DonJ/JansyM: I thoroughly enjoyed Sárdi’s well-crafted and persuasive essay. It illustrates the challenge, nay the angst, facing serious, coherent literary criticism of Nabokov’s extremely diverse works. The latter not only defy the “trad” genre classifications, but Nabokov himself seems to reject and discourage, nay mock, most of what passes as “literary theory.” A few oft-cited examples: VN eschews “schools” of literature and questions the earnest pursuit after “influences,” especially those on VN by other writers and vice-versa! VN admits inevitable influences by (and possibly on) “world events” but effectively says “forget biography, look only at the author’s output.” (His own memoirs and his justified annoyance with, say, Field’s falsehoods, provide a possible, teasing contradiction?) At the same time he questions any firm definition of what a “novel” really is, except to vilify its many misuses as a “message” vehicle for “social change.”
I was reminded of the BBC’s foundational Charter: “To Inform, Educate and Entertain!” What a challenge! Does only the latter mission apply to VN’s novels, in the sense that his aesthetic, spine-tingling frissons provide “Entertainment?” Recall that the Greek root for our “History” carries the meaning of “diverting story telling.” BTW: VN refused to use the abbrev. “Ms” and would probably be horrified at the cunning feminist “Herstory.”
I do agree with Sárdi that we should avoid an over-preoccupation with VN’s allusional and word-play exploits, important and entertaining as they surely are. But I have reservations about over-shifting our focus to VN’s “Otherworldliness.” I reject the notion that the observable physical “reality” revealed by “commonsense” and refined by science is somehow pathetically drab and boring in contrast to the “other” worlds of unbridled metaphysical speculation!
Finally, Sárdi cites one of VN’s most inspired jokes: “Gnostical turpitude.” VN would certainly know of the miraculous discovery of the Nag Hammadi codices (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nag_Hammadi_library) of which the Coptic Gospel of Thomas in particular hit the headlines. Before Nag Hammadi, our knowledge of Gnosticism (by no means a single, uniform creed) was restricted to early distortions from the Church Fathers who saw the various Gnostic movements as the worst of all heresies as the diverse rival Christian “orthodoxies” were emerging. I’ve been studying Bart D Ehrman’s “Lost Christianities” since 2002, and in addition to Sárdi’s point about Gnostic cosmology (a neat solution to the theodicy problem), of equal importance to VN’s “metaphysics” is the Gnostic concept of “hidden knowledge” (whence the very name of the movement: Greek gnostos = known). More (or less) anon.
Stan Kelly-Bootle
On 10/04/2009 14:48, "jansymello" <jansy@AETERN.US> wrote:
D.Johnson sent: http://www.unincor.br/recorte/artigos/edicao8/8_artigo_rudolf.html : AN APPROACH TO VLADIMIR NABOKOV’S “OTHERWORLD” , Rudolf Sárdi (Eötvös Loránd University of Arts and Sciences (Budapeste / Hungria)
JM: Taking an appreciative excerption, I chose:
The complexity of Nabokov's oeuvre reaches far beyond the playful invention of anagrammatic names, tortuous narrative structures, and instances of amusing paronomasia, all of which had occupied a central role in Nabokov studies up until recently. In my view, the metaliterary approach to Nabokov's fiction is erroneous because it refuses to take into consideration the author's deeply held conviction in metaphysics and his capacity to an aesthetically heightened visionary state of consciousness...The author’s sui generis faith in the metaphysical allowed him to establish a perceptible link between two ore more worlds, reinforcing the view that the “otherworld” is never a self-contained realm detached from present reality. It never supplants the real world but exists as an alternative for the dissonance of the real world, offering an exit from the darkness of one universe and entrance to the brilliance of another one. R.Sárdi*