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2002]
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Subject: A Report on Japan Nabokov Society Conference on June 8, 2002
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 16:37:35 +0900
From: "Shoko Miura" <shoko@tokyo-u-fish.ac.jp>
To: "Nabokov Forum" <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
The Nabokov Society of Japan held its annual conference
on a campus of Chuo University in Tokyo on June 8, 2002.
50 people attended the conference, including both members and
non-members. The membeership of the society now numbers 69.
Two papers were given:
1. "The Effect of Narrative Strategy in Lolita: a Screenplay" by Akiko
Sugawa
Ms. Sugawa of Hosei University compared Kubrick's film to Nabokov's
screenplay. She
analyze $B#s (B the implicit diegetic narration in contrast to implied diegetic
narration in both Kubrick's film and the screenplay and finds thatwhile the
narrative reliability of Humbert is constantly undercut in Kubrick's film,
Nabokov's screenplay establishes Dr. Ray's narrative reliabilityand yet
at last sets a trap for the implied reader's gullibility and makes the
narrative
effect itself questionable.
2. "The Two Petersburgs--Nabokov and Georgy Ivanov" by Yuichi Isahaya
Prof. Isahaya of Doshisha University ccompared the poems of Nabokov and
Ivanov, beginning with their rivalry and personal conflicts and focusing
on their treatment of the image of the famed sunset in St. Petersburg.
With brilliant and delicate analysis of poems in Russian, Prof. Isahaya
concludes that
their poetic duel seems to end with advantage on Ivanov's side for poetic
excellence but that they actually wrote about two different St..
Petersburgs--
Ivanov on the historical city itself, while Nabokov is best when he
sings of the larger
area around the city, including the countryside--the Russia that the
poet visits and revisits as a shade. This paper will be the basis for the
paper he will be giving in English at the International Nabokov Society
Conference
in St. Petersburg in July.
"A Lecture onn Nabokov's Literature" was given
by our guest lecturer Genichiro Takahashi, novelist and Nabokophile,
on the theme of Nabokov's intention in publishing so many lectures on
literature.
His contention is that the ulterior motive of writers who love to teach
literature is to
cultivate readerssensitive enough to appreciate their own works, and that
Nabokov, like himself, is definitely one of them. We apprreciated his wide
knoowledge of contemporary literature as well as his irrepressible humor.