Subject
Nabokoviana: the comic VN (fwd)
Date
Body
From: Steven Barnat <exnihilo@sfsu.edu>
D. Barton Johnson wrote:
> In closing, I (DBJ) would remark that I never fail to be amazed
>that so few critics seem to register that Nabokov wrote two comic
>masterpieces (_Lo_ & _Pale Fire_) and many of the funniest scenes in
>world literature.
I (SWB) believe you're right! (about the comic masterpieces part, anyway; I
have no competent opinion about VN criticism in the round.) As a footnote
to your comment, I thought I'd reproduce here another footnote supplied by
Alfred Appel, which appears in Strong Opinions (p. 164 in the Vintage
edition). Appel, speaking with Nabokov of the latter's love for American
slapstick, remarks:
"Nabokov's novels abound in the slapstick elements, the cosmic [sic:
possibly a marvelous typo -- sb] sight gags, as it were, of Keaton, Clair,
Laurel & Hardy, and the Marx Brothers. Pale Fire's kingdom of Zembla
recalls the funhouse palace of Duck Soup (1933), with its ludicrous
functionaries, uniformed guards and mirror walls, as well as the sequence in
A Night at the Opera in which, managed by Groucho, the others disguise
themselves as the three identically bearded Russian aviators, Chicoski,
Harpotski, and Baronoff. Witness Kinbote in Pale Fire, as King Charles,
modestly 'lectur[ing] under an assumed name and in a heavy makeup, with wig
and false whiskers' (his real, immense, American-grown beard will earn him
his sobriquet, The Great Beaver), or the vision of him making his escape
from Zembla, abetted by a hundred loyalists who, in a brilliant diversionary
ploy, don red caps and sweaters identical to the King's, in their
apprehension packing the local prison, which is 'much to small for more
kings' (shades of A Night at the Opera's crowded cabin!). The activities of
The Shadows, that regicidal organization of stooges, recall Mack Sennett's
Keystone Cops, and The Shadows' grotesque, bumbling, but lethal agent,
assasin Gradus, is a vaudevillian, jet-age Angel of Death, imagined as
'always streaking across the sky with black traveling bag in one hand and
loosely folded umbrella in the other, in a sustained glide high over sea and
land.' And in The Defense (1930), Luzhin's means of suicide is suggested to
him by a movie still, lying on a table, showing a 'white-faced man with his
lifeless features and big American glasses, hanging by his hands from the
ledge of a skyscraper -- just about to fall off into the abyss' -- the most
famous scene in Harold Lloyd's Safety Last (1923). I trust you have enjoyed
this note, to paraphrase a comment made by Kinbote under very different
circumstances."
The list, I'm sure, could be expanded -- exponentially if we included film
clips that were triggered by Nabokov's vignettes.
If I've encroached on your patience for quoting such an enormous passage, I
beg pardons. Having just read this last night, I had it ready to hand.
Couldn't contain my exitement. Wanted to join in the fun. Nice to be here.
Greetings.
-- Steve
D. Barton Johnson wrote:
> In closing, I (DBJ) would remark that I never fail to be amazed
>that so few critics seem to register that Nabokov wrote two comic
>masterpieces (_Lo_ & _Pale Fire_) and many of the funniest scenes in
>world literature.
I (SWB) believe you're right! (about the comic masterpieces part, anyway; I
have no competent opinion about VN criticism in the round.) As a footnote
to your comment, I thought I'd reproduce here another footnote supplied by
Alfred Appel, which appears in Strong Opinions (p. 164 in the Vintage
edition). Appel, speaking with Nabokov of the latter's love for American
slapstick, remarks:
"Nabokov's novels abound in the slapstick elements, the cosmic [sic:
possibly a marvelous typo -- sb] sight gags, as it were, of Keaton, Clair,
Laurel & Hardy, and the Marx Brothers. Pale Fire's kingdom of Zembla
recalls the funhouse palace of Duck Soup (1933), with its ludicrous
functionaries, uniformed guards and mirror walls, as well as the sequence in
A Night at the Opera in which, managed by Groucho, the others disguise
themselves as the three identically bearded Russian aviators, Chicoski,
Harpotski, and Baronoff. Witness Kinbote in Pale Fire, as King Charles,
modestly 'lectur[ing] under an assumed name and in a heavy makeup, with wig
and false whiskers' (his real, immense, American-grown beard will earn him
his sobriquet, The Great Beaver), or the vision of him making his escape
from Zembla, abetted by a hundred loyalists who, in a brilliant diversionary
ploy, don red caps and sweaters identical to the King's, in their
apprehension packing the local prison, which is 'much to small for more
kings' (shades of A Night at the Opera's crowded cabin!). The activities of
The Shadows, that regicidal organization of stooges, recall Mack Sennett's
Keystone Cops, and The Shadows' grotesque, bumbling, but lethal agent,
assasin Gradus, is a vaudevillian, jet-age Angel of Death, imagined as
'always streaking across the sky with black traveling bag in one hand and
loosely folded umbrella in the other, in a sustained glide high over sea and
land.' And in The Defense (1930), Luzhin's means of suicide is suggested to
him by a movie still, lying on a table, showing a 'white-faced man with his
lifeless features and big American glasses, hanging by his hands from the
ledge of a skyscraper -- just about to fall off into the abyss' -- the most
famous scene in Harold Lloyd's Safety Last (1923). I trust you have enjoyed
this note, to paraphrase a comment made by Kinbote under very different
circumstances."
The list, I'm sure, could be expanded -- exponentially if we included film
clips that were triggered by Nabokov's vignettes.
If I've encroached on your patience for quoting such an enormous passage, I
beg pardons. Having just read this last night, I had it ready to hand.
Couldn't contain my exitement. Wanted to join in the fun. Nice to be here.
Greetings.
-- Steve