Upcoming NOSe-s:
Please join us on January 16 at 3:00 PM Eastern (NY) time for an Author Spotlight with Paul Grant, whose book The Humour of Vladimir Nabokov: Mind and Matter was recently published by Edinburgh University Press.
Of Grant’s book, the publisher writes:
The first in-depth study of Vladimir Nabokov’s humour, investigating its physical aspects such as farce, slapstick, sexual and scatological humour
- Offers the first in-depth study of Nabokov’s humour
- Presents a revisionist reading of Nabokov
- Examines the metaphysical aspects of Nabokov’s humour
- Examines the sexual and scatological aspects of Nabokov’s humour
- Applies humour theory (e.g. those of Hobbes, Bergson, Freud) to Nabokov’s texts
- Compares Nabokov’s humour to that of his Russian predecessors (e.g. Pushkin, Gogol, Chekhov) and to literary humourists such as Rabelais, Swift, Joyce
Many critics classify Vladimir Nabokov as a highbrow humourist, a refined wordsmith overly fond of playful puzzles and private in-jokes whose art appeals primarily to an intellectually-sophisticated readership. This study presents a more balanced portrait, placing equal emphasis on the broader, earthier humour that is such a marked feature of Nabokov’s writing, which draws on the human body and all things physical for its laughs: sex and scatology, farce and slapstick. Moving between the metaphysical and the physical, the cosmic and the comic, mind and matter, it presents Nabokov as a writer at home in both high and low forms of humour, a comedian who is capable of producing as many belly laughs as brainteasers, and of appealing to a much wider readership than is commonly supposed.
Following Paul’s presentation, there will be a time for questions and conversation. This event will not be recorded, so please plan to attend!
Zoom link: Join Zoom Meeting
https://messiah.zoom.us/j/95009706669
Meeting ID: 950 0970 6669
Past NOSe-s: February 26, 2024, May 11, 2023; March 28, 2023