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Re: QUERY: VN on time in Tolstoy
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Dear Irena,
I'm unable to get to my books so I must add my comment without using VN's
words, but as a reference for you to check in case it should interest you.
What I mean is that VN distinguished various different forms to imagine or
think about time ( time as a concept, not as an independent reality) and
often he tried to measure it according to what convention names "real time",
chronological or historical time. Thus, while reading "Ulysses" he followed
the steps of his characters and their perfect timing and geography as
representend faithfully in Joyce's novel. In relation to Anna Karenin he
wrote extensively about the various coincidental scenes matching correctly
in time and space, I think it was in Speak Memory that he developed this
project with some detail concerning Tolstoy and the precision of his
informations on time.
In my opinion this element was styllisticaly important to access when VN was
evaluating the artistial merits of a work of art. But I also think VN had
other ideas about time, like the mustachioed markers of Marina's
non-referential clock, duration, time in ficction, etc.
The discussion about "precise dating" in Tolstoy is almost certainly
(almost) published in Speak Memory, but his lectures on English and Russian.
literature are worth examining, too.
Best,
Jansy
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I'm unable to get to my books so I must add my comment without using VN's
words, but as a reference for you to check in case it should interest you.
What I mean is that VN distinguished various different forms to imagine or
think about time ( time as a concept, not as an independent reality) and
often he tried to measure it according to what convention names "real time",
chronological or historical time. Thus, while reading "Ulysses" he followed
the steps of his characters and their perfect timing and geography as
representend faithfully in Joyce's novel. In relation to Anna Karenin he
wrote extensively about the various coincidental scenes matching correctly
in time and space, I think it was in Speak Memory that he developed this
project with some detail concerning Tolstoy and the precision of his
informations on time.
In my opinion this element was styllisticaly important to access when VN was
evaluating the artistial merits of a work of art. But I also think VN had
other ideas about time, like the mustachioed markers of Marina's
non-referential clock, duration, time in ficction, etc.
The discussion about "precise dating" in Tolstoy is almost certainly
(almost) published in Speak Memory, but his lectures on English and Russian.
literature are worth examining, too.
Best,
Jansy
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
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