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Vladimir Nabokov: Selected Letters, 1940-1977.
... I don't think in any language, I think in images. (Letter from Vladimir Nabokov to Elena Sikorski, 1945, in Nabokov, 1990 Before determining how to move methodically from fragrances to trends and from aromas to ritornellos, the stylist's work begins with an examination. Styling, in other words, is one of the disciplines based on the discursive use of images which are merely idols when left mute. ...
... To know that no one before you has seen an organ you are examining, to trace relationships that have occurred to no one before, to immerse yourself in the wondrous crystalline world of the microscope, where silence reigns, circumscribed by its own horizon, a blindingly white arena-all this is so enticing that I cannot describe it. (Letter from Vladimir Nabokov to Elena Sikorski, 1945, in Nabokov, 1990 3. Texts carved into the architecture of the Palais de Chaillot, Place de Trocadéro, Paris. 4. ...
The field of Critical Digitization Studies primarily focuses on projects conducted by enthusiasts, pirates, or large technology companies. In this article, I introduce the concept of ‘trade digitization’, encapsulating the processes involved in creating an ebook or web-based copy of a print publication for the mass market. Through a case study of Vladimir Nabokov’s Pale Fire, I demonstrate how an increased degree of editorial decision making within trade digitization can introduce the proliferation of new variants and errors in digital publications.
Nabokov is known as one of the unique phenomena in 20th century world literary history not only because of the unconditional significance of his creative legacy, but also because everything he wrote belongs equally to the history of two national literatures, Russian and American. So, researchers’ discussions about which of the national-literary paradigms V. Nabokov belongs to a greater extent are completely justified. As for our study, its aim is to analyze V. Nabokov’s public statements concerning his personal perception of one of the sides of his creative self, namely the status of “an American writer”. The object of the study is V. Nabokov’s interviews given by him to various publications from the 1950s to the 1970s. The study is based on V. Nabokov’s interviews from the book “Nabokov about Nabokov and Other Things: Interviews, Reviews, Essays” compiled by N. Melnikov. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the fact that until now Nabokov’s interviews have not been analyzed comprehensively for the presence of statements identifying him as “an American writer”. In the course of analyzing Nabokov’s public statements about his “American writer” status, we concluded that this Nabokov’s position was based on his pragmatic strategy of anticipating the audience’s expectations, when he demonstrated accuracy in his identifying formulations and formal “nostalgia” for his estranged second homeland called the United States.
The purpose of the article is to highlight a number of characteristics of the emigrant hero with the help of Vladimir Nabokov's novel "Pnin". The main theme of the novel is the difficulties of the individual. Pnin, who is no longer young, has to adapt to a new culture, language, and traditions. Nabokov's stylistic abilities are put to the test in "Pnin", as he simultaneously incorporates two languages into his essay. The identity of the narrator in "Pnin" is an ambiguity that deserves special attention.In his personal correspondence, Nabokov states that he portrayed himself in the text of the novel as an old and not particularly dear acquaintance of Pnin. The author describes himself as Russian language professor Vladimir Vladimirovich, a "fascinating lecturer" with a great passion for birds. However, the resemblance between this fictional Nabokov and the real one is too good to be true, raising the question of whether the character is genuine. Could this be another trap for the reader?
As best evidences of our narrative identity language-games, autobiographies unveil the illusive power of language in purporting a unitary self. Drawing upon Ludwig Wittgenstein’s no-reference view of “I” and studying its use as a necessary formal tie in autobiographical memory, it is contended that sense of self through time is constituted in narrating and being narrated in memories. It is argued that Vladimir Nabokov’s Speak, Memory illustrates the lack of reference of the first-person pronoun in autobiographical memory, its formal and inventive emergence, and its diversity in narrative compositions. As the title hints, the self does not speak in memory; it is spoken in autobiographical lan- guage-games of composition.
This article sheds light on the tension between art and politics in Nabokov’s career. Before he became an American author, Nabokov was subjected to political censorship in his motherland, with a complete disregard of and lack of interest in the literary qualities of his novels. Then, the article studies how Lolita was banned in different countries, be it in France or elsewhere in the world. The reason for this ban was not aesthetics but ethics. In many respects, the censorship Lolita suffered from is an illustration of the difficulties that great authors such as Nabokov, James Joyce, D. H. Lawrence or Henry Miller were subjected to when it came to publishing their novels in the 20th century. Nabokov’s letters and exclusive archives from Gallimard will show some of the judicial mishaps / streaks of bad luck that Nabokov’s novel met with. In the end, literary quality was made part of judicial decisions and it is thanks to its aesthetic value that censorship on Lolita was finally lifted.
With the recent inclination toward reading for ideological aspects of his works, Nabokov, who had been pervasively regarded as a mere ingenious aesthete, both during his life and for a long time after his death, has proved more puzzling in interpretation than what scholars believed. In this research, in order to understand what concept of freedom Nabokov has developed in his Bend Sinister, we focus on the two of his salient concerns: reality and individuality. Consequently, our narratological reading of Bend Sinister is concentrated first on the interpretation of the whatness of reality and its contribution to realize freedom, and second on analyzing the significance of retaining individuality to procure freedom; ultimately, out of delving into these two issues, the concept of freedom that the narrative techniques of the novel render, in correspondence to the peculiarities of the mid-twentieth century, is found out. Regarding the notion of the reality, in this novel, the unremitting propaganda of the totalitarian system presented the materialistic world as the ultimate truth, confining citizens in the prison of a fake world and not permitting them to gain the slightest awareness of the endless freedom possible in eternity. As to the individuality, Krug’s attempts not to succumb to the desired system of padograph lead him to maintain his individuality and partly realize his freedom of mind. And finally, it is shown how totalitarianism has reached such absolute power that no thorough freedom of mind is now conceivable for humanity.
The tale of how Edmund Wilson quarreled with Vladimir Nabokov over the latter’s 1964 translation of Eugene Onegin can be instructively read as a politically charged event, specifically a “high culture” allegory of the Cold War. Dissemination of anti-Communist ideals (often in liberal and literary guises) was the mandate of the Congress for Cultural Freedom, whose funding and editorial initiatives included the publication of both pre-Revolution Russian literature and, more notoriously, the journal Encounter (1953-1990), where Nabokov’s fiery “Reply” to Wilson appeared. This essay outlines the propaganda value of the Onegin debate within and to Cold War mythology.
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the representation of America as seen by a European in Kubrick’s Lolita. The movie is understood as a fictionalized travelogue where Humbert Humbert is the great organizer whose point of view channels the representation of America and determines the way actors incarnate characters. Despite claims that the movie does not render visually the travels of Humbert and Lolita through the United States, Kubrick anchors his fiction in a determinate setting. The three levels of American space (poetic, realist, and metafictional) help us to understand Humbert’s ironic stance on American culture and his feeling of estrangement in a sex-crazed America.
The linguistic migrations of Vladimir Nabokov are closely related to his "physical migrations" primarily caused by the historical events of early 20th century Russia. The author finds himself compelled to give up his mother tongue to be able to reach anglophone readers. His reflections on language also influence his vision of translation, which we endeavor to present in this article.
Galya Diment, Associate Professor of Russian Literature at the University of Washington, is the author of The Autobiographical Novel of Consciousness: Goncharov, Woolf and Joyce (1994), co-editor of Between Heaven and Hell: The Myth of Siberia in Russian Culture (1993). She has also written extensively on Nabokov. Her next book, Pniniade: Vladimir Nabokov and Marc Szeftel, on which her article here is based, is forthcoming from the University of Washington Press in 1997.
1. I would like to thank the Bishop, Jakobson, Marcham estates for kind permission to use materials cited here. I would also like to thank D. Barton Johnson for reading a draft of this article and giving me valuable suggestions.
2. It has to be noted here that some now doubt the veracity of Field's account, given the state of the index cards on which this and similar imformation had been jotted. Field's Nabokov archive has been recently auctioned, and a thorough study of his notes may eventually shed further light on the episode. I am grateful to Brian Boyd for sharing his observations with me concerning both the incident and Field's records of it.
3. Some critics, among them, André Mazon, John L. Fennell, and A. A. Zimin have believed that the epic is a much later work and thus a "fake." Like Roman Jakobson, with whom he collaborated on several studies of the epic, Szeftel never doubted the work's authenticity, and for many years fiercely argued with the "detractors." The general consensus on the epic is summed up by Dean S. Worth: "Attacks on the authenticity of [the Lay] have always come from amateurs, while its defenders have been philologists with professional competence in 12th-century Russian language and culture" (in Terras 425).
4. Szeftel's widow, Kitty Szeftel, concurs in this opinion: "He took the idea of Marc as an immigrant professor having a hard...
Este trabajo muestra las relaciones de estrecha dependencia entre lenguaje y creatividad por una parte, entre identidad y cultura por otra, y finalmente entre historia y ficción. He tomado como base de mi análisis una obra de ficción, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, la primera novela que el autor ruso Vladimir Nabokov escribió en inglés tras muchos años de haber escrito en ruso, para mostrar las huellas que la transculturalización deja en el personaje histórico tanto como en su contrapunto ficcional. Señalo los diversos motivos que condujeron a Nabokov al bilingüismo literario, entre ellos destaco la primera emigración impuesta por la Revolución Bolchevique y la segunda provocada por el auge del Nazismo en la década de los treinta en Alemania. También señalo las consecuencias que del cambio drástico de lengua han de derivarse en dos ámbitos culturales relevantes: el cotidiano y el literario. En este recorrido queda recogida una trayectoria biográfica, la de Nabokov, que coincide con, y es representativa de, la trayectoria de los cambios culturales europeos más importantes de nuestro siglo veinte: la americanización de la vieja Europa, su postmodernización y la colonización lingüística que el Inglés ha ejercido sobre el mundo editorial en detrimento de las otras lenguas europeas de prestigio
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