Vladimir Nabokov: Glory

[pontalba]

Don't nobody stick their heads up yet. This may be a trick! - John Wayne
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Thems was mah sediments!

 

[pontalba]

Still, stunned, is silent.

But please..........say it ain't so.........

 

[StillILearn]

Wha' hoppened? - Hopalong Cassidy

 

[Peder]

Wha' hoppened? - Hopalong Cassidy

....er, ahem,./shuffling sand with toe of boot/

Ma'am, we wuz hopin maybe you could tell us.

 

[StillILearn]

Uh oh.


................

 

[StillILearn]

Let's ask Breaca!

steffee?

 

[pontalba]

Uh oh.


................

LOL! My first reaction was........wait jes a cotton picken' minute there pal, and I went back and reread the last chapter or so.

Darn near broke my ankle falling offa that cliff!

 

[StillILearn]

Still: trudge, trudge, trudge

 

[Peder]

Jus' put down the book, SIL. Come out nice 'n easy, 'n we can talk this over nice 'n calm.

 

[pontalba]

Jus' put down the book, SIL. Come out nice 'n easy, 'n we can talk this over nice 'n calm.

Calm!! The man says calm? Shes got a book in her hand for cryin' out loud!! She just may throw it. Look out...........I said.......

Look Out!!!!!







crunch.........................

 

[Peder]

I think she's gonna try to tell us that book was a goner before she got there.

 

[StillILearn]

The footprints slowly fillled with muddy water, and a little later the wicket he had not closed properly creaked in a gust of wind and violently swung open. Then a titmouse alighted on it, uttered a tsi-tsi-tsi and and an incha-incha, and flew over to the branch of a fir. Everything was very wet and dim. An hour elapsed.

The book was a goner before I got there.

(Except for the hundreds of sentences like the above, of course.)

 

[Peder]

The book was a goner before I got there.

(Except for the hundreds of sentences like the above, of course.)

What happened? I wuz just sittin there, and then I was out like a light.
/yawning, no kidding/ And I just woke up again, and all was quiet.

Well, SIL,
Yes, I think that's what all the witnesses wonder. With an ability to write such glorious sentences as that, what happened to the sentences about the ending? Let me see if I can find what Boyd says. Here! (v1 p357)

Nabokov began to recoil from the neatness and the implicit determinism of dramatic concentration and in his later works tended to prefer the randomness of a lifetime or more -- the Gift and Ada cover a century apiece -- and would replace contours smoothly converging on the vanishing point of death with broken or uncompleted lines of development, the doodles of impulse, the zigzags of chance. Glory is the first novel shaped to match the lack of struture in an individual life. The novel does not even end, it simply fades away -- into Corot colors, into one of Checkhov''s great grisailles.

'Simply fades away' is what it definitely does, and 'zigzags of chance' definitely give the reader every chance to get lost. That definitely sounds like Glory! But note, it is 'the first novel' in a new style! So we have been confused in a historic way! Makes one feel better doesn't it? No?

Well, fortunately it still leaves us with what we became familiar with in his later novels, scouring for allusions and clues and overlooked phrases and chess moves in obscure corners of the board, and so on, to help us in the detective work of figuring out exactly what happened in the novel we had just read. In fact, I suppose Boyd is telling us that Glory was the beginning of that aspect of now-familiar Nabokovian style.

I said 'fortunately,' because I came across Boyd's analysis of Glory quite a bit after having finished it and begun rereading, trying to figure it out in the usual way. And despite its strangeness, I think we can still try to put together answers in the usual way for two major questions: "What happened to Martin?" and "Why did he do it?" and any other aspects we wish to discuss.

So what does anyone think?
Peder

 

[pontalba]

I think I had half a post down, and somehow I pressed the wrong button, and it disappeared just like Martin..........over the bloody cliff! Grrrrr.......

Anyway. "Simply fades away". Yes. Exactly like Life. All of a sudden there we are, gone. Martins disappearance into the Void so to speak seemed somewhat on a par with so many of the innocents that disappeared, not of their own violition, but by the Bolsehvik's power. Those victims had no choice, Martin chose his fate. He ignored all the advice he so actively sought. And for What? To impress a girl? To become the Hero? Survivors guilt even?

Most novels make use of the omniscient author to explain all the loose ends of a story. Life is not like that, Nabokov patterned this novel after Life. So we will never know Martin's fate. But there is this clue/hint on p. 182 (possibly)

The custom of performing executions at dawn seemed charitable to Martin: may the Lord permit it to happen in the morning when a man has control over himself--clears his throat, smiles, then stands straight, spreading his arms.

Did he in fact in an unconscious fling, desire and actually seek his death?

 

[pontalba]

When Martin consults Gruzinov, well, actually when he is leaving after Gruzinov has told him

"Tell Nicky to stay at home and find something constructive to do. A nice fellow, I'm sure, and it would be a pity if he lost his way." "He knows everyting better than I do," replied Martin vengefully.

Why "Vengefully"? The "Nicky" was Martins so called friend that he was asking advice for supposedly. Well Gruzinov of course saw thru that charade, and gave the above advice. Why did Martin so resent the advice to stay at home and do something constructive? And why did it say

Martin's conscience was now clear...

The only thing I can really come up with is that Martin either was such a spoiled individual that he resented any advice that did not coincide with what he already thought he knew, or he had a deep seated death wish. Sonia had at that point had told him in no uncertain terms to stay away from her. So as far as he knew that avenue was closed to him.
Also, Martin felt as though he was leaving forever

Martin looked at the pepper caster Uncle Henry was reaching for, and it struck him that this was the last time he would see it.

He had no intention of coming back.

 

[Peder]

Also, Martin felt as though he was leaving forever He had no intention of coming back.

Pontalba,
Can't at all disagree with that now that you have pointed it out. I didn't notice that. Such a thought cuts through to my heart, but it was never clear to me what his purpose was, what he was actually going to do when he crossed the border. Turn around and come right back home to tell Sonia casually "I was across the border yesterday?" Seems very unlikely, even for him. Collect a genuine Russian post card, or an Easter Egg as evidence, and bring it home to hand to her and say "I got this for you?" Also seems unlikely. Maybe he had no idea, which also seems unlikely, but at least a little more like him. But then, maybe he knew exactly, as you say, that one way or another, he would never be back. That's such a sad conclusion for a young man to reach. Or anyone for that matter. And it marks such an abandonment of all his optimism that I have to suffer for him if that is what he thought. It makes the ending so much worse for me.
Peder

 

[pontalba]

Its also entirely that everything I wrote about Martin is hogwash.
Martin seems to have been genetically incapable of real planning, so perhaps it wasn't actually planned out, but unconsciously planned. IOW, he went in that direction, knowing what (more or less) was there, and sort of threw his fate up in the air.
Flinging himself off of the cliff so to speak, hoping a net Might be there.

At least Martin had the choice.......more than most had in that position and era.
Thats why I keep coming back to Survivors Guilt...........???

 

[pontalba]

Was that what Nabokov was trying to put across? So many in the emigre community may have felt just that.

 

[Peder]

Its also entirely that everything I wrote about Martin is hogwash.
Martin seems to have been genetically incapable of real planning, so perhaps it wasn't actually planned out, but unconsciously planned.

Pontalba,
No I don't think it is, hogwah that is.
Martin may have been entirely incapable of planning.
Martin may even have thought that it would possibly turn out OK.
But even if he had, one has to distinguish what Martin thought and what Nabokov wanted to indicate was going to be his fate. And Nabokov could have indicated one thing while Martin thought otherwise.
However, when both Martin and Nabokov look at the pepper caster [cute word] and think that it is the last time Martin is going to see it, then I believe they both believe it.

And your thought about Survivor's Guilt also has merit I think, or is at least very arguable. It had crossed my mind that he had noticed the esteem with which the active anti-Bolshevist counter-revolutionaries, like Gruzinov, were held in the emigre community and that he wished to be regarded as one of them to achieve that same kind of esteem. That's not quite Survivors Guilt, but close enough.
Whether that would mean he would have to sacfice his life wouldn't seem necessary, but maybe that accidentally happened, out of his control, while he was doing something the emigre community would regard as laudable.

I think you have a good case for your original explanation, including the expectation that somehow he would not be returning, as well as a plausible explanation for why he did it.

No arguments from this corner,
Peder

 

[pontalba]

Pontalba, It had crossed my mind that he had noticed the esteem with which the active anti-Bolshevist counter-revolutionaries, like Gruzinov, were held in the emigre community and that he wished to be regarded as one of them to achieve that same kind of esteem. Whether that would mean he would have to sacfice his life wouldn't seem necessary, but maybe that accidentally happened, out of his control, while he was doing something the emigre community would regard as laudable.
Peder

I think this ^^^ is probably closer to the truth, and fits in with Martin's personality. But I also agree that Martin and Nabokov did indeed both project a non-return future.

As far as Survivor's Guilt. I still think that could have been in the back of some of the reasoning. Unconsciously Nabokov could have felt it himself and projected.