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Vladimir Nabokov: Look at the Harlequins!

Ah, but consider how you would have felt if you had been the individual VN based this character on? He liked to use anagrams, so I am just surmising that if this was a real woman and she would have been able to guess that she was 'Lyuba'. And that if Vera had been at all jealous of 'Lyuba', she would have been much reassured.
 
Well, first of all, I'd be totally mortified that I had acted in such a manner. But all embarrasment would be directed at myself, and really no animosity toward him.
I would have to equate LSS with the "groupies" that follow rock bands and such and consider the source. Harsh? Maybe, but truthful. IMO.
I do feel sorry for the character, and I would say offhand that VN did have incidents like that (or similar at least) happen, in fact we know from other reading that his students did in fact er, schmooze with him to an extent, which if you recall, VN enjoyed. ;)

Vera...jealous? I think after the one affair VN actually did indulge in during the European days, he knew better, and she knew he knew better. So I think (and hope) that the likelihood of her jealousy was greatly reduced. JMO. :)

I think Vera was a very secure woman, and rightly so.
 
StillILearn said:
Ooops. Perhaps that was not 'you'.

VN was decidedly cruel to this 'Lyuba Serafimovna Savich'. Do you suspect that he was referring to an actual woman, and do you also suspect that he may have been doing this to somehow placate and reassure his "first reader"?

pp. 83/84
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SIL,
I don't know what to make of it myself. He certainly has uncharitable thoughts. But then, there are a few unusual things about the style that stand out to me in this book.

First of all, he announces there will be three or four wives, for reasons I can't quite understand. It seems to me that takes some of the suspense out of it. Without such mention, one could come across each new woman with the hopeful question "Is this going to be the one?" or "Is this the one that is going to be like Vera?" (I do that anyway -- silly me.) But instead, logic suggests wondering "So how he is going to get rid of this one?" :eek:
For the demise of Iris he announced she had 15 minutes to live, again seemingly needlessly. But there I suppose one might argue that it heightened reader attentiveness to the last carefree minutes of her life.

I think overall he was being deliberately "different."
How to portray a character who might be mistaken for himself? Well, perhaps as a cad, the opposite of his self-image (and of himself IMO).

How to write the plot to dispose of women (or characters)? Well not the same way each time, certainly -- at least not for VN. (Brings to mind 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover in fact. :) ) So one gets murdered, one is just 'not his type,' no matter how sweet and well-meaning, and we'll see what happens to the next, and wonder beforehand whether she will be able to type like Vera. :rolleyes:

It seems to me that Harlequins has a different "attitude" or "style" than his other novels -- in line with his desire seemingly to never repeat himself -- and that he also never shied away from presenting unappealing kinds of characters or situations.

Someone (maybe Geoffrey Green of "Freud and Nabokov") once asked, in evident exasperation, something like: "What is one to make of an author who, when he writes his supposedly factual biography (Speak Memory) writes it with all the artistry of a fictional novel -- and actually had one chapter published as fiction -- and who, when he writes a supposedly fictional biography writes it as a parody of his own factual life and career?"

What indeed?

I think Nabokov was simply expanding the limits of his own artistic craftsmanship -- always.
And to satisfy what he called his own "aesthetic bliss."

So to get back to your question. How does one write of one's lack of interest in a person? VN decided not to just vague the person away, but to describe exaggeratedly the feelings one might have. And it jars us, or at least me, who always likes nice happy story lines with nice happy feel-good endings. And we haven't seen a happy boy-girl ending yet I don't think. Iris had the makings, but it just isn't his way it seems. /sigh/

PS L-S-S did have some of the characteristics of Vera, in her typing skill, but was obviously not Vera. I think that is clearly VN mixing factual characteristics of people he has known into his fictional mix of story-telling. Every so often one does see some actual reality. One just never knows when. :rolleyes:.

Peder
 
Ooops! Peder, I see that, although I certainly read, and vastly enjoyed, your post (above), I neglected to reply to it in any way, except perhaps mentally. My bad, as VN would never, never, under any circumstances at all, have said.

Well, here I am again -- reading happily (albeit slowly) away -- when I run into not one, but two references to Vadim's being in an "eoan" state.

... but at the eoan stage of an attack I am beyond alcohol, so could only taste the pineapple part of the mixture.
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and

... and saw, with a sense of relief (also "eoan" alas) that beyond a previously unnoticed ... etc.
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so I, being fortunate enough to have several cyber-dictionaries (how did his twentieth-century readers ever manage? to hand, looked this word up a couple of times, only to learn that the thing is pronounced owen and means "from the east or dawn", and/or is somehow (or used to be) a reference to Piltdow Man.

What the?

pontalba? Anybody? What did you deduce?

(It's no wonder those two old men in the ward for three at the bottom of page 146 were dying of cerebritis.)
 
StillILearn said:
so I, being fortunate enough to have several cyber-dictionaries (how did his twentieth-century readers ever manage? to hand, looked this word up a couple of times, only to learn that the thing is pronounced owen and means "from the east or dawn", and/or is somehow (or used to be) a reference to Piltdow Man.

What the?

pontalba? Anybody? What did you deduce?

(It's no wonder those two old men in the ward for three at the bottom of page 146 were dying of cerebritis.)
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SIL,
Glad to hear from you.
I deduced nothing, as I didn't even see the word when I read the novel./groan/ :eek:
However, from your definitions and contexts it sounds like it would read as some variant of "early," "unformed," "innocent," or "new-born," as the Sun rises in the East and gives rise to the new-born or dawning day. In addition, as an example of usage for Eo-, Eohippus was/were the cute little early horsies that have been found as archaeological predecessors to the modern full-sized ones we see. And there is an Eocene epoch/era/age(?) which again is "early" in some sense. And Piltdown Man may have been found at the Eocene level, or have been referred to as Early Man.

Over to you pontalba. :D

As for those two old men, I'm really pretty sure I'm the one in the middle. :rolleyes:
Peder

PS SIL, would you happen to have a page number handy for the second citation?
 
:rolleyes:
:crossed eyes:
Frankly, I didn't think about it too much. From the sentence I just figured it meant "early on in" and didn't look it up.
But I kind of felt as though that whole episode was some sort of hallucination......the whole thing was rather strange to say the least.

Now I did check out what cerebritis meant. I kind of figured, but it is inflammation of the brain. Is Nabokov saying that Vadim suffered from the same thing in an "eoan" stage as well? It would have been curable at an early stage. :confused:
Peder--they are on p. 145 and 146 (very top)
 
A group of fifteen schoolchildren who had been taken to see a collection of stuffed animals donated by Mrs. Rosenthal, the benefactor's widow, to the Rosedale museum, were safe in the sudden darkness of that sturdy building when the twister struck. But the prettiest lakeside cottage got swept away, and the drowned bodies of its two occupants were never retrieved.
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page 162

Is this how we know what happened to Annette? The man is merciless.
 
StillILearn said:
page 162

Is this how we know what happened to Annette? The man is merciless.
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SIL,
ninel AND annette both, the way I do the count.
So how long did it take for you to find it? :D Took me an age.
The bodies still haven't been found yet, actually. :rolleyes:
When he gets rid of 'em he gets rid of 'em.
But kidding aside, congratulations on close reading! :) :) :)
Peder

Oh, nifty tagline too! :eek:
 
pontalba said:
Kind of poetic justice though. :rolleyes:

Love the "new" tagline! LOL :cool: ;)
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You know maybe I was a bit harsh here, but Annette really irritated me. Breaking up the family and depriving Bel and Vadim of each other at such a time for such a reason. :(
In a real sense she ruined Bel's life. IMO :( :(
 
Peder = ninel AND annette both, the way I do the count.
So how long did it take for you to find it? :D Took me an age.

But kidding aside, congratulations on close reading! :) :) :)
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Wait! What? Nine? Nine whiches? Nine whats? I'm reading as slowly as it is possible to read and I missed nine whats? Wives? Children? Pages? Years????
 
SIL,
You're on the home stretch now, all the goodies lie ahead!
Up til now was just gettin ready for the main show.
Overjoyed that you are still with it.
Peder
 
StillILearn said:
Wait! What? Nine? Nine whiches? Nine whats? I'm reading as slowly as it is possible to read and I missed nine whats? Wives? Children? Pages? Years????
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Oops! N-I-N-E-L and annette (two people, p133)
 
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