Subject
VN Bibliography: Maxim Shrayer, The World of Nabokov's Stories
Date
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EDITOR's NOTE. I would like to call Maxim Shrayer's new book, _The World
of Nabokov's Stories_, to the attention of every Nabokovian. At a time
when literary criticism tends to be ever more "theorized," Shrayer has
produced a detailed study that is grounded on a deep knowledge of Russian
literary culture, and data newly garnered from archives (many only
recently available) throughout Europe and the U.S. This is an importnt
contribution to Nabokov studies.
Below, I reproduce the information from the book jacket. At the
end of the page, I give the book's Table of Contents.
-------------------------------------
_The World of Nabokov's Stories_ by Maxim D. Shrayer
Pub. date: January, 1999
6 x 9 in., 432 pp., 15 b&w photos, 3 line drawings, 1 table
ISBN 0-292-77733-7, $49.95, hardcover
" . . . an often brilliant synthesis of Nabokov's evolving
literary practice, his implicit philosophical outlook, and his
interactions with his cultural environment."
-John Burt Foster, Jr., Professor of English and Cultural
Studies, George Mason University
A century after his birth, Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977)
remains controversial, provocative, and "cool." Yet while he receives
acclaim as a major American writer, few of his admirers in the West know
the unique place he occupies in his native Russian tradition. In this
comprehensive study of Nabokov's short fiction, Maxim D. Shrayer explores
how Nabokov eclipsed the achievements of the great Russian masters of the
short story, Anton Chekhov and Ivan Bunin, with whom he maintained a
dialogic relationship even as he became-in exile from Russia and his
native tradition-an American writer.
Drawing on Nabokov's unpublished manuscripts and letters,
Shrayer analyzes the paradigms of Nabokov's poetics and tests them in
studies of representative stories. He investigates Nabokov's dialogue with
Chekhov and his rivalry with Bunin. This in-depth analysis places
Nabokov's short fiction in the main line of his writing career. Through
references to all of Nabokov's stories, as well as to many novels and
discursive writings, from the early émigré works of the 1920s to the late
American works of the 1970s, Shrayer delineates the principal historical
and cultural contexts that shaped Nabokov's development. Most importantly,
he reveals the metaphysical, ethical, and aesthetic concerns that shaped
one of the most significant bodies of modern fiction.
A Russian-born scholar and poet, Maxim D. Shrayer is Assistant
Professor of Russian Literature at Boston College: <shrayerm@bc.edu> and
http://fmwww.bc.edu/SL-V/ShrayerM.html
-----------------------------
Ordering Info:(http://www.utexas.edu/utpress/books/shrwor.htm
-------------------------------------------
--------------------------------
INTRODUCTION
1. Writing and reading the Otherworld
INTERLUDE
Mapping Narrative Speace in Nabokov's Stories
2. Testing Nabokov's Paradigms
The Creative laboratoty in "The Return of Chorb' (1925)
Memory, Pilgrimage, and Death in "The Aureilan) (1930)
Entering the Otherworld in "Cloud, Castle, Lake" (1937)
Poetry, Exile,and Prophetic Mystification in"Vasili Shishkov"(39)
3. Nabokov's Dialogue with Chekhov: From "Lady with a Lap Dog" to "Spring
in Fialta"
4. Nabokov and Bunin: The Poetics of Rivalry
CODA
Appendix: A Complete Annotated List of Nabokov's Short Stories
of Nabokov's Stories_, to the attention of every Nabokovian. At a time
when literary criticism tends to be ever more "theorized," Shrayer has
produced a detailed study that is grounded on a deep knowledge of Russian
literary culture, and data newly garnered from archives (many only
recently available) throughout Europe and the U.S. This is an importnt
contribution to Nabokov studies.
Below, I reproduce the information from the book jacket. At the
end of the page, I give the book's Table of Contents.
-------------------------------------
_The World of Nabokov's Stories_ by Maxim D. Shrayer
Pub. date: January, 1999
6 x 9 in., 432 pp., 15 b&w photos, 3 line drawings, 1 table
ISBN 0-292-77733-7, $49.95, hardcover
" . . . an often brilliant synthesis of Nabokov's evolving
literary practice, his implicit philosophical outlook, and his
interactions with his cultural environment."
-John Burt Foster, Jr., Professor of English and Cultural
Studies, George Mason University
A century after his birth, Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977)
remains controversial, provocative, and "cool." Yet while he receives
acclaim as a major American writer, few of his admirers in the West know
the unique place he occupies in his native Russian tradition. In this
comprehensive study of Nabokov's short fiction, Maxim D. Shrayer explores
how Nabokov eclipsed the achievements of the great Russian masters of the
short story, Anton Chekhov and Ivan Bunin, with whom he maintained a
dialogic relationship even as he became-in exile from Russia and his
native tradition-an American writer.
Drawing on Nabokov's unpublished manuscripts and letters,
Shrayer analyzes the paradigms of Nabokov's poetics and tests them in
studies of representative stories. He investigates Nabokov's dialogue with
Chekhov and his rivalry with Bunin. This in-depth analysis places
Nabokov's short fiction in the main line of his writing career. Through
references to all of Nabokov's stories, as well as to many novels and
discursive writings, from the early émigré works of the 1920s to the late
American works of the 1970s, Shrayer delineates the principal historical
and cultural contexts that shaped Nabokov's development. Most importantly,
he reveals the metaphysical, ethical, and aesthetic concerns that shaped
one of the most significant bodies of modern fiction.
A Russian-born scholar and poet, Maxim D. Shrayer is Assistant
Professor of Russian Literature at Boston College: <shrayerm@bc.edu> and
http://fmwww.bc.edu/SL-V/ShrayerM.html
-----------------------------
Ordering Info:(http://www.utexas.edu/utpress/books/shrwor.htm
-------------------------------------------
--------------------------------
INTRODUCTION
1. Writing and reading the Otherworld
INTERLUDE
Mapping Narrative Speace in Nabokov's Stories
2. Testing Nabokov's Paradigms
The Creative laboratoty in "The Return of Chorb' (1925)
Memory, Pilgrimage, and Death in "The Aureilan) (1930)
Entering the Otherworld in "Cloud, Castle, Lake" (1937)
Poetry, Exile,and Prophetic Mystification in"Vasili Shishkov"(39)
3. Nabokov's Dialogue with Chekhov: From "Lady with a Lap Dog" to "Spring
in Fialta"
4. Nabokov and Bunin: The Poetics of Rivalry
CODA
Appendix: A Complete Annotated List of Nabokov's Short Stories