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There's been some discussion on the list of my TLS article on Nabokov,
and of my recently published book, Vladimir Nabokov and the Art of
Play, which I'd like to comment on. Of the three major areas of
debate- 1) symbolism, 2) Freud, and 3) belief (and the 18th century) -
I’ll write on each separately, as they all demand a full response
and it would be much too long a post if I wrote on each at once. In
each case what I’ll say sometimes expands on but more often simplifies
and reduces what I say in my book.
First, Jansy de Mello's comments on symbolism, which I reproduce below.
JM: What strikes me over and over is how imprecisely the term
"symbolism" is employed whenever it is quoted or re-applied. It is
often used indifferently as synonimous of "icon", "sign", "index,"
whereas the eminently symbolic dimension of language is not
sufficiently considered and the world of "correspondances" is overly
stressed. Karsham's notes that "Kinbote's logomania heroically
demonstrates that love of fleeting minutiae which Nabokov considered
essential to poetry, reading and happiness," but, when he places
Naiman among other Nabokov critics, he situates him in "Kinbote's
school" with a disparaging intention, considering that Nabokov's
"ideal reader" is like a passive Aeolian harp, like Kinbote's uncle
Conmal. Karshan doesn't dwell over Conmal's failings and distortions
as a translator and, above all, over the distinction between a "love
of fleeting minutiae" by someone afflicted by "logomania", and
something of the same as it may be found in normal individuals.
TK: I really don’t disagree with what she says here, and I think she
may be mistaken to think we’re in disagreement. My point in my TLS
piece was that Nabokov held two potentially contradictory views of
what good reading is, and that in Pale Fire he dramatised their
possible (but not necessary) irreconcilability. Those two views are,
very roughly, the one which encourages the reader to act like a
textual critic, breaking apart fragments, isolating details, and
interpreting them in isolation; and the one which encourages the
reader to act like a person at a concert or a viewer of a painting,
seeing all the artistic elements in context and proportion,
experiencing them aesthetically rather than asking always what they
‘mean’. (These two views, incidentally, reflect the centaur-like dual
nature of literature, which belongs *both* to the trinity of poetry,
music, painting (the arts), *and* to the trinity of philosophy,
history, and poetry (the discourses)).
There are, to be sure, ways in which these two ideas of what reading
are complementary. For instance, the pursuit of interpretive detail
forces one to attend to the fine details of the aesthetic – tone,
image, verbal register. In Pale Fire, Nabokov has arranged things so
that certain interpretive puzzles cannot be solved without thinking
about tone, irony, etc. – that is, without thinking about the elements
of the literary work which are not those which a philosopher,
lexicographer, or historian would recognise – the ‘poetic’ character
of language – or, as Shade, says, “not text but texture”.
To my mind, in Pale Fire Nabokov humorously embodies these two ways of
reading, in Kinbote and in Conmal. Each is absurd; each embodies, but
in a dangerously exaggerated way, something essential to good reading.
In my TLS piece I wrote that “For this Nabokov, the ideal reader is
not Kinbote, but Kinbote's belletristic uncle Conmal, who spends two
happy years reading in bed. Conmal is the reader as passive
instrument, an Aeolian harp on which the finest half-tones of art can
be sounded." Here ‘This Nabokov’ is the one who stressed the artistic
non-interpretive dimension of reading – the Nabokov who said ‘I do not
believe in any kind of interpretation.” Like Jansy, I do not find this
view adequate to an understanding of the kind of reading Nabokov’s
works demand and reward; that is, I think this is only one side of
Nabokov. Thus when I said that ‘this Nabokov’s’ hero is Conmal, I did
not mean that Conmal is the model for a correct reading of Nabokov. I
do, however, think, that some Nabokov criticism, in focusing
exclusively on possible puzzles of source and meaning, as tone-deaf
Kinbote does, forgets to attend to all that is artistic in his work.
Which is not to say that such puzzles don’t matter. They do. But a
sense of context and proportion “not text, but texture” is also
crucial to art and sanity (neither of which are unproblematic goods,
by the way).
On that point, we come on to the question of what ‘symbolism’ is or
isn’t, in and beyond Nabokov. Jansy is unhappy with my use of the word
in my comment that Nabokov “satirized the code-breaking state of mind
that seeks symbols everywhere” – and, presumably, with Nabokov’s use
of the word when he spoke of the “symbolism racket” in schools. All
good non-philosophical writing must insist on its right to use terms
with a specific meaning given by the context of the sentence –
otherwise you would have a patent deodorised technical prose. There
are certainly kinds of ‘symbolism’ - as Jansy says, “the eminently
symbolic character of language” – which Nabokov’s work relies on,
fosters, and draws its inspiration from. And in fact Nabokov himself
acknowledged this om his lecture on Joyce, when he said that “all art
is in a sense symbolic; but we say ‘stop, thief’ to the critic who
deliberately transforms an artist’s subtle symbol into a pedant’s
stale allegory”. Again, in his essay on Kafka, he says that “once you
detach a symbol from the artistic core of the book, you lose all sense
of enjoyment. The reason is that there are artistic symbols and there
are trite, artificial, or even imbecile symbols. You will find a
number of such inept symbols in the psychoanalytic and mythological
approach to Kafka’s work [...]
We need not bow to all of Nabokov’s critical pronouncements – on the
contrary, I think we must be true to the sharp distinction in Nabokov
between art and opinion. But I find these distinctions, just quoted,
to be useful – all art is in a sense symbolic, as Coleridge thought it
was – of truths too complex to be expressed in ordinary language. But
not in the sense of allegory or one-to-one correspondence. So I do
differ somewhat from Jansy in her defense of ‘invigorating
connections’. She writes:
JM: Besides, did Nabokov in fact, as Karshan maintains, see the love
for details as something "essential to poetry, reading and happiness",
instead of emphasizing its roots in "curiosity," a quality expected in
readers and in non-readers as well? In TRY, biographer Brian Boyd
recognizes that, for Nabokov, "art requires curiosity, tenderness
toward all that is frail in the world" and, in a wikiquote (which
doesn't indicate its source), Nabokov moves even further: "Curiosity
is insubordination in its purest form." As I see it, "curiosity" is
the drive that lies behind the unceasing search for minutiae in the
world of nature, art and words (including symbols), with their
ever-shifting images and invigorating connections.
My response is:
TK: Connections are important, but so are distinctions – and all
connections should be understood in their context. Otherwise, yes, we
run the risk of the allegorical frame of mind with which Freudianism
is, in the popular imagination, associated. It is that black and white
symbolic state of mind which Nabokov portrays in Luzhin. And though
Luzhin is surely sympathetic – and though madness has its truth –
Luzhin is not a good model for life or art. If by ‘curiosity’ one
means this allegorical temperament, or the failure to recognise
proportion, context, and so on, I must insist that though it is – to
Nabokov, and for what it is worth, to me – an essential part of life,
reading, and art – it is also a faculty which can dangerously
disassemble the living texture of art and life – and thus become not
invigorating but in a sense deadening and obsessive. From the 1920s
onwards, Nabokov was always deeply aware of the ways in which virtues
can become vices (and vice versa).
But, to be sure, I did not mean to suggest that the love of details is
not essential to Nabokov’s aesthetic and view of what is important in
life – to non-readers as well as reader – and that is why I listed
‘happiness’ alongside poetry and reading.
I would be very happy to continue to debate all of this – as I say, I
write about it in a lot more depth in my book, especially in the
chapter on Pale Fire.
Dr Thomas Karshan
Leverhulme Research Fellow
English Department
Queen Mary, University of London