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Re: NATASHA: VN's "reversal of values" and development; RLSK,
The Eye
The Eye
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Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2008 10:26:35 -0700From: vanveen13@SBCGLOBAL.NETSubject: Re: [NABOKV-L] NATASHA: VN's "reversal of values" and development; RLSK, The EyeTo: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
You're not hearing my point. I understood what Nabokov was saying, just don't buy it. I am deaf to those things you mention, the stuff about the Congo etc. don't matter to me. They are charmingly described, but they do seem like purple cliches to me. The heat and the illness, don't. Sorry.
Don't be sorry; I did hear your point and I did hear that you didn't buy Nabokov's idea about the relationship between real experience, poetry and "reality" but I just wanted to make clear what Nabokov's meaning was and what HE intended as poetic.
Laurence Hochard
----- Original Message ----From: NABOKV-L <NABOKV-L@HOLYCROSS.EDU>To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDUSent: Wednesday, June 11, 2008 11:49:05 AMSubject: [NABOKV-L] NATASHA: VN's "reversal of values" and development; RLSK, The Eye[Laurence Hochard sends two replies to Joseph Aisenberg's recentpostings]1. JA: Wolfe, I think might be more closely related to Smurov of The Eye,who also tells pathetic lies, about his exciting experiences in the Whitearmy.Smurov's lies are self-serving (he wants Vanya so bad, poor boy) whereasBaron Wolfe's are like those Natasha intends to tell her father abouttheir outing: various little marvels. ("I may well tell him about things wedid not see at all. Various little marvels. He will understand.) Nabokov'sart is subtle, there are lies and lies.....JA: ... his cheesy romantic "far east" exotica cliches...... the canned glamor of his fantasies ..."Bombay! [....] That word alone contains something gigantic, bombs of sunlight, drums."Is this a "cheesy romantic far east exotica cliché"? Are you deaf to Nabokov's alliterative poetical prose. Can't you see the elephants, the blazing light, can't you hear the sounds?"Ah! the distant Congo [...] There, under a gigantic tree -a kiroku(???)- lay orange fruit like rubber balls, and at night there came from insidethe trunk what seemed like the sound of the sea".ou encore:"I saw the Palace of Shadows in Ceylon""The natives there wear necklaces made of vertebrae,and sing sostrangely at night on the seashore, as if they were musical jackals".Are these canned fantasies? Have you ever heard of musical jackals?I prefer to think that you have read the story too quickly.JA: he might have made discoveries about the place...Oh yes, sure! the heat, the fevers, and the colonel's wife !!! This is where Nabokov is ironical, not about Natasha's visions of the VirginMarySpeaking of the Virgin Mary, there is also this passage in RLSK: "...andClare [...] understood so well (and that was her private MIRACLE) every detail of Sebastian's struggle (with words)..."The same miracle happens between Wolfe and Natasha: she perfectly understands his way with invented anecdotes (=fiction) and she asks for more!Laurence Hochard2.JA: ... there's something to my mind soft-headed and mushy about the story, especially the girl, who seems more childish than Lolita did at twelve and a half.I wouldn't say Natasha is childish, at least not in a derogatory sense.I think VN describes her as having retained a kind of child like innocence(a value VN ranks very high) Which doesn't mean she's a half wit. On the contrary, she seems to be well-read, as can be seen in her dialogue withWolfe: she has a good knowledge of painting (Raphaël, Lévitan, religiouspainting) and of history (the Middle Ages).There's nothing naïve in whatshe says.JA :The truth about magic and otherworldliness hovers over the story asa possibility, but one you can never quite be sure of.I agree with you here.JA : The thing especially where Wolfe brings up how he feels his imaginative trip to Bombay is more real than his friend's actual trip strikes me as the most fatuous idea of allLH : VN doesn't mean that actual experience is worthless: its valuedepends on the kind of attention the "experiencer" pays to it.JS : How surprising it is to realize that, for me, Nabokov's genius liesexactly in that he takes his time with squabbles, small gestures,unclean servants, pathetic lies, worn shoes, madness, LH : I do agree with you that VN's "genius lies exactly in that he takeshis time with" little ordinary things of everyday experience, that's exactly why I quoted this passage from RLSK; a frying pan! can thereexist a more ordinary, more prosaic, humbler object? but unless these objectsare seen together with their "halo", they are but drab, dull irreality (suchas the one experienced in Bombay by Wolfe's friend, whose attention is entirely self-related, self-interested and which consists in rivalriesover power -work-related squabbles- over a woman -the colonel's wife- and physical discomfort -the heat, the fevers; so self-centered , in other woincarnate in his novels and stories, but it is true that, as AndreyBabikov writes (about the hereafter, but it applies to other Nabokovian themes):[...] he avoided directly addressing the theme, keeping the treasured inmost essence from cynics and agnostics [...] It was an idea that was important to him, and he did not want to be ridiculed by unbelievers.(On Germination of Nabokov's "Main Theme".. In his story "Natasha" by AndreyBabikov).So, in his later works, he "grew" and became "more mature" and worked out more and more sophisticated stylistic tools to hide hismeaning from "philistines" while smuggling it to receptive readers.Laurence HochardSearch archive with Google:http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=enContact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.eduVisit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htmView Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htmVisit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.comManage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/
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