Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0000809, Wed, 8 Nov 1995 15:23:09 -0800

Subject
MLA Abstracts: Schuman
Date
Body
EDITORIAL NOTE. The "Varia" VN MLA session discussion seems to have
started. Gennadi Barabtarlo <gragb@mizzou1.missouri.edu> offers the
following comment on Sam Schuman's "Goglian Sentences in Nabokov's _Pnin_"
--the abstract of which went out a few minutes ago. Th "Phantom" referred
to is Barabtarlo's book _Phantom of Fact. A Guide to Nabokov's "Pnin"_.


"... burst off in wild new
>directions. For example:
>
> Technically speaking, the narrator's art of integrating
> telephone conversations still lags far behind that of
> rendering dialogues conducted from room to room, or
> from window to window across some narrow blue alley
> in an ancient town with water so precious, and the
> misery of donkeys, and rugs for sale, and minarets, and
> foreigners and mellons, and the vibrant morning echoes (31)".


Far from being "wild", these images are painstakingly assembled bookmarks
that point up important motifs in this particular chapter (and a few
others). See "Phantom", p.88ff (where, by the way, I mention Peter Lubin's
old essay in which he makes a similar observation about Gogol's stylistic
vagaries in connection with this place.) GB

Gennady Barabtarlo
451 GCB University of Missouri
Columbia, MO 65211
314-882-9454 Fax 314-882-3404