Subject
Maruya, the Japanese Nabokov
From
Date
Body
"A fascinating marriage of Borges and Nabokov with
Japanese literary tradition."
----Times Literary Supplement on Maruya and his "Rain
in the Wind"
Dear List,
To thank the list, I was going to describe
my favorite author, Maruya, the Japanese Nabokov,
and his most Nabokovian short story, the "Tree
Shadows" tale.
Then I found out that the short story is available in
English, and there is already an EXCELLENT
introduction to both Maruya and his style.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE5D6173FF93AA15754C0A966958260&sec=&pagewanted=all
Mentors Are for Skewering By MARIAN URY
Published: July 29, 1990
RAIN IN THE WIND Four Stories. By Saiichi Maruya.
Translated by Dennis Keene.
There is little I could add to this article, and so,
as usual, I'm going to ask a question.
In "Tree Shadows" ...
>>> One of the stories within a story is an imitation
of Nabokov --- unless indeed it is the half-remembered
story by Nabokov the narrator claims it is, for Mr.
Maruya is a very foxy writer.
The narrator thinks he long ago read a story by
Nabokov, which goes like this:
A Russian emigre finds always moved by the sight of
tree shadows on a wall. For a long time he wonders
why the sight moves him so. "Why? Did it have a
precursor?" After wandering all over Europe, late in
his life he returns to the house he grew up in, looks
out the window from his boyhood room, and unexpectedly
finds that very prototypical image.
(This above is no spoiler. All of the above is told at
the beginning of Maruya's story.)
Prof. Akiko Nakata indicates in
http://www10.plala.or.jp/transparentt/maruya.html
that this story is not by Nabokov, but perhaps it
indirectly comes from Bend Sinister.
Ok, finally, my question.
Other than Bend Sinister, did VN write a story (a
short story) on a similar theme --- of childhood
imprinting of an image, idea, or perhaps a curious
preference, whose origin is revealed late in life?
"Searching for, or trying to remember, a forgotten
original precursor" -type story, and in the case of
the "Tree Shadows" tale, ....
http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/books/0870119400/reviews/702-0243287-6561669
>>> the novelist, in his search for the origins of his
strange preoccupation, encounters a woman who
improbably claims to be his mother.
Henry.Hanada
[EDNOTE. VN often describes the shadows of leaves, for example in the
story "A Nursery Tale" or outside the Enchanted Hunters in Lolita.
Richard C. Borden's essay on "Nabokov's Travesties of Childhood
Nostalgia," in Nabokov Studies 2 (1995), describes the recurrent motif
of dappled sunlit foliage in VN's work. -- SES]
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
Japanese literary tradition."
----Times Literary Supplement on Maruya and his "Rain
in the Wind"
Dear List,
To thank the list, I was going to describe
my favorite author, Maruya, the Japanese Nabokov,
and his most Nabokovian short story, the "Tree
Shadows" tale.
Then I found out that the short story is available in
English, and there is already an EXCELLENT
introduction to both Maruya and his style.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE5D6173FF93AA15754C0A966958260&sec=&pagewanted=all
Mentors Are for Skewering By MARIAN URY
Published: July 29, 1990
RAIN IN THE WIND Four Stories. By Saiichi Maruya.
Translated by Dennis Keene.
There is little I could add to this article, and so,
as usual, I'm going to ask a question.
In "Tree Shadows" ...
>>> One of the stories within a story is an imitation
of Nabokov --- unless indeed it is the half-remembered
story by Nabokov the narrator claims it is, for Mr.
Maruya is a very foxy writer.
The narrator thinks he long ago read a story by
Nabokov, which goes like this:
A Russian emigre finds always moved by the sight of
tree shadows on a wall. For a long time he wonders
why the sight moves him so. "Why? Did it have a
precursor?" After wandering all over Europe, late in
his life he returns to the house he grew up in, looks
out the window from his boyhood room, and unexpectedly
finds that very prototypical image.
(This above is no spoiler. All of the above is told at
the beginning of Maruya's story.)
Prof. Akiko Nakata indicates in
http://www10.plala.or.jp/transparentt/maruya.html
that this story is not by Nabokov, but perhaps it
indirectly comes from Bend Sinister.
Ok, finally, my question.
Other than Bend Sinister, did VN write a story (a
short story) on a similar theme --- of childhood
imprinting of an image, idea, or perhaps a curious
preference, whose origin is revealed late in life?
"Searching for, or trying to remember, a forgotten
original precursor" -type story, and in the case of
the "Tree Shadows" tale, ....
http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/books/0870119400/reviews/702-0243287-6561669
>>> the novelist, in his search for the origins of his
strange preoccupation, encounters a woman who
improbably claims to be his mother.
Henry.Hanada
[EDNOTE. VN often describes the shadows of leaves, for example in the
story "A Nursery Tale" or outside the Enchanted Hunters in Lolita.
Richard C. Borden's essay on "Nabokov's Travesties of Childhood
Nostalgia," in Nabokov Studies 2 (1995), describes the recurrent motif
of dappled sunlit foliage in VN's work. -- SES]
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