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Re: Metamorphosis in The Gift
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Marina Grishakova wrote: " In her last letter, Jansy Mello touches upon the principle of "metamorphic writing" and prosopopeia in "The Gift". In this connection, let me cite the following passage from my "Models of Space, Time and Vision in Nabokov's Fiction" (pp. 248-250):
"The novel imitates the universe: multiple worlds are embedded one within another ... In "The Gift" the real world metamorphoses into the fictional and the fictional world assumes the form of the real. Poetry mingles with
prose, the otherworld filters into the earthly reality. The story of father's travels intertwines with Pushkin's documentary prose, the Chernyshevsky's story with the book on Chernyshevsky, love for Zina with "The Gift" (see Davydov 1982, Paperno 1997). Finally, all these worlds intertwine as different forms of writing and maturing literary
self-consciousness (see Tammi 1985: 84 on "The Gift" as a Künstlerroman). Chernyshevsky's utilitarian thesis on the superiority of life over art is subverted by a playful reversal of the direction of mimesis, when the real space imitates the fictional one. .... For Andrei Bely, the mirror was an emblem of the reversibility of mimetic realtions of art and life and therefore a source of ontological anxiety and panic... Nabokov turns this reversibility into a source of purely
aesthetic bliss or anxiety, making possible in fiction what is impossible in life"
I had the pleasure of finding one of Marina Grishakova's articles in the internet (“V. Nabokov’s “Bend Sinister”: A Social Message or an Experiment with Time?” Sign Systems Studies 28, Tartu University Press, 2000, pp. 242-263) and this is how I gained access to it.
Several quotations and references are to be found in my short-note: "Time Before and Time After in Nabokov's Novels" ( The Nabokovian, Fall 2005, Number 55) and want to add one of them here, on VN's : "device of the “serial observer” discloses an affinity between the metafictional and metaphysical problems: the status of the fictional world, its development in time, the fiction of the creator”.
Unfortunately I have not yet been able to order your book where you develop your ideas in relation to "The Gift".
Our ED SES posted a tantalizing message about it: "... Marina Grishakova makes a similar argument in her recent book, "The Models of Space, Time and Vision in V. Nabokov's Fiction" (Tartu University Press,2006), explaining that in VN's novels, "whereas the reality is partially fictionalized and devoid of its uncontestable obviousness, fiction reveals a potency of becoming real and acquires either a miraculous or threatening solidity of fact" (p. 37).
Thank you for allowing us to have a small glimpse of it in today's message to the List.
Jansy
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"The novel imitates the universe: multiple worlds are embedded one within another ... In "The Gift" the real world metamorphoses into the fictional and the fictional world assumes the form of the real. Poetry mingles with
prose, the otherworld filters into the earthly reality. The story of father's travels intertwines with Pushkin's documentary prose, the Chernyshevsky's story with the book on Chernyshevsky, love for Zina with "The Gift" (see Davydov 1982, Paperno 1997). Finally, all these worlds intertwine as different forms of writing and maturing literary
self-consciousness (see Tammi 1985: 84 on "The Gift" as a Künstlerroman). Chernyshevsky's utilitarian thesis on the superiority of life over art is subverted by a playful reversal of the direction of mimesis, when the real space imitates the fictional one. .... For Andrei Bely, the mirror was an emblem of the reversibility of mimetic realtions of art and life and therefore a source of ontological anxiety and panic... Nabokov turns this reversibility into a source of purely
aesthetic bliss or anxiety, making possible in fiction what is impossible in life"
I had the pleasure of finding one of Marina Grishakova's articles in the internet (“V. Nabokov’s “Bend Sinister”: A Social Message or an Experiment with Time?” Sign Systems Studies 28, Tartu University Press, 2000, pp. 242-263) and this is how I gained access to it.
Several quotations and references are to be found in my short-note: "Time Before and Time After in Nabokov's Novels" ( The Nabokovian, Fall 2005, Number 55) and want to add one of them here, on VN's : "device of the “serial observer” discloses an affinity between the metafictional and metaphysical problems: the status of the fictional world, its development in time, the fiction of the creator”.
Unfortunately I have not yet been able to order your book where you develop your ideas in relation to "The Gift".
Our ED SES posted a tantalizing message about it: "... Marina Grishakova makes a similar argument in her recent book, "The Models of Space, Time and Vision in V. Nabokov's Fiction" (Tartu University Press,2006), explaining that in VN's novels, "whereas the reality is partially fictionalized and devoid of its uncontestable obviousness, fiction reveals a potency of becoming real and acquires either a miraculous or threatening solidity of fact" (p. 37).
Thank you for allowing us to have a small glimpse of it in today's message to the List.
Jansy
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm