Vladimir Nabokov

[Ms.]

Ms. Hi!
I hope you have heard by now that a group is forming up ready and eager to discuss The Real Life of Sebastian Knight that you recommended. I thought it was a great book and I really hope that you will be part of the discussion and will share your own enthusiasm about it!
Is a day or so from now OK to begin?
Please give a dingle,
Sincerely,
Peder

I have yet to re-read The Real Life of Sebastian Knight but shall do by monday morning (feel free to start before then tho ) and join in the discussion.

I have 30 or so pages to go in Ada but have to question the idea of Antiterra, did i miss blantant references that would lead it to being earth?

Is it just my arrogance that presumes earth?

 

[Peder]

I have yet to re-read The Real Life of Sebastian Knight but shall do by monday morning and join in the discussion.

I have 30 or so pages to go in Ada but have to question the idea of Antiterra, did i miss blantant references that would lead it to being earth?

Is it just my arrogance that presumes earth?

Hi, Ms.
Good to hear from you!
I just plain gave up on sorting out Antiterra. Hoped I would do better on reread. But something does get to sounding a lot like Earth, I have to agree with that. I was happy enough with having sorted out the pedigrees of Van and Ada in the first few pages (with pencil and paper and diagrams). After that I decided to just read and take it as it came.
Over on Sebastian Knight, we are just finding our voices and getting thoughts sorted out, amid some wild speculation just for the fun of it. So please join the general confusion whenever you are ready. We'll steady down as more join in.
Peder

 

[pontalba]

Overlook Illustrated Lives/Vladimir Nabokov by Jane Grayson

This is a nice little book that came to my attention, and I wanted to share something from it that I found both amusing and telling. We ourselves as fledging Nabokovians have in fact experienced same.

The conventions of the Nabokov game have it that the hidden treasure lies within his enchanted garden, not without, and when the inquisitive, sceptical or unsporting ignore the directive and go digging for dark secrets beyond its walls, as often as not they find nothing but dust, and are banished from the kingdom as traitors. Moreover, within the garden stands a mirror, which can draw the reader into its depths. Just as Nabokov issued health warning to readers of Gogal: 'a man's eyes may become gogolized', so readers of Nabokov must be cautioned lest they return from behind the mirror speaking only 'nabokovese'.

The sad thing is that some of my friends look at me a bit strangely when I show enthusiasm for Things Nabokov. "Oh, that guy that wrote Lolita? Right?" [and its a long shot if they know even that] And then the disapproving look. How can an intelligent human disapprove of something of which they are ignorant? Silly question, I know that. But it still irritates me.
sorry, mini-rant over.

 

[pontalba]

Overlook Illustrated Lives/Vladimir Nabokov by Jane Granson

Just ran across a teeny tidbit that readers of Glory will recognize.

But Nabokov's cherished childhood memory is of the bedtime stories his mother read to him in English in the drawing room. He remembers in particular the fairy tale of a little boy who stepped out of his bed into a picture and rode his hobby-horse along a painted path in a dense European beechwood. He does not name the story, but the detail of a boy climbing out of his bed into a picture of a landscape brings to mind Hans Andersen's well-known tale of 'The Sandman'. Nabokov recalls it in association with a watercolour that hung above his bed. As he knelt and said his English prayers ('Gentle Jesus meek and mild...') he would imagine climbing into the picture and plunging into that enchanted forest.

EDIT: Can't seem to correct the subject line. Authors last name should be Grayson.

 

[Peder]

Pontalba,
Sounds like a very nice book that you have come across that has not been mentioned here before. And I never heard of"The Sandman" story before either. Except as a Graphic Novel, er-hem, in one of the other threads here, but never connected the themes.
Live and learn through Nabokov!

Peder

 

[pontalba]

I'd quite forgotten I had the book. When it arrived from Amazon I shelved it and forgot it. Last night I was rearranging a bit, and came across it again. The small size of it is quite.....handy. Evidently its one of a series on authors. It is jam packed with goodies.

 

[pontalba]

Nabokov's Blues, The Scientific Odyssey of a Literary Genius by Johnson & Coates

Since Nabokov's Blues came up in the other thread, I thought I'd post a bit over here. This exerpt partially has to do with Andrew Field's bio of Nabokov, which I have only skimmed, but did not find......lets say.......Oh!, lets say what it was.....not very good IMO. Field simply did not "get" Nabokov's humor. Anyhow, here is an exerpt from above mentioned Nabokov's Blues--

Nabokov's ironic deprecation of his butterflies might have encouraged Field in his own predilections. Field's book, Vladimir Nabokov: His Life in Part, appeared in 1977, the year Nabokov died. This work, the first attempt at a full biograhy, reflects scant appreciation for lepidoptery, Nabokov's or anyone else's. .......but in the end Field failed not only to evaluate Nabokov's entomlolgical achievement with any thoroughness but even to suggest what a significant and time-consuming role it played throughout the writer's career.
To be fair, if Field trivialized Nabokov's lepidoptery as an elaborate literary pose, Nabokov suggested this idea, too--even if only to dismiss it-- in a thinly-veiled self-reference in his 1957 novel Pnin.

 

[Peder]

Since Nabokov's Blues came up in the other thread, I thought I'd post a bit over here. This exerpt partially has to do with Andrew Field's bio of Nabokov, which I have only skimmed, but did not find......lets say.......Oh!, lets say what it was.....not very good IMO. Field simply did not "get" Nabokov's humor. Anyhow, here is an exerpt from above mentioned Nabokov's Blues--

Pontalba,
A shame that his life interest and genuine achievements were thus slighted.
I can only remark, possibly controversially, that people with scientific bent do not necessarily receive very understanding coverage from non-scientific journalists or writers, or possibly even from the public, at large. The discovery of a new species of butterfly, for example (such as that bbeautiful Blue you showed), must come with exalted emotions that have not been experienced by most of us, including myself, nor can even be imagined.
Peder

 

[pontalba]

Before the Deluge by Otto Friedrich

"A Portrait of Berlin in the 1920's" Hmmm does that time frame sound familar to Nabokovians?
This is all Peder's fault. He mentioned last week that he'd bought Weimar Culture, The Outsider as Insider by Peter Gay, so of course I started mucking about on Amazon, and lo and behold! Before the Deluge popped out of the hat. Both are excellent backgrounds on the time that Nabokov was living in Berlin. Berlin between wars was the most fantastical, raunchy place on the planet. One of the things I found interesting in Before the Deluge was that there was so much information on Our Lad. Extensive quoting of VN's The Gift is included as well as plot summaries of a few others. One thing I found interesting, was partially covered by.....oh one of these Nabokov threads. The fact that Nabokov always claimed a certain ignorance of the German language. p.89

Young Vladimir Nabokov moved to Germany the following year and began writing, under the name of Sirin, his Berlin novels--notably Mary; King, Queen, Knave; The Eye; The Defense; Laughter in the Dark; Despair; and The Gift. Nabokov has repeatedly stated that these are not Berlin novels, or rather, that their characters are not Berliners. "I spoke no German, had no German friends, had not read a single German novel either in the original or in translation." he once wrote. "But in art, as in nature, a glaring disadvantage may turn out to be a subtle protective device." It is true that many of the characters in Nabokov's Berlin novels are Russians, for Nabokov spent much of his time within that closed community, occupying himself not only by giving tennis and English lessons but also in translating Alice in Wonderland into Russian, and by devising, for his father's newspaper, the first Russian crossword puzzles. But the Russians played an important part in the Berlin of the 1920's, as does any major ethnic group in New York today, and Nabokov has left us a matchless portrait of their peculiar society, their teas and intrigues, and their interminable poetry readings.

So, History Fans.....if Berlin between the Wars is your cuppa, Nabokov is the one for you.

 

[Peder]

"A Portrait of Berlin in the 1920's" Hmmm does that time frame sound familiar to Nabokovians?
So, History Fans.....if Berlin between the Wars is your cuppa, Nabokov is the one for you.

Very nice find Pontalba,
So, there are "Berlin novels," and now we know which ones they are, his first ones, more or less from Mary through the Gift, but skipping a couple: Glory and Invitation to a Beheading. I wonder then is Glory what might be called a "Cambridge novel," and if there are others.
In any event, I find it both startling and gratifying to find VN mentioned in "real" history. It is of course logical that he lived in the real world, and our intellect knows that he lived in Berlin for a while in the 20's, but I think of him so completely as an American novelist creating fictional worlds that take place in Berlin and Cambridge and France (and the United States), that it causes a strange shift in perspective to hear of him actually living in those locales of his novels, and to hear it from a source outside the Nabokovian canon. I don't know how else to describe it other than to say it somehow makes a historical figure of him as well as a literary figure, or perhaps that it places him in real history as well as in literary history. Just a personal quirk I suppose. But yes, the Mary that I read is very definitely set in Berlin, and not Cambridge, and would certainly be a "Berlin" novel, with very definite images of the city and what life and people were like there at the time.
It sounds like Before the Deluge and Weimar Culture are both going to make fascinating reading about the historical times, and not only as adjuncts for the background of Nabokovian novels.
Fascinating,
Peder

 

[steffee]

Hi Peder, I saw in another Nabokov thread that you didn't like Mary so much as the others. Why is that? Is it written in a different style, or is just because it was his debut novel?

 

[Peder]

Hi Peder, I saw in another Nabokov thread that you didn't like Mary so much as the others. Why is that? Is it written in a different style, or is just because it was his debut novel?

Ah Steffee,
Keen eyes!
Yes you noticed correctly, but perhaps i made too much of it.
I liked the story just fine. I loved the view of life inside and around a down-at-the-heels rooming house in Berlin -- in a kind of seedy, city neighboorhood where I could recognize parts of New York also. It had "air" that is a part of me. And Nabokov was writing masterful "nabokov" from day one as far as I can tell. His style was there, his language, his ability to tell a gripping story, with twists and turns and colorful and ultra-realistic characters in a vivid locale. The story moved! I was enjoying it immensely, and on the edge of my seat getting closer and closer to falling off, as he built up the suspense for how things were going to resolve. And then, for my money, he just threw it away! I ended up with so little regard for the protagonist, mainly because it appeared that VN simply decided to ditch the story in mid-stream, stop writing and take the easy way out. Way too cute! I was never so disappointed in an ending. Maybe that still puts it a little too strongly but that was my reaction.
All of which is not a reason to not read the story. And my comments are probably a spoiler. It is a great story as long as it lasts.
And it has the feel, now that I think of it, of Isherwood's Berlin Stories (without the dark political background) and that ain't bad! At all!
peder

 

[StillILearn]

Peder =

Currently Reading: Sebastian Knight, Harlequins, Laughter

Ah, Peder! This certainly conjures up a picture. I can just see the pages flying (and being marked), comparisons being made and coffee being gulped. All of us know what goes on in our brains when we are immersed in a single author's work.

Are you able to hold conversations at all with non-readers right now?

 

[pontalba]

Very nice find Pontalba,
I wonder then is Glory what might be called a "Cambridge novel," and if there are others.

It sounds like Before the Deluge and Weimar Culture are both going to make fascinating reading about the historical times, and not only as adjuncts for the background of Nabokovian novels.
Fascinating,
Peder

Although Glory probably has more than half the action taking place outside of Berlin, somehow to me it seems the decisive action, for example Martin leaving from Berlin to go.......wherever he goes, and many of his encounters with Sonia take place in Berlin, therefore giving Berlin the edge.

And yes, I cannot stress enough how much Before the Deluge sets up the mood for that portion of Nabokov. My interest has always lain more in the actual WWII years, but this is in actuality more interesting. Explains the Why.

 

[pontalba]

Are you able to hold conversations at all with non-readers right now?

Please explain the term "N-O-N R-E-A-D-E-R-S" that does not compute.

 

[Peder]

Peder =

Ah, Peder! This certainly conjures up a picture. I can just see the pages flying (and being marked), comparisons being made and coffee being gulped. All of us know what goes on in our brains when we are immersed in a single author's work.

Are you able to hold conversations at all with non-readers right now?

Oh SIL,
A million apologies! I now see I lost the answer to your question after I thought I had posted it long ago. Drat! Your picture is about right, but it has been entirely SK that is wearing out my pencil. Harlequins gets only an occasional peek, and Laughter is just sitting still. In SK it took about four looks at the story to finally see what I think is the only mention of an asphodel in the book, apart from titles. So that was a big find -- almost like finding a new butterfly -- and made sense of things.
But no non-readers, or readers, around here. And definitely no munchkins either. Just me and my keyboard.
But I do eat,
And, oh yeah, drink coffee
Almost forgot,
Peder

 

[pontalba]

Originally Posted by pontalba
Peder
The Boyd's are excellent references, as you well know, but honestly sometimes the reasonings he comes up with for Nabokov's plot lines are, well just not on the mark. At least not IMHO. And this time I do mean the humble. Lots of times I don't.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Pontalba,
Hmm, that's interesting to hear.
I haven't delved into the two volumes as much as you, but generally have not been put off. I thought his take on Glory was rather different that I myself could see, so I would say his outright denial of Enchanter is the first genuinely sour note I have seen. I would still call his commentary on Pale Fire magnificent, though, even if that is also a definite stretch of one's brain cells at times.
Peder
__________________

Peder
I carried this over here as we were getting off of Enchanter a bit
Don't get me wrong, I think the Boyd's are wonderful and excellent references on Nabokov. I just think sometimes he takes 'going off on a tangent' a bit far on his plot extraploations. But I'm no scholar, and I'm positive Boyd has excellent reasons for his notes. I just don't agree with all of them.

 

[Peder]

Peder
I carried this over here as we were getting off of Enchanter a bit
Don't get me wrong, I think the Boyd's are wonderful and excellent references on Nabokov. I just think sometimes he takes 'going off on a tangent' a bit far on his plot extraploations. But I'm no scholar, and I'm positive Boyd has excellent reasons for his notes. I just don't agree with all of them.

Pontalba,
I'm with you all the way.
The Boyds are wonderful references for Nabokov's life and works.
Sometimes his plot discussions seem a bit far.
I'm no scholar.
Boyd has excellent reasons. His criteria for excellence for Lolita were very informative.
And I just don't agree with him on Enchanter either.
Peder

 

[pontalba]

Pontalba,
A shame that his life interest and genuine achievements were thus slighted.
I can only remark, possibly controversially, that people with scientific bent do not necessarily receive very understanding coverage from non-scientific journalists or writers, or possibly even from the public, at large. The discovery of a new species of butterfly, for example (such as that bbeautiful Blue you showed), must come with exalted emotions that have not been experienced by most of us, including myself, nor can even be imagined.
Peder

I think that scientists in general do not receive either sympathetic or accurate coverage from the mainstream press. Nothing controversial about that IMO. How can they cover what they really don't understand?, either because of not caring, or simply not having the capacity to understand. And that is Not a swipe at journalists in general. Just an observation of fact.
Nabokov had outstanding capacity for understanding and assimilating many elements of life, and the curiousity to pursue his interests. Plus his huge artistic talent.

 

[Peder]

And that is Not a swipe at journalists in general. Just an observation of fact.
Nabokov had outstanding capacity for understanding and assimilating many elements of life, and the curiousity to pursue his interests. Plus his huge artistic talent.

Pontalba,
But you might have to agree also that it doesn't hurt that some scientists do engage in activities that can be made to sound whimsical -- like chase butterflies? If Nabokov didn't have the formidable talent for which he is recognized, I think he would quite possibly be portrayed as a much more comical figure. Perhaps more like the common image of a nutty professor?
Peder