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VN Bibliography: Pichova on Nabokov & Kundera
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Pichova, Hana. The art of memory in exile: Vladimir Nabokov & Milan
Kundera. Carbondale: Southern Illinois 2002. pp. 148
The Russian Nabokov and the Czech Kundera emigrated nearly fifty years
apart. They spent much of their lives cut off from their native
cultures, exiles from Communist regimes. Nonetheless, unlike many of
their fellow emigre writers, they brilliantly succeeded in forging
creative links between their personal and cultural pasts and their new
environments. Pichova (University of Texas) examines the common factors
that allowed these very different writers to become world figures.
Herself an emigree, Pichova sees memory, personal and cultural, as the
key and organizes her work accordingly. She first examines the role of
personal memory in early works by each author: Nabokov▓s 1926 Mary and
Kundera▓s 1981 The Book of Laughter and Forgetting; then, the role of
cultural memory in two mature novels ≈ Nabokov▓s masterpiece The Gift
(1937-38) and Kundera▓s chef-d▓oeuvre The Unbearable Lightness of Being
(1985). For the Nabokovian, the best part of the study is an extended
comparison of Mary's Podtyagin and Fyodor in The Gift, although the
comparison is not entirely a fair one since the old poet is a minor
figure and Fyodor, a young and dynamic protagonist. Kundera's use of
photographs in his writing (he is a former film director) is very well
handled. VN's use of photography as a literary device also warrants
consideration and would have made an enlightening area of comparision.
On the whole, the volume is stronger in its treatment of Kundera than
of Nabokov. The specialist will note a number of trivial factual
errors about Nabokov.
Kundera. Carbondale: Southern Illinois 2002. pp. 148
The Russian Nabokov and the Czech Kundera emigrated nearly fifty years
apart. They spent much of their lives cut off from their native
cultures, exiles from Communist regimes. Nonetheless, unlike many of
their fellow emigre writers, they brilliantly succeeded in forging
creative links between their personal and cultural pasts and their new
environments. Pichova (University of Texas) examines the common factors
that allowed these very different writers to become world figures.
Herself an emigree, Pichova sees memory, personal and cultural, as the
key and organizes her work accordingly. She first examines the role of
personal memory in early works by each author: Nabokov▓s 1926 Mary and
Kundera▓s 1981 The Book of Laughter and Forgetting; then, the role of
cultural memory in two mature novels ≈ Nabokov▓s masterpiece The Gift
(1937-38) and Kundera▓s chef-d▓oeuvre The Unbearable Lightness of Being
(1985). For the Nabokovian, the best part of the study is an extended
comparison of Mary's Podtyagin and Fyodor in The Gift, although the
comparison is not entirely a fair one since the old poet is a minor
figure and Fyodor, a young and dynamic protagonist. Kundera's use of
photographs in his writing (he is a former film director) is very well
handled. VN's use of photography as a literary device also warrants
consideration and would have made an enlightening area of comparision.
On the whole, the volume is stronger in its treatment of Kundera than
of Nabokov. The specialist will note a number of trivial factual
errors about Nabokov.