Subject
VN STORIES2: SYNOPSIS (fwd)
Date
Body
From:roy.johnson@mcr1.geonet.de
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THE SHORT STORIES OF VLADIMIR NABOKOV, by Roy Johnson
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This study covers all the published stories in chronological order, and is
primarily concerned with an inspection of the modes adopted by Nabokov in
his manipulation of traditional story construction and narration. It
traces the rise of the 'unstable narrative' and the 'unreliable narrator'
in Nabokov's fiction. Many of the narrative devices made famous by Nabokov
in his novels were in fact first tried out in his shorter fictions, and
this study traces the logic and the elaboration of these experiments.
It is also concerned with three other features of Nabokov and his work.
First, it reveals the profound influence of nineteenth century European
literature, and Russian literature in particular, upon his writing.
Second, it traces the development of Nabokov's literary style from the
relatively straightforward poetic nature of his earliest phase to the
baroque ornamentation and elaborate mannerism of his mature style. And
third, it relates Nabokov's general literary experimentation to that of
other writers of the late modernist period.
Whilst following this experimentation through four decades of his work,
the study also points to the remarkable consistency of his thematic
concerns - the relationship between art and life, the nature of time and
memory, the construction of individual consciousness, and the struggle of
the human spirit against the privation of loss and exile as well as the
inevitability of death.
==============================
==============================
THE SHORT STORIES OF VLADIMIR NABOKOV, by Roy Johnson
==============================
This study covers all the published stories in chronological order, and is
primarily concerned with an inspection of the modes adopted by Nabokov in
his manipulation of traditional story construction and narration. It
traces the rise of the 'unstable narrative' and the 'unreliable narrator'
in Nabokov's fiction. Many of the narrative devices made famous by Nabokov
in his novels were in fact first tried out in his shorter fictions, and
this study traces the logic and the elaboration of these experiments.
It is also concerned with three other features of Nabokov and his work.
First, it reveals the profound influence of nineteenth century European
literature, and Russian literature in particular, upon his writing.
Second, it traces the development of Nabokov's literary style from the
relatively straightforward poetic nature of his earliest phase to the
baroque ornamentation and elaborate mannerism of his mature style. And
third, it relates Nabokov's general literary experimentation to that of
other writers of the late modernist period.
Whilst following this experimentation through four decades of his work,
the study also points to the remarkable consistency of his thematic
concerns - the relationship between art and life, the nature of time and
memory, the construction of individual consciousness, and the struggle of
the human spirit against the privation of loss and exile as well as the
inevitability of death.
==============================