Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0021745, Fri, 24 Jun 2011 17:50:12 +0200

Subject
Re: Query on quote from intro to Bend Sinister
Date
Body
Dear Jansy,

It is very clear - to me anyway - that Nabokov in his Foreword was denying
any human interest, any personal elements in the novel BS. Mark the irony of
his 'vigorous periode of life' and the smoking of four packages a day (he
had to quit because of a shadow behind the heart - 'a good title for a bad
book' as he writes in Pnin), not to mention that he wrote the book after
World War II had ended.

Brian Boyd does make clear that BS is about Nabokov's anxiety of losing his
dear ones (his wife and child) under tyranny. 'Your soles, sir, taste like
died figs' ( I am quoting by heart): he would lick a dictator's shoes just
to make sure his beloved ones were safe or would not be hurt. Chaining
someone with his own heart-strings was the most cruel thing he could imagine
and the only situation in which he would up give all his principles (the
directors Fritz Lang and Tarkovsky both said that the the biggest nightmare
of men is being subjected to another man's cruelty, by the way and curiously
enough).

He might have been ill and full of anxiety (he had just fled Paris because
of the approaching Nazi's) during the composition of the novel and the
foreword, but he didn't want these to be the heart-string of the novel.
That's Nabokov for you. The novel has always struck me as being underrated
and as a cerebral, philosophical mirror-tale of Lolita - more than a
continuation of or a variation on Invitation to a Beheading. No lyricism,
but a battle against the lyricism of the heart: '...a...growth was
spread-eagled upon his chest. Under this was a dead wife and a sleeping
child.'

The heart as a tomb.

That sums it up, I think.

Best,

Hafid

2011/6/23 Jansy <jansy@aetern.us>

> **
> *SES *on..."Mike Stauss's question about the quotation from the
> introduction to Bend Sinister. On the structure of Nabokov's introductions,
> by the way, I recommend Charles Nicol's essay in the first issue of Nabokov
> Studies."
>
> *JM*: I checked VN&EW correspondence about any discrepancy between VN's
> Introduction to BS ("Bend Sinister was the first novel I wrote in America,
> and that was half a dozen years after she and I had adopted each other. The
> greater part of the book was composed in the winter and spring of 1945-1946,
> *at a particularly cloudless and vigorous period of life*. My health was
> excellent. My daily consumption of cigarettes had reached the four-package
> mark." 9 September 1963, Montreux ) and recollected items from his letter
> to Edmund Wilson. From their exchanges I gleaned that VN considered *Bend
> Sinister* ready in his letter dated May 25,1946. In July 18 the same
> year, he wrote to his friend "I am recuperating (from what was practically
> a 'nervous breakdown') in New Hampshire..." and, at last, in September 13,
> 1946 we find: "I am quite well again, - better in fact, than I ever was
> ." (*Dear Bunny,Dear Volodya*"p.192-197).
> I'm sure there'll be an explanation about Nabokov's illness in May
> 1946 and on his recovery, in Brian Boyd's AY.
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