Subject
RJ:CLOUD, CASTLE, LAKE (fwd)
Date
Body
EDITORIAL NOTE. British Nabokovian Roy Johnson resumes his weekly postings
on Nabokov's nearly 70 short stories. The treatments are excerpted from
Dr. Johnson's book manuscript on VN as short story writer. The weekly
postings are intended to encourage discussion of the stories which are a
relatively neglected aspect of VN's oeuvre. Please address your comments
to NABOKV-L.
From: Roy Johnson <Roy@mantex.demon.co.uk>
-----------------------------------------------
This week's story - CLOUD, CASTLE, LAKE
-----------------------------------------------
Having published *Invitation to a Beheading* in 1935, Nabokov
obviously felt that there was still something to say on the subject of
tyranny and oppression - for two stories followed which produced
variations on this theme. 'Cloud, Castle, Lake' appeared first (June
1937) as Khodasevich suggests (LA,p.196) as an "afterword" to the
novel. The story is rather an uneasy mixture of realism, fantasy, and
poetic lyricism - which eventually serve to illustrate that it is not
always possible to combine successfully in the short story elements
which are essentially heterogeneous.
A modest young bachelor, Vasili Ivanovich, wins a ticket for a pleasure
excursion which he would rather not take, but he is obliged to do so
by the "Bureau of Pleasantrips" (ND,p.112). There follows a hiking
expedition amongst a group of vulgar Germans who bully and
humiliate him, and he is forced to participate in organised
entertainment and collective enjoyment. Before setting off he had a
presentiment that he would encounter something that would make
him tremendously happy, and after two days of torment this
experience comes to him in the form of the vision of an idyllic
landscape (the cloud, castle, and lake). Nearby is an inn kept by a
fellow Russian. The setting is so beautiful that Vasili feels he would
like to live there forever. But the tour leader will not allow it: the
group returns to Berlin, beating and torturing Vasili on the way back.
At the end of the story he reports to his 'boss' (who is the narrator)
saying that he has not "the strength to belong to mankind any longer"
(p.124).
Obviously the story is a plea for the value of private and individual
experience against social coercion and what Nabokov sees as the
dehumanising effects of 'the collective'. And of course this overt
content acts as a completely accurate prophecy of what was to happen
in Germany in the eight years to follow. As a cartoon sketch of social
ugliness and menace the story is quite disturbing in the same way as
was 'The Leonardo'. But unfortunately for the artistic cohesion of the
piece, the realistic and fantasy elements work against each other.
If a piece of fiction is to create an acceptably fantastic world, then it
must have time to establish the credibility of this world, and the
suspension of the reader's disbelief must not be punctured or
interrupted by switches from realism to fantasy and back again. In
such a short work as this , asking the reader to believe in a *real*
Berlin, a *real* train journey, and a credible migr Vasili Ivanovich
are one thing: but a Bureau of Pleasantrips and the idea of a charity
prize which cannot be refused belong to a different order of fictional
existence. The two cannot be successfully blended, for there is too
great a disparity between them, and the tone of the story is disrupted
by the attempted admixture. It *is* possible to combine realism and
fantasy more successfully, as 'The Visit to the Museum' will show, but
the transition from one to the other must be very subtle and much
more gradual than is the case here.
Field suggests that the story is "indisputably a fable or allegory"
(LA,p.197) - but Nabokov's own description, within the text, of "a
hideous fairy tale" (p.123) seems more appropriate. For the *tale* is a
looser, less demanding form than that of the short story in its modern
phase.
What the story does have to recommend it is a successful control of
the narrative voice. The outer narrator - a sort of author substitute
figure- pretends to be a businessman and speaks of Vasili as "one of
my representatives" (p.112) in a manner which recalls Nabokov's use
of substitute figures in 'Recruiting'. For the most part this narrator is
absent from the story, and we must believe that Vasili gives him the
details to report in his final account of the trip. But the narrator
makes one brief interjection to speak of himself and Vasili in the first
person plural: "we both, Vasili Ivanovich and I, have always been
impressed by the anonymity of all the parts of a landscape" (p.115).
The narrative also includes addresses to an unnamed second person -
"from somewhere there came the odour of jasmine and hay, my love"
(p.118) - which are Vasili's thoughts (imputed to him by the narrator)
addressed to a woman. This unobtrusive detail holds together three
important elements of the themes which so many of Nabokov's stories
have been exploring - memory, a search for the past and a Russia that
has been lost, states of aesthetic bliss as transcendent experiences, and
the connexion between all of these and a woman. For as Vasili believes
at the outset of his trip
"This happiness would have something in common with
his childhood, and with the excitement aroused in him by
Russian lyrical poetry ... and with that lady ... whom he
had hopelessly loved for seven years" (p.113).
When Vasili returns from his trip disenchanted and reports that he
can stand humankind no longer, the narrator tells us "Of course, I let
him go" (p.124) - thus dissolving Vasili as a fictional construct and
drawing attention to the narrator himself as a figure for Nabokov's
own narrative convenience.
----------------------------------------------
Next week's story - TYRANTS DESTROYED
----------------------------------------------
--
Roy Johnson | Roy@mantex.demon.co.uk
PO Box 100 | Tel +44 0161 432 5811
Manchester 20 | Fax +44 0161 443 2766
on Nabokov's nearly 70 short stories. The treatments are excerpted from
Dr. Johnson's book manuscript on VN as short story writer. The weekly
postings are intended to encourage discussion of the stories which are a
relatively neglected aspect of VN's oeuvre. Please address your comments
to NABOKV-L.
From: Roy Johnson <Roy@mantex.demon.co.uk>
-----------------------------------------------
This week's story - CLOUD, CASTLE, LAKE
-----------------------------------------------
Having published *Invitation to a Beheading* in 1935, Nabokov
obviously felt that there was still something to say on the subject of
tyranny and oppression - for two stories followed which produced
variations on this theme. 'Cloud, Castle, Lake' appeared first (June
1937) as Khodasevich suggests (LA,p.196) as an "afterword" to the
novel. The story is rather an uneasy mixture of realism, fantasy, and
poetic lyricism - which eventually serve to illustrate that it is not
always possible to combine successfully in the short story elements
which are essentially heterogeneous.
A modest young bachelor, Vasili Ivanovich, wins a ticket for a pleasure
excursion which he would rather not take, but he is obliged to do so
by the "Bureau of Pleasantrips" (ND,p.112). There follows a hiking
expedition amongst a group of vulgar Germans who bully and
humiliate him, and he is forced to participate in organised
entertainment and collective enjoyment. Before setting off he had a
presentiment that he would encounter something that would make
him tremendously happy, and after two days of torment this
experience comes to him in the form of the vision of an idyllic
landscape (the cloud, castle, and lake). Nearby is an inn kept by a
fellow Russian. The setting is so beautiful that Vasili feels he would
like to live there forever. But the tour leader will not allow it: the
group returns to Berlin, beating and torturing Vasili on the way back.
At the end of the story he reports to his 'boss' (who is the narrator)
saying that he has not "the strength to belong to mankind any longer"
(p.124).
Obviously the story is a plea for the value of private and individual
experience against social coercion and what Nabokov sees as the
dehumanising effects of 'the collective'. And of course this overt
content acts as a completely accurate prophecy of what was to happen
in Germany in the eight years to follow. As a cartoon sketch of social
ugliness and menace the story is quite disturbing in the same way as
was 'The Leonardo'. But unfortunately for the artistic cohesion of the
piece, the realistic and fantasy elements work against each other.
If a piece of fiction is to create an acceptably fantastic world, then it
must have time to establish the credibility of this world, and the
suspension of the reader's disbelief must not be punctured or
interrupted by switches from realism to fantasy and back again. In
such a short work as this , asking the reader to believe in a *real*
Berlin, a *real* train journey, and a credible migr Vasili Ivanovich
are one thing: but a Bureau of Pleasantrips and the idea of a charity
prize which cannot be refused belong to a different order of fictional
existence. The two cannot be successfully blended, for there is too
great a disparity between them, and the tone of the story is disrupted
by the attempted admixture. It *is* possible to combine realism and
fantasy more successfully, as 'The Visit to the Museum' will show, but
the transition from one to the other must be very subtle and much
more gradual than is the case here.
Field suggests that the story is "indisputably a fable or allegory"
(LA,p.197) - but Nabokov's own description, within the text, of "a
hideous fairy tale" (p.123) seems more appropriate. For the *tale* is a
looser, less demanding form than that of the short story in its modern
phase.
What the story does have to recommend it is a successful control of
the narrative voice. The outer narrator - a sort of author substitute
figure- pretends to be a businessman and speaks of Vasili as "one of
my representatives" (p.112) in a manner which recalls Nabokov's use
of substitute figures in 'Recruiting'. For the most part this narrator is
absent from the story, and we must believe that Vasili gives him the
details to report in his final account of the trip. But the narrator
makes one brief interjection to speak of himself and Vasili in the first
person plural: "we both, Vasili Ivanovich and I, have always been
impressed by the anonymity of all the parts of a landscape" (p.115).
The narrative also includes addresses to an unnamed second person -
"from somewhere there came the odour of jasmine and hay, my love"
(p.118) - which are Vasili's thoughts (imputed to him by the narrator)
addressed to a woman. This unobtrusive detail holds together three
important elements of the themes which so many of Nabokov's stories
have been exploring - memory, a search for the past and a Russia that
has been lost, states of aesthetic bliss as transcendent experiences, and
the connexion between all of these and a woman. For as Vasili believes
at the outset of his trip
"This happiness would have something in common with
his childhood, and with the excitement aroused in him by
Russian lyrical poetry ... and with that lady ... whom he
had hopelessly loved for seven years" (p.113).
When Vasili returns from his trip disenchanted and reports that he
can stand humankind no longer, the narrator tells us "Of course, I let
him go" (p.124) - thus dissolving Vasili as a fictional construct and
drawing attention to the narrator himself as a figure for Nabokov's
own narrative convenience.
----------------------------------------------
Next week's story - TYRANTS DESTROYED
----------------------------------------------
--
Roy Johnson | Roy@mantex.demon.co.uk
PO Box 100 | Tel +44 0161 432 5811
Manchester 20 | Fax +44 0161 443 2766