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Explanation and Turgenev in Pale Fire
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Dear List,
In relation to Pale Fire and Russian lore, filtering through Soviet movies, I came to Eisenstein's Bezhin Meadow, a movie which "was long thought lost in the wake of World War II bombings. In the 1960s, however, cuttings and partial prints of the film were found; from these, a reconstruction of Bezhin Meadow, based on the original script, was undertaken.Rich in religious symbolism...The film was extensively discussed both inside and outside of the film industry for its historical nature, the odd circumstances of its production and failure, and its imagery, which is considered some of the greatest in cinema. In spite of the failure of Bezhin Meadow, Eisenstein would rebound to win Soviet acclaim and awards, and become artistic director of a major film studio.
The film was based in part on a story by Ivan Turgenev, a 19th-century Russian scholar and novelist, but was adapted to incorporate the folk story of Pavlik Morozov, a supposed Young Pioneer glorified by Soviet Union propaganda as a martyr. Turgenev's original short fiction titled "Bezhin Meadow" or "Bezhin Lea" was a story about peasant boys in the 1850s, in the Oryol region, discussing supernatural signs of death, while they spend the night in the Bezhin Meadow with a lost hunter.Eisenstein would later remove any direct references to Turgenev's fiction, aside from the title, from the film. It is a part of A Sportsman's Sketches, a collection of short stories." (wiki)
The link to Pale Fire derives from these lines by Kinbote: "I am happy to report that soon after Easter my fears disappeared never to return....Balthasar, Prince of Loam...regularity fell asleep at nine and by six in the morning was planting heliotropes (Heliotropium turgenevi). This is the flower whose odor evokes with timeless intensity the dusk, and the garden bench, and a house of painted wood in a distant northern land."
I think that Nabokov mentions Pentecostes in Pale Fire (no time to check this but Im' almost sure when he reports on Shade's birthday) and I'd like to remind the List that today is the Sunday of Pentecostes. It somehow reminds me of Nabokov's pungent lines about an infinity of sensations (including pain) in a finite body. The indirect dialogue between Kinbote and Shade, when we take out his Zemblan ramblings from CK's notes, is profoundly expressive of this kind of suspended agony of transience and the limitless universe.
.........................................................
Note: I sympathize with C.Kunin's annoyance with Nabokov blind idolizers - but this is hardly Nabokov's fault, is it?
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In relation to Pale Fire and Russian lore, filtering through Soviet movies, I came to Eisenstein's Bezhin Meadow, a movie which "was long thought lost in the wake of World War II bombings. In the 1960s, however, cuttings and partial prints of the film were found; from these, a reconstruction of Bezhin Meadow, based on the original script, was undertaken.Rich in religious symbolism...The film was extensively discussed both inside and outside of the film industry for its historical nature, the odd circumstances of its production and failure, and its imagery, which is considered some of the greatest in cinema. In spite of the failure of Bezhin Meadow, Eisenstein would rebound to win Soviet acclaim and awards, and become artistic director of a major film studio.
The film was based in part on a story by Ivan Turgenev, a 19th-century Russian scholar and novelist, but was adapted to incorporate the folk story of Pavlik Morozov, a supposed Young Pioneer glorified by Soviet Union propaganda as a martyr. Turgenev's original short fiction titled "Bezhin Meadow" or "Bezhin Lea" was a story about peasant boys in the 1850s, in the Oryol region, discussing supernatural signs of death, while they spend the night in the Bezhin Meadow with a lost hunter.Eisenstein would later remove any direct references to Turgenev's fiction, aside from the title, from the film. It is a part of A Sportsman's Sketches, a collection of short stories." (wiki)
The link to Pale Fire derives from these lines by Kinbote: "I am happy to report that soon after Easter my fears disappeared never to return....Balthasar, Prince of Loam...regularity fell asleep at nine and by six in the morning was planting heliotropes (Heliotropium turgenevi). This is the flower whose odor evokes with timeless intensity the dusk, and the garden bench, and a house of painted wood in a distant northern land."
I think that Nabokov mentions Pentecostes in Pale Fire (no time to check this but Im' almost sure when he reports on Shade's birthday) and I'd like to remind the List that today is the Sunday of Pentecostes. It somehow reminds me of Nabokov's pungent lines about an infinity of sensations (including pain) in a finite body. The indirect dialogue between Kinbote and Shade, when we take out his Zemblan ramblings from CK's notes, is profoundly expressive of this kind of suspended agony of transience and the limitless universe.
.........................................................
Note: I sympathize with C.Kunin's annoyance with Nabokov blind idolizers - but this is hardly Nabokov's fault, is it?
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
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
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/