Subject
VN and Herzen; query about VN's relationship to his parents
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Thank you to Sergei Karpukhin, Sergei Soloviev and Alexander Dolinin for
taking the trouble to reply to my question of the title "Drugie Berega."
Fortunately for me I have the article by Sergei Karphukhin which
confirms my memory that Herzen was particularly important to VN's father
- - which I must have read somewhere, but haven't been able to locate.
I have also been unsuccessful in trying to track down something I
thought VN wrote about his parents. I assumed it was in Speak Memory,
but am unable to find it there. My memory is that VN saw his parents as
not just different intellectually, but almost antagonistic - - his
mother being more aesthetic and spiritual and his rationalist father
opposing her, especially as to some of her more mystical beliefs. Linked
to this (at least in my memory) is a scathing reference to the
extraordinary medium Daniel Dunglass Home caressing the face of the
empress (Alexandra) with his foot during a seance.
Can anyone help me locate these memorable but elusive passages?
By the way, this aspect of the parental relationship (as I recall it)
has formed the basis of an assumption I have, that I'm not sure is
justified, that VN saw himself as a synthesis of these two loving but
intellectually contentious beings.
thanks,
Carolyn
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taking the trouble to reply to my question of the title "Drugie Berega."
Fortunately for me I have the article by Sergei Karphukhin which
confirms my memory that Herzen was particularly important to VN's father
- - which I must have read somewhere, but haven't been able to locate.
I have also been unsuccessful in trying to track down something I
thought VN wrote about his parents. I assumed it was in Speak Memory,
but am unable to find it there. My memory is that VN saw his parents as
not just different intellectually, but almost antagonistic - - his
mother being more aesthetic and spiritual and his rationalist father
opposing her, especially as to some of her more mystical beliefs. Linked
to this (at least in my memory) is a scathing reference to the
extraordinary medium Daniel Dunglass Home caressing the face of the
empress (Alexandra) with his foot during a seance.
Can anyone help me locate these memorable but elusive passages?
By the way, this aspect of the parental relationship (as I recall it)
has formed the basis of an assumption I have, that I'm not sure is
justified, that VN saw himself as a synthesis of these two loving but
intellectually contentious beings.
thanks,
Carolyn
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
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