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----- Original Message -----
From: "Mary Bellino" <iambe@rcn.com>
> Nabokov Studies Volume 7 is now in press. This issue
> contains several important articles; topics include (among
> others) Nabokov's sources, his theory of drama, his
> reception of Freud, and his views on insect mimicry and
> natural selection. Article abstracts and a list of reviews
> are below.
>
> At 252 pages (with eight pages of illustrations and an
> elegant two-color cover), Nabokov Studies 7 is the greatest
> bargain since Olympia offered _Lolita_ at 900 OF.
> Individual USA Subscriptions are $25.50 per year
> ($65.00 for three years); overseas subscribers add $4 per
> volume. Institutional subscriptions are $35.50/year
> domestic, $39.50/year overseas. Send your check (US Funds
> please, drawn on a US Bank or a bank with US
> representation) to Zoran Kuzmanovich, Nabokov Studies,
> Department of English, Davidson College, Davidson NC 28036.
> Your check should be made out to NABOKOV STUDIES.
>
> ARTICLE ABSTRACTS
>
> ZORAN KUZMANOVICH
> "Just as it was, or perhaps a little more perfect":
> Notes on Nabokov's Sources
> Juxtaposing the opening of _The Gift'_s second chapter with
> _Speak, Memory'_s account of Nabokov's first poem and
> _Lolita'_s couch scene reveals a surprising set of
> similarities. A preliminary study of these common points
> leads to some intriguing linkages and contradictions among
> Nabokov's roles as writer of fiction, autobiography,
> self-parody, and criticism. It also provides a new data set
> to be examined in light of the currently dominant critical
> paradigm, revises Nabokov's relations to other artists, and
> may even lead to consequences for his aesthetic theory.
>
> DIETER E. ZIMMER AND SABINE HARTMANN
> The Amazing Music of Truth:
> Nabokov's Sources for Godunov's Central Asian Travels in
> _The Gift_
> In Chapter 2 of his novel _Dar/The Gift_ (1933-38), Nabokov
> had the protagonist's father undertake the explorative
> journey to Central Asia that he in his youth would have
> liked to undertake himself. It now can safely be said that
> none of the colorful and evocative detail of this imaginary
> travelogue is invented. To compose it, Nabokov must have
> closely and carefully studied more than twenty historical
> sources. Up to now, about 34 percent of the roughly 105
> "items" that make up his text and that range from single
> facts to whole paragraphs had been traced to specific
> sources. This article brings the count up to 92 percent.
>
> JOHN WHALEN-BRIDGE
> Murderous Desire in _Lolita_
> (With Related Thoughts on Mailer's _An American Dream_)
> "Murderous Desire in Lolita" considers _Lolita_ as a
> transgressive fantasy and compares it with Norman Mailer's
> novel _An American Dream_. Engaging D. A. Miller's arguments
> from _The Novel and the Police_, the author argues that
> Mailer and Nabokov are each well aware that they write
> "under observation" but that each uses narrative
> contextualization to resist the metaphorical panopticon of
> literary form.
>
> ERIC NAIMAN
> Perversion in _Pnin_ (Reading Nabokov Preposterously)
> "Perversion in _Pnin_ (Reading Nabokov Preposterously)"
> explores the issue of perverse hermeneutics in Nabokov's
> most innocent novel. After noting the anxieties that
> surround sexually oriented readings of Nabokov's work, the
> article argues that _Pnin_ contains a series of genital
> references, some of which involve a perverse reading of
> Gertrude's rendition of the scene of Ophelia's drowning. The
> slandering of Ophelia-embedded, among other places, in the
> descriptions of a planned parenthood clinic and a Soviet May
> Day parade-provides a counterpart for the slandering of Pnin
> by various narrators in the novel. The article contends that
> in its many images of twisting and winding, the novel
> thematises the struggle for control over the turns
> (versions) taken by the narrative. The squirrel, the novel's
> obviously emblematic beast, should be read as a symbol (or
> as a familiar) of the necessary pairing of the poetic and
> the perverse. Central to this argument is the concept of
> "preposterous oversight"-a phrase that hints at the
> necessarily perverse and obsessive voyeurism promoted by the
> novel as the key to its "true understanding" by the reader.
> The article concludes with the suggestion that the novel
> transposes the moral question of Ivan Karamazov's
> theological "revolt" into a metafictive, procedural key.
>
> RACHEL TROUSDALE
> "Faragod Bless Them": Nabokov, Spirits, and Electricity
> The references to _Anna Karenin_ in _Ada_, which begin in
> the very first sentence of the book, help to explain the
> strange goings-on with electricity which occur throughout
> _Ada_. The absence of electricity from Antiterra indicates a
> spiritual poverty. Antiterra is hellish not just because of
> its inhabitants' brutality but because of its utter lack of
> spirituality, which is replaced by nostalgia and sex. The
> self-centered, incestuous nature of Van's love affair and
> his memories ensure that he can neither recapture the past
> nor create anything new. The failure of Van's paradise and
> the sterility of his attempt to regain it are encapsulated
> in the occurrences of electricity in the novel.
>
> STEPHEN BLACKWELL
> Nabokov's Weiner-schnitzel Dreams: _Despair_ and
> Anti-Freudian Poetics
> By the time Nabokov composed _Despair_ in mid-1932, he had
> been nurturing a growing antipathy to Freudian
> psychoanalysis since emigrating to the West thirteen years
> prior. After examining the history of Nabokov's probable
> exposure to Freudian ideas and epigones in Russia, in
> Cambridge, and in Berlin, the author turns to _Despair_ as
> the culmination of Nabokov's early anti-Freudian creative
> activity. Countering Freud's famed "Oedipus complex,"
> Nabokov fills his novel with mythological and sexual
> imagery, especially from the myth of Cybele and Attis. In so
> doing he creates a potential interpretive structure that
> leads, ultimately, nowhere-except to the demise of his main
> character, who is also the novel's leading Freudian
> practitioner. The novel's almost absurd proliferation of
> phalluses, referring to Freudianism, is undermined by the
> self-castration theme, which seems to be Nabokov's way of
> illustrating how a flawed ideology does violence to itself.
>
> ANDREY BABIKOV
> _The Event_ and the Main Thing in Nabokov's Theory of Drama
> Comparing Nabokov's ideas on drama as expounded in his 1941
> course on theater with his own dramatic experiments, the
> author asserts that Nabokov implements the original model of
> the "dualistic" theater in _The Event_ and _The Waltz
> Invention_. The article's first part examines _The Event_ as
> an embodiment of the theater of "secret action," in which
> the real conflict lies in the opposition of this "secret
> action" to an external spectacle imposed upon it. In the
> article's second part, _The Event_ is analyzed from the
> standpoint of the Nabokovian theater of "the fictive
> viewer." It then examines Nabokov's polemic with the idea of
> the monistic ("sobornyi") theater (Viacheslav Ivanov, Fyodor
> Sologub) which is identified with the fairground booth show
> (balagan). Finally it explores Nabokov's metaphysical
> comprehension of the theater principle of "the fourth wall,"
> which underlies not only his mature playwriting but also his
> work in other genres (_Invitation to a Beheading_, _Bend
> Sinister_, "Lik").
>
> Victoria N. Alexander
> NABOKOV, TELEOLOGY, AND INSECT MIMICRY
> Nabokov argued that a slight resemblance between one insect
> and another or between an insect and its environment could
> not be furthered by the function or purpose it served,
> leading gradually to mimicry. The subtleties of Nabokov's
> argument against Darwinian gradualism have been missed by
> most of his readers. He did not critique Darwinism in the
> same way that Creationists do. Nabokov did believe that
> natural selection could explain many adaptations and shifts
> in the direction of evolution, but he did not think it could
> explain mimicry. He realized there were other forces at work
> assisting natural selection, which were especially apparent
> in the case of "mimicry." Recent work in what is called
> "structural" and "neutral" evolutionary theory supports
> Nabokov's views, which seem to have been influenced by
> teleomechanism, a form of theoretical biology derived from
> Kantian teleology.
>
> REVIEWS
>
> Nora Buks. _Eshafot v hrustal'nom dvorce.
> O russkih romanah Vladimira Nabokova_.
> Reviewed by Magdalena Medaric
>
> Ellen Pifer. _Demon or Doll: Images of the Child
> in Contemporary Writing and Culture_.
> Reviewed by Sarah Herbold
>
> Brian Boyd. _Nabokov's Ada: The Place of Consciousness_
> (Second Edition)
> Reviewed by Mary Bellino
>
> Jane Grayson, Arnold McMillin, and Priscilla Meyer (eds).
>
> _Nabokov's World_. Volume 1: The Shape of Nabokov's World;
> Volume 2: Reading Nabokov.
> Reviewed by Jenefer Coates
From: "Mary Bellino" <iambe@rcn.com>
> Nabokov Studies Volume 7 is now in press. This issue
> contains several important articles; topics include (among
> others) Nabokov's sources, his theory of drama, his
> reception of Freud, and his views on insect mimicry and
> natural selection. Article abstracts and a list of reviews
> are below.
>
> At 252 pages (with eight pages of illustrations and an
> elegant two-color cover), Nabokov Studies 7 is the greatest
> bargain since Olympia offered _Lolita_ at 900 OF.
> Individual USA Subscriptions are $25.50 per year
> ($65.00 for three years); overseas subscribers add $4 per
> volume. Institutional subscriptions are $35.50/year
> domestic, $39.50/year overseas. Send your check (US Funds
> please, drawn on a US Bank or a bank with US
> representation) to Zoran Kuzmanovich, Nabokov Studies,
> Department of English, Davidson College, Davidson NC 28036.
> Your check should be made out to NABOKOV STUDIES.
>
> ARTICLE ABSTRACTS
>
> ZORAN KUZMANOVICH
> "Just as it was, or perhaps a little more perfect":
> Notes on Nabokov's Sources
> Juxtaposing the opening of _The Gift'_s second chapter with
> _Speak, Memory'_s account of Nabokov's first poem and
> _Lolita'_s couch scene reveals a surprising set of
> similarities. A preliminary study of these common points
> leads to some intriguing linkages and contradictions among
> Nabokov's roles as writer of fiction, autobiography,
> self-parody, and criticism. It also provides a new data set
> to be examined in light of the currently dominant critical
> paradigm, revises Nabokov's relations to other artists, and
> may even lead to consequences for his aesthetic theory.
>
> DIETER E. ZIMMER AND SABINE HARTMANN
> The Amazing Music of Truth:
> Nabokov's Sources for Godunov's Central Asian Travels in
> _The Gift_
> In Chapter 2 of his novel _Dar/The Gift_ (1933-38), Nabokov
> had the protagonist's father undertake the explorative
> journey to Central Asia that he in his youth would have
> liked to undertake himself. It now can safely be said that
> none of the colorful and evocative detail of this imaginary
> travelogue is invented. To compose it, Nabokov must have
> closely and carefully studied more than twenty historical
> sources. Up to now, about 34 percent of the roughly 105
> "items" that make up his text and that range from single
> facts to whole paragraphs had been traced to specific
> sources. This article brings the count up to 92 percent.
>
> JOHN WHALEN-BRIDGE
> Murderous Desire in _Lolita_
> (With Related Thoughts on Mailer's _An American Dream_)
> "Murderous Desire in Lolita" considers _Lolita_ as a
> transgressive fantasy and compares it with Norman Mailer's
> novel _An American Dream_. Engaging D. A. Miller's arguments
> from _The Novel and the Police_, the author argues that
> Mailer and Nabokov are each well aware that they write
> "under observation" but that each uses narrative
> contextualization to resist the metaphorical panopticon of
> literary form.
>
> ERIC NAIMAN
> Perversion in _Pnin_ (Reading Nabokov Preposterously)
> "Perversion in _Pnin_ (Reading Nabokov Preposterously)"
> explores the issue of perverse hermeneutics in Nabokov's
> most innocent novel. After noting the anxieties that
> surround sexually oriented readings of Nabokov's work, the
> article argues that _Pnin_ contains a series of genital
> references, some of which involve a perverse reading of
> Gertrude's rendition of the scene of Ophelia's drowning. The
> slandering of Ophelia-embedded, among other places, in the
> descriptions of a planned parenthood clinic and a Soviet May
> Day parade-provides a counterpart for the slandering of Pnin
> by various narrators in the novel. The article contends that
> in its many images of twisting and winding, the novel
> thematises the struggle for control over the turns
> (versions) taken by the narrative. The squirrel, the novel's
> obviously emblematic beast, should be read as a symbol (or
> as a familiar) of the necessary pairing of the poetic and
> the perverse. Central to this argument is the concept of
> "preposterous oversight"-a phrase that hints at the
> necessarily perverse and obsessive voyeurism promoted by the
> novel as the key to its "true understanding" by the reader.
> The article concludes with the suggestion that the novel
> transposes the moral question of Ivan Karamazov's
> theological "revolt" into a metafictive, procedural key.
>
> RACHEL TROUSDALE
> "Faragod Bless Them": Nabokov, Spirits, and Electricity
> The references to _Anna Karenin_ in _Ada_, which begin in
> the very first sentence of the book, help to explain the
> strange goings-on with electricity which occur throughout
> _Ada_. The absence of electricity from Antiterra indicates a
> spiritual poverty. Antiterra is hellish not just because of
> its inhabitants' brutality but because of its utter lack of
> spirituality, which is replaced by nostalgia and sex. The
> self-centered, incestuous nature of Van's love affair and
> his memories ensure that he can neither recapture the past
> nor create anything new. The failure of Van's paradise and
> the sterility of his attempt to regain it are encapsulated
> in the occurrences of electricity in the novel.
>
> STEPHEN BLACKWELL
> Nabokov's Weiner-schnitzel Dreams: _Despair_ and
> Anti-Freudian Poetics
> By the time Nabokov composed _Despair_ in mid-1932, he had
> been nurturing a growing antipathy to Freudian
> psychoanalysis since emigrating to the West thirteen years
> prior. After examining the history of Nabokov's probable
> exposure to Freudian ideas and epigones in Russia, in
> Cambridge, and in Berlin, the author turns to _Despair_ as
> the culmination of Nabokov's early anti-Freudian creative
> activity. Countering Freud's famed "Oedipus complex,"
> Nabokov fills his novel with mythological and sexual
> imagery, especially from the myth of Cybele and Attis. In so
> doing he creates a potential interpretive structure that
> leads, ultimately, nowhere-except to the demise of his main
> character, who is also the novel's leading Freudian
> practitioner. The novel's almost absurd proliferation of
> phalluses, referring to Freudianism, is undermined by the
> self-castration theme, which seems to be Nabokov's way of
> illustrating how a flawed ideology does violence to itself.
>
> ANDREY BABIKOV
> _The Event_ and the Main Thing in Nabokov's Theory of Drama
> Comparing Nabokov's ideas on drama as expounded in his 1941
> course on theater with his own dramatic experiments, the
> author asserts that Nabokov implements the original model of
> the "dualistic" theater in _The Event_ and _The Waltz
> Invention_. The article's first part examines _The Event_ as
> an embodiment of the theater of "secret action," in which
> the real conflict lies in the opposition of this "secret
> action" to an external spectacle imposed upon it. In the
> article's second part, _The Event_ is analyzed from the
> standpoint of the Nabokovian theater of "the fictive
> viewer." It then examines Nabokov's polemic with the idea of
> the monistic ("sobornyi") theater (Viacheslav Ivanov, Fyodor
> Sologub) which is identified with the fairground booth show
> (balagan). Finally it explores Nabokov's metaphysical
> comprehension of the theater principle of "the fourth wall,"
> which underlies not only his mature playwriting but also his
> work in other genres (_Invitation to a Beheading_, _Bend
> Sinister_, "Lik").
>
> Victoria N. Alexander
> NABOKOV, TELEOLOGY, AND INSECT MIMICRY
> Nabokov argued that a slight resemblance between one insect
> and another or between an insect and its environment could
> not be furthered by the function or purpose it served,
> leading gradually to mimicry. The subtleties of Nabokov's
> argument against Darwinian gradualism have been missed by
> most of his readers. He did not critique Darwinism in the
> same way that Creationists do. Nabokov did believe that
> natural selection could explain many adaptations and shifts
> in the direction of evolution, but he did not think it could
> explain mimicry. He realized there were other forces at work
> assisting natural selection, which were especially apparent
> in the case of "mimicry." Recent work in what is called
> "structural" and "neutral" evolutionary theory supports
> Nabokov's views, which seem to have been influenced by
> teleomechanism, a form of theoretical biology derived from
> Kantian teleology.
>
> REVIEWS
>
> Nora Buks. _Eshafot v hrustal'nom dvorce.
> O russkih romanah Vladimira Nabokova_.
> Reviewed by Magdalena Medaric
>
> Ellen Pifer. _Demon or Doll: Images of the Child
> in Contemporary Writing and Culture_.
> Reviewed by Sarah Herbold
>
> Brian Boyd. _Nabokov's Ada: The Place of Consciousness_
> (Second Edition)
> Reviewed by Mary Bellino
>
> Jane Grayson, Arnold McMillin, and Priscilla Meyer (eds).
>
> _Nabokov's World_. Volume 1: The Shape of Nabokov's World;
> Volume 2: Reading Nabokov.
> Reviewed by Jenefer Coates