor's monograph present an adequate
> defense of Chernyshevsky? Or did their failure to do so, along with a
> skewed depiction in the monograph, constitute a shortcoming of The Gift?
>
> Further, was Chernyshevsky's idea that art and poetry are keys to real
life
> rather than things over and above it, as dense as the polemic of The Gift
> would have it? Does his view really denigrate art? For Chernyshevsky,
> beauty of form characterises an aim not only of art but of all human work.
> This brings to mind the epigram Marshall McLuhan attributed to a Balinese:
> We have no art. We do everything well. (Speaking of McLuhan, I'm reminded
> of his comment on some negative reviews of William Burroughs: "It is a
> little like trying to criticize the sartorial and verbal manifestations of
> a man who is knocking on the door to explain that flames are leaping from
> the roof of our home.")
>
> When, in a situation paralleling Fyodor's mother's journey,
Chernyshevsky's
> wife traveled to Siberia to be with him he, like Fyodor's father on the
> outskirts of Tashkent, sent her home in short order--in this case after a
> four-day visit after a three-month trip; but this was for her own safety,
> not so that he could carry on carrying on. Godunov has no comment on this,
> except to emphasize "--four days, reader!--", which is still more comment
> than he makes on the c. four-hour visit and turnaround of his mother in
the
> depths of Kazakhstan.
>
> Chernyshevsky's contemporary, Dostoyevsky, had long ago, in a hilarious
> parody, cut him to ribbons. Apparently that treatment, despite its
> severity, didn't "take", but did the beast really need another flogging?
>
> The Gift and Nabokov himself manifest(ed) an exemplary and inspiring
> attitude to the annoyances and bitter blows of fate. I can't say how
likely
> it is that reading the novel will make one happy, but reading it does
> crystalize a sense of knowing "the secret" of happiness, no small thing,
> and the book dramatizes this knowledge artfully and artistically and
> perhaps, for all my doubts, happily. I do wonder about the limits of its
> attitude toward adversity: how would it apply to a more extreme situation,
> to concentration camp say --or plague-- as opposed to exile? What might
> Jude the Obscure done with Fyodor Konstantinovich's recipe for happiness?
> But more to the point here, don't we find in The Gift, despite its
> affirmation and uplift, a troubling appearance of the "civic cynicism"
> theme in the life of its author who, for all the compassion and decency
> embodied in his work, in his literary criticism, and in his life, seemed
> --correct me if I am mistaken-- to have little sense of how people working
> cooperatively could benefit the community or right the wrongs of society?
> In The Gift (and elsewhere), and not only in the portrait of Chernyshevsky
> but in the account of the silly union meeting and the passage in which
> Godunov laments the stupidity of having gone to it instead of spending the
> evening with his girlfriend, didn't Nabokov tend to disparage the notion
> --which is of the essence of democracy-- that this is possible, and to
> convey his strong sense that trying to do so is an exercise in futility?
portrait of his father does seem inconsistent in spots. On the other hand,
consistency is more a requirementr of art than life. Comments?
----- Original Message -----
From: "Walter Miale" <wmiale@acbm.qc.ca>
> ---------------- Message requiring your approval (141
lines) ------------------
> From: Walter Miale <mailto:wm@greenworldcenter.org>
> To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
> Sent: Wednesday, January 15, 2003
> Subject: Puzzlements regarding Dar
>
> I have not re-read the novel, much less re-re-read it, but a difficulty I
> sometimes have with chess studies and problems is the suspicion that there
> is no solution. I'm afraid in this case there may be simple overlooked
options
> on my part. In any case, I would be grateful for answers to at least some
> of the questions below.
>
> ********
>
> A little less than half way through Chapter Two of The Gift, the narrator
> tells of the time his mother on her own initiative undertook to journey
two
> thousand miles across Russia and central Asia to join his father, and of
> how the moment his father saw her, he "slit his eyes, and in a horribly
> unexpected voice spoke three words: 'You go home,'" and turned around to
> continue his conversation with some Cossacks. Before his mother got very
> far, his father overtook her and they evidently exchanged embraces at
> least, but she continued home, apparently without a word of explanation of
> her husband's conduct, about which Fyodor registers no surprise or takes
> any further interest.
>
> This rather tyrannical behavior of his father toward his mother does not
> appear to color Fyodor's attitude toward him, which seems to be one of
> unqualified adulation. I don't know if Godunov-Cherdyntsev senior had a
> mistress in his tent at the time or what, but is the vehemence with which
> he excludes his wife from his life compatible with the honor his son
> ascribes to him? Why does Fyodor report the incident without comment or
> reflection?
>
> Eight or ten pages later, following a passage in which Fyodor says that
his
> father had zero interest in ethnography and wouldn't go a short distance
> out of his way to visit Lhasa, which he referred to as "one more filthy
> little town," Fyodor, in a paragraph that begins with an account of his
> father's clock-stopping petulance, which could be triggered by a
> miscomputation by a steward or a flippant remark by a friend, writes, "He
> who in his time had slaughtered countless multitudes of birds. . . could
> not forgive me a Leshino sparrow wantonly shot down with a Montecristo
> rifle. . . . He. . .could not stand hypocrisy. . ." The irony here seems
to
> be unmistakable, but as far as I can see, this is out of keeping with the
> tone of the chapter and with Fyodor's attitude of unmodulated reverence
> toward his father. In short, the reader perceives G-Ch senior's faults,
> which appear in the first instance to amount to knavery, as Fyodor
recounts
> these happenings, even though Fyodor, as far as I can see, manifests no
> emotion concerning them. He actually describes his father in the paragraph
> cited as even tempered. What is VN doing? How "reliable" a narrator is
> Godunov with respect to his father? Does the novel, analagously to other
of
> Nabokov's novels, manifest a moral viewpoint that is not shared by the
> fictive author? How to account for the dissonance? I have heard that G-Ch
> senior was one of Nabokov's favorite characters. But could he have admired
> the character's character?
>
> ********
>
> Why is the portrayal of Zina, who is so eccentral a focus of the novel, so
> blurry?
>
> ********
>
> Godunov-Cherdyntsev/Nabokov expresses a faint bit of respect for N.G.
> Chernyshevsky's humane instincts and disposition, but the portrayal
overall
> is blistering. As Boyd puts it, "Fyodor treats Chernyshevsky as an
> intellectual buffoon whose ideas do not deserve the compliment of rational
> opposition." Of course Chernyshevsky the novelist and thinker was an easy
> target and, grandfather as he was (?) of socialist realism, a worthwhile
> target, but did he really deserve what Godunov and Nabokov heaped on him?
>
> Yes, not for nothing apparently was Chernyshevsky a favorite of Lenin;
yes,
> he manifested pronounced strains of crackpotism--if G-Ch's account is
> correct; yes, his prose was klonky, not to say cringey, and in poetry he
> preferred (G-Ch tells us) double dactyls to iambs and trochees, and he
> didn't think much of Poushkin. This was no doubt a manifestation of an
> impoverished aesthetic, but it was, wasn't it, an aesthetic that was
> altogether dominated by ethical values that the author(s) of the bio in
The
> Gift did not share, such as the importance of cooperation to achieve
social
> ends. Chernyshevsky did present his contemporaries with a vision, however
> ineptly drawn, of benevolent enterprise, of the founding of coops, a form
> of association that became the basis not of Soviet communism but of
Swedish
> economic democracy, and he apparently acted selflessly and heroically to
> further social change in the early days of Alexander II and the great
> reforms of the era. --But how significant was his political activity? It
is
> hard to tell from Nabokov's account, so light is it with regard to certain
> details, though heavy with ridicule. Was the general sense of
Chernyshevsky
> as a hero and a saint (which led to so unfriendly a reception of the
> monograph and the novel) so far fetched? Was it mistaken? Did fate really
> bring such suffering to Chernyshevsky because he was so muddled, or was a
> more important factor his acute and courageous social conscience? Should
we
> have expected Godunov and Nabokov to engage Chernyshevsky more on the
> latter's own terms? (For example: "Liberal landowners, liberal writers,
> liberal professors lull you with hopes in the progressive aims of our
> government.") Did the critics of Fyodor's monograph present an adequate
> defense of Chernyshevsky? Or did their failure to do so, along with a
> skewed depiction in the monograph, constitute a shortcoming of The Gift?
>
> Further, was Chernyshevsky's idea that art and poetry are keys to real
life
> rather than things over and above it, as dense as the polemic of The Gift
> would have it? Does his view really denigrate art? For Chernyshevsky,
> beauty of form characterises an aim not only of art but of all human work.
> This brings to mind the epigram Marshall McLuhan attributed to a Balinese:
> We have no art. We do everything well. (Speaking of McLuhan, I'm reminded
> of his comment on some negative reviews of William Burroughs: "It is a
> little like trying to criticize the sartorial and verbal manifestations of
> a man who is knocking on the door to explain that flames are leaping from
> the roof of our home.")
>
> When, in a situation paralleling Fyodor's mother's journey,
Chernyshevsky's
> wife traveled to Siberia to be with him he, like Fyodor's father on the
> outskirts of Tashkent, sent her home in short order--in this case after a
> four-day visit after a three-month trip; but this was for her own safety,
> not so that he could carry on carrying on. Godunov has no comment on this,
> except to emphasize "--four days, reader!--", which is still more comment
> than he makes on the c. four-hour visit and turnaround of his mother in
the
> depths of Kazakhstan.
>
> Chernyshevsky's contemporary, Dostoyevsky, had long ago, in a hilarious
> parody, cut him to ribbons. Apparently that treatment, despite its
> severity, didn't "take", but did the beast really need another flogging?
>
> The Gift and Nabokov himself manifest(ed) an exemplary and inspiring
> attitude to the annoyances and bitter blows of fate. I can't say how
likely
> it is that reading the novel will make one happy, but reading it does
> crystalize a sense of knowing "the secret" of happiness, no small thing,
> and the book dramatizes this knowledge artfully and artistically and
> perhaps, for all my doubts, happily. I do wonder about the limits of its
> attitude toward adversity: how would it apply to a more extreme situation,
> to concentration camp say --or plague-- as opposed to exile? What might
> Jude the Obscure done with Fyodor Konstantinovich's recipe for happiness?
> But more to the point here, don't we find in The Gift, despite its
> affirmation and uplift, a troubling appearance of the "civic cynicism"
> theme in the life of its author who, for all the compassion and decency
> embodied in his work, in his literary criticism, and in his life, seemed
> --correct me if I am mistaken-- to have little sense of how people working
> cooperatively could benefit the community or right the wrongs of society?
> In The Gift (and elsewhere), and not only in the portrait of Chernyshevsky
> but in the account of the silly union meeting and the passage in which
> Godunov laments the stupidity of having gone to it instead of spending the
> evening with his girlfriend, didn't Nabokov tend to disparage the notion
> --which is of the essence of democracy-- that this is possible, and to
> convey his strong sense that trying to do so is an exercise in futility?