Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0001036, Tue, 12 Mar 1996 14:45:08 -0800

Subject
VN Bibliography: Buks
Date
Body
I have been surveying the critical literature on _Invitation to a
Beheading_ and run across an item that advances something new about the
sources of the novel. Nora Buks, a Russian scholar who teachs in Paris,
has an article called "Eshafot v Khrustal'nom dvortse: o romane Vl.
Nabokokv _Priglashenie na kazn_ [The Scaffold in the Crystal Palace: On
VN's _Invitation to a Beheading_] in CAHIERS DU MONDE RUSSE, xxxv (4),
Oct.-Dec. 1995, pp. 821-838.

The most interesting part of the article is its argument that _IB_ which
was written in a three week burst in 1934 just after VN had completed the
Chernyshevsky biography that was to become Chapter IV of _The Gift_ is a
parodic inversion of the Chernyshevsky biography. The author points to
many parallels and allusions. The article is well worth looking at.

D. Barton Johnson
Department of Germanic, Slavic and Semitic Studies
Phelps Hall
University of California at Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, CA 93106
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