Subject
ABSTRACTS for NABOKOV STUDIES #7. SUBSCRIPTION INFO.
From
Date
Body
EDNOTE. NABOKOV STUDIES #7 IS JUST OUT. If you are doing research on
NABOKOV, this journal is essential for you and/or your instition library.
Back issues are also vailable.
From: "D. Barton Johnson" <chtodel@cox.net>
To: <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
From: "Mary Bellino" <iambe@rcn.com>
Nabokov Studies Volume 7 is now OUT.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
>
NABOKOV, this journal is essential for you and/or your instition library.
Back issues are also vailable.
From: "D. Barton Johnson" <chtodel@cox.net>
To: <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
From: "Mary Bellino" <iambe@rcn.com>
Nabokov Studies Volume 7 is now OUT.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
>