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Re: [ NABOKOV-LIST ] QUERY: Unreliable Narrators
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A.Sklyarenko to JM: What adout VN's story "A Slice of Life" (Sluchay iz zhizni)?
Jansy Mello: I began to re-read "The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov" (published according to DN's 1995 ordering) and now I followed your tip to read "A Slice of Life", with its drab narrator, Maria Vasilevna ( "I had stood, leaning forlornly against a corner of the dark sideboard, with which seemed to fuse my diminutive figure in its black dress - yes, I wear mourning, for everybody, for everything, for my own self, for Russia, for the fetuses scraped out of me").
"A slice of life" is a wonderful choice for a short-story because plots (as should also be the case also for novels which are not structured as games or establish a dialogue with the reader? ) are artificial divisions of time, slices of an unknown whole which then create artificial boundaries, fake beginnings and ends... I'm glad this particular "slice" was marked by Maria Vasilevna's modest decision.
A correction: In a recent message to the List I mentioned a book about duels and VN's "An Affair of Honor". When I referred to a short-story under its title, "Armoles", I hadn't yet realized that such a strange-sounding word was actually the Portuguese name for the plant "Orache" ( the story's title in English). These more technical designations must present a problem for translators: the equivalence bt.Lebeda and Or ache , as pointed out by VN in SM, is totally absent in Armoles, like the insinuation about the Ampelis lying behind Waxwing in PF's original, because it disappears in its translation since, in Portuguese, the bird is already named Âmpelis in the poem and it appears in the Index under A, not in W.
----- Original Message -----
From: Alexey Sklyarenko
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Saturday, February 02, 2008 7:28 PM
Subject: Re: [NABOKV-L] [ NABOKOV-LIST ] QUERY: Unreliable Narrators
JM: it suddenly occurred to me that there are no female narrators in Nabokov.
What adout VN's story "A Slice of Life" (Sluchay iz zhizni)?
Alexey
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Jansy Mello: I began to re-read "The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov" (published according to DN's 1995 ordering) and now I followed your tip to read "A Slice of Life", with its drab narrator, Maria Vasilevna ( "I had stood, leaning forlornly against a corner of the dark sideboard, with which seemed to fuse my diminutive figure in its black dress - yes, I wear mourning, for everybody, for everything, for my own self, for Russia, for the fetuses scraped out of me").
"A slice of life" is a wonderful choice for a short-story because plots (as should also be the case also for novels which are not structured as games or establish a dialogue with the reader? ) are artificial divisions of time, slices of an unknown whole which then create artificial boundaries, fake beginnings and ends... I'm glad this particular "slice" was marked by Maria Vasilevna's modest decision.
A correction: In a recent message to the List I mentioned a book about duels and VN's "An Affair of Honor". When I referred to a short-story under its title, "Armoles", I hadn't yet realized that such a strange-sounding word was actually the Portuguese name for the plant "Orache" ( the story's title in English). These more technical designations must present a problem for translators: the equivalence bt.Lebeda and Or ache , as pointed out by VN in SM, is totally absent in Armoles, like the insinuation about the Ampelis lying behind Waxwing in PF's original, because it disappears in its translation since, in Portuguese, the bird is already named Âmpelis in the poem and it appears in the Index under A, not in W.
----- Original Message -----
From: Alexey Sklyarenko
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Saturday, February 02, 2008 7:28 PM
Subject: Re: [NABOKV-L] [ NABOKOV-LIST ] QUERY: Unreliable Narrators
JM: it suddenly occurred to me that there are no female narrators in Nabokov.
What adout VN's story "A Slice of Life" (Sluchay iz zhizni)?
Alexey
Search the Nabokv-L archive with Google
Contact the Editors
All private editorial communications, without exception, are read by both co-editors.
Visit Zembla
View Nabokv-L Policies
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