Subject
IVNS panels at AATSEEL Dec. 1999
Date
Body
From: Galya Diment <galya@u.washington.edu>
IVNS will sponsor two panels at the AATSEEL conference this year which
will take place in Chicago the same time as MLA (Dec. 27-Dec. 30). Below
are the abstracts for the first panel. I will send out the second panel in
a separate message to make it less confusing and overwhelming. We do not
have times for these yet but we are making sure they do not conflict with
the IVNS MLA sessions.
Panel. "Nabokov at 100 I
Chair: Galya Diment
1. Paper Title: Pushkin's 'Queen of Spades' and Nabokov's 'King, Queen,
Knave'
Author: Andrei Rogatchevski
Affiliation: University of Glasgow
Address: Department of Slavonic Languages and Literatures, Hetherington
Building University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8RS
Telephone: 0141-330-5590
Fax: 0141-330-5593
Email: A.Rogatchevski@slavonic.arts.gla.ac.uk
To the best of my knowledge, the rather obvious influence of Pushkin's
story on Nabokov's novel has previously been overlooked (suffice it to
mention Sergej Davydov's entry on 'Nabokov and Pushkin' in The Garland
Companion to Vladimir Nabokov, pp.482-96). Specifically, it manifests
itself in:
- An imperfect blend of Russian and German cultural conventions which
serves as an impetus for the narration. Thus, in The Queen of Spades,
Hermann's 'Russian' passion for gambling sits uneasily with his 'German'
stinginess, which initiates his attempts to circumvent the power of chance
(it is curious, by the way, that Russia has borrowed its playing-card
terminology from none other country than Germany, through such
intermediaries as the Czechs, the Poles, the White Russians and the
Ukrainians; see B.O.Unbegaun, Selected Papers on Russian and Slavonic
Philology, pp.255-61). In King, Queen, Knave, Nabokov's self-professed
aversion to all things German brings forth 'a realistic portrayal of the
Russian migr's way of not seeing the natives of the countries into which
he happened to fall [^J], except as celluloid or cardboard figures'
(A.Field, Nabokov: His Life in Art, p.158). This, however, did not
preclude such critics as M.Osorgin and G.Ivanov from pointing out that
King, Queen, Knave reads as if it is a translation from the German (see
Poslednie novosti of 4 October 1928, p.3, and Chisla, no.1, 1930, p.234,
respectively).
- A special significance attached to certain numbers. Cf., for instance,
the 'troika, semerka, tuz' sequence as interpreted by Lauren G. Leighton
in his article in Canadian Slavonic Papers, vol.19, 1977, and the number
plate of the taxi which takes Dreyer to a skiing holiday (Nabokov, King,
Queen, Knave, chapter 7). Also, the surname 'Dreyer', a derivative from
the German 'drei', might be used as a subtle reminder of Pushkin's
'troika'.- The narrative device of an anecdote which is mentioned but remains
untold (cf. The Queen of Spades, chapter 2; and King, Queen, Knave,
chapter 11).
- The motif of half-dead, half-alive characters (cf., for example, the old
Countess in The Queen of Spades and the three 'flat, but very complicated'
protagonists in King, Queen, Knave).
- The motif of insanity (the sordid end of Pushkin's Hermann and the
delirium of Franz and Martha in Nabokov's piece).
- The motif of the bitter irony of fate (cf. Pushkin's 'Dama vasha ubita'
and the unexpected death of Martha in King, Queen, Knave).
As for the motif of cards itself, this is where the difference between
Pushkin and Nabokov comes to the fore. According to Iurii Lotman (see his
essay '"Pikovaia dama" i tema kart i kartochnoi igry^J' in his Izbrannye
stat'i, vol.2, 1992, p.392), in fiction, playing cards often symbolically
represent an antagonistic conflict, whereas fortune-telling cards mostly
function as a sui generis programme of forthcoming events. Since in The
Queen of Spades Hermann is challenging Providence in a game of cards,
Pushkin appears to follow the first literary pattern. In King, Queen,
Knave, on the contrary, the images of cards are predominantly used by
Nabokov as a metaphorical description of the process of story-telling, and
therefore seem to belong to the second pattern.
Nabokov is not the only Russian writer who displays the preference for the
'programmatic' function of cards. To name but one, Lev Tolstoi reportedly
decided the fate of Katiusha Maslova in his Resurrection (1899) by
recourse to a game of patience (his favourite pastime): had the patience
come out, Nekhliudov would have married her (see A.B.Goldenveizer, Talks
with Tolstoi, p.181). As far as the theme of cards is concerned, the
divergence in Pushkin's and Nabokov's interpretations of it should be
examined against a wider 'leitmotif of gambling and divination central to
Russian culture' (John E. Bowlt in The Cambridge Companion to Modern
Russian Culture, p.231).
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
2. Paper Title: Rainbow and the Horsefly: Observations on Color in
Nabokov's Dar
Author: Peter Thomas
Affiliation: Northwestern University
Telephone: 708-465-8438
Email: mad197@lulu.acns.nwu.edu (c/o Michael Denner)
Color has always been ^W from the pre-Socratic origins of philosophy ^W an
opaque and insoluble matter for metaphysics.
Numerous critics like Johnson and Toker have drawn attention to the
frequent use of color in Vladimir Nabokov's work. They have attribute his
use of color to experiments in psychological synaesthesia or to literary
devices. I believe that color in Nabokov is perhaps best approached as a
distinctly philosophical problem. Nabokov was attracted to color for
precisely the reason that philosophy found it so difficult to describe: no
one can deny that there are colors and that we experience them, but no one
can explain color. Color, for Nabokov, is the undeniable but inexplicable
sensory experience of something ineffable and timeless.
In my presentation, I will discuss how, in his 1938 novel Dar, Nabokov
explores this ineffableness and timelessness of color as a philosophical
problem. Chapter Two of the novel is chiefly devoted to the search by
Feodor, the protagonist-poet, to endow the memory of his father with the
same qualities as the experience of color: he wishes, in short to make his
time-bound and interpretable words about his father resistant to the
ironies of history, change, and dialogue. I will explain how the images of
the rainbow and the iridescent eyes of the horsefly are representative of
the philosophical problems and potentials of color and of memory: they
become, in _Dar_, a means to represent Feodor's utopian attempts to
overcome his subjectivity and mortality.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
3. Paper Title: The "Olgalized" Otherworld of Bend Sinister
Author: Elena Sommers
Affiliation: University of Rochester
Address: 98 Torrington Drive, Richester, NY 14618
Email: eara@uhura.cc.rochester.edu
Completed in May of 1946, Bend Sinister is the first novel Nabokov
wrote in America "half a dozen years after she and [he] had adopted each
other." In his "Introduction" Nabokov identifies the main theme of the
novel as "the beating of Krug's loving heart, the torture an intense
tenderness is subjected to^J" and further advises that "the book was
written and should be read^J for the sake of the pages about David and his
father" (165). Daring to go beyond Nabokov's specific instructions on how
to approach BS, this paper examines the novel "for the sake of the
pages about David and his [mother]," "the beating of [Olga's] loving
heart," the throbbing presence of which is felt throughout the novel.
Mergent with iridescent "potustoronnost" upon her death, Olga becomes the
otherworld charging it with her special presence, feminizing, in a real
sense, "Olgalizing" it.
Throughout the novel the "Olgalized" otherworld will appear to
Krug and David in different shapes and forms carefully, but not
unnoticeably disguised, trying to "steer [its] favorite[s] in the best
direction," bringing them comfort, warning them of danger and showing that
love survives death. Olga will communicate with her son and husband
through the medium of senses, painting the black and white world of
Padukgrad into all the colors of the rainbow, comforting the grieving Krug
with a tender kiss of a snowflake and reaching out to David as a warm
touch of a sudden breeze. The world of "eternal caress" manifests its
presence in the novel through certain themes, among which are the
maternal, the crushed tenderness connected with the accident, and finally,
the beauty of childhood innocence and fragility of life.
In an attempt to come to terms with the excruciating verisimilitude
of the murder of the eight-year-old David, the paper explores the
symbolism behind Chardin's famous "The House of Cards" placed by Olga in
her husband's study before her death. One of Chardin's most moving images
of childhood, the portrait embodies the uncertainty and fragility of life
itself, emphasizing the precariousness of our existence. Meant to act as
a breath of wind in its most otherworldly sense, the portrait is seen as
Olga's own front cover illustration of the novel, in itself an initiation
into Nabokov's universe where love, compassion and tenderness are the
norm.
With references to Nabokov's later novel, Pnin, the paper
discusses such Nabokov's notions as love, "redemption from hellish
despair," and compassion as one of the main passwords into the writer's
world of "eternal caress.
IVNS will sponsor two panels at the AATSEEL conference this year which
will take place in Chicago the same time as MLA (Dec. 27-Dec. 30). Below
are the abstracts for the first panel. I will send out the second panel in
a separate message to make it less confusing and overwhelming. We do not
have times for these yet but we are making sure they do not conflict with
the IVNS MLA sessions.
Panel. "Nabokov at 100 I
Chair: Galya Diment
1. Paper Title: Pushkin's 'Queen of Spades' and Nabokov's 'King, Queen,
Knave'
Author: Andrei Rogatchevski
Affiliation: University of Glasgow
Address: Department of Slavonic Languages and Literatures, Hetherington
Building University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8RS
Telephone: 0141-330-5590
Fax: 0141-330-5593
Email: A.Rogatchevski@slavonic.arts.gla.ac.uk
To the best of my knowledge, the rather obvious influence of Pushkin's
story on Nabokov's novel has previously been overlooked (suffice it to
mention Sergej Davydov's entry on 'Nabokov and Pushkin' in The Garland
Companion to Vladimir Nabokov, pp.482-96). Specifically, it manifests
itself in:
- An imperfect blend of Russian and German cultural conventions which
serves as an impetus for the narration. Thus, in The Queen of Spades,
Hermann's 'Russian' passion for gambling sits uneasily with his 'German'
stinginess, which initiates his attempts to circumvent the power of chance
(it is curious, by the way, that Russia has borrowed its playing-card
terminology from none other country than Germany, through such
intermediaries as the Czechs, the Poles, the White Russians and the
Ukrainians; see B.O.Unbegaun, Selected Papers on Russian and Slavonic
Philology, pp.255-61). In King, Queen, Knave, Nabokov's self-professed
aversion to all things German brings forth 'a realistic portrayal of the
Russian migr's way of not seeing the natives of the countries into which
he happened to fall [^J], except as celluloid or cardboard figures'
(A.Field, Nabokov: His Life in Art, p.158). This, however, did not
preclude such critics as M.Osorgin and G.Ivanov from pointing out that
King, Queen, Knave reads as if it is a translation from the German (see
Poslednie novosti of 4 October 1928, p.3, and Chisla, no.1, 1930, p.234,
respectively).
- A special significance attached to certain numbers. Cf., for instance,
the 'troika, semerka, tuz' sequence as interpreted by Lauren G. Leighton
in his article in Canadian Slavonic Papers, vol.19, 1977, and the number
plate of the taxi which takes Dreyer to a skiing holiday (Nabokov, King,
Queen, Knave, chapter 7). Also, the surname 'Dreyer', a derivative from
the German 'drei', might be used as a subtle reminder of Pushkin's
'troika'.- The narrative device of an anecdote which is mentioned but remains
untold (cf. The Queen of Spades, chapter 2; and King, Queen, Knave,
chapter 11).
- The motif of half-dead, half-alive characters (cf., for example, the old
Countess in The Queen of Spades and the three 'flat, but very complicated'
protagonists in King, Queen, Knave).
- The motif of insanity (the sordid end of Pushkin's Hermann and the
delirium of Franz and Martha in Nabokov's piece).
- The motif of the bitter irony of fate (cf. Pushkin's 'Dama vasha ubita'
and the unexpected death of Martha in King, Queen, Knave).
As for the motif of cards itself, this is where the difference between
Pushkin and Nabokov comes to the fore. According to Iurii Lotman (see his
essay '"Pikovaia dama" i tema kart i kartochnoi igry^J' in his Izbrannye
stat'i, vol.2, 1992, p.392), in fiction, playing cards often symbolically
represent an antagonistic conflict, whereas fortune-telling cards mostly
function as a sui generis programme of forthcoming events. Since in The
Queen of Spades Hermann is challenging Providence in a game of cards,
Pushkin appears to follow the first literary pattern. In King, Queen,
Knave, on the contrary, the images of cards are predominantly used by
Nabokov as a metaphorical description of the process of story-telling, and
therefore seem to belong to the second pattern.
Nabokov is not the only Russian writer who displays the preference for the
'programmatic' function of cards. To name but one, Lev Tolstoi reportedly
decided the fate of Katiusha Maslova in his Resurrection (1899) by
recourse to a game of patience (his favourite pastime): had the patience
come out, Nekhliudov would have married her (see A.B.Goldenveizer, Talks
with Tolstoi, p.181). As far as the theme of cards is concerned, the
divergence in Pushkin's and Nabokov's interpretations of it should be
examined against a wider 'leitmotif of gambling and divination central to
Russian culture' (John E. Bowlt in The Cambridge Companion to Modern
Russian Culture, p.231).
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
2. Paper Title: Rainbow and the Horsefly: Observations on Color in
Nabokov's Dar
Author: Peter Thomas
Affiliation: Northwestern University
Telephone: 708-465-8438
Email: mad197@lulu.acns.nwu.edu (c/o Michael Denner)
Color has always been ^W from the pre-Socratic origins of philosophy ^W an
opaque and insoluble matter for metaphysics.
Numerous critics like Johnson and Toker have drawn attention to the
frequent use of color in Vladimir Nabokov's work. They have attribute his
use of color to experiments in psychological synaesthesia or to literary
devices. I believe that color in Nabokov is perhaps best approached as a
distinctly philosophical problem. Nabokov was attracted to color for
precisely the reason that philosophy found it so difficult to describe: no
one can deny that there are colors and that we experience them, but no one
can explain color. Color, for Nabokov, is the undeniable but inexplicable
sensory experience of something ineffable and timeless.
In my presentation, I will discuss how, in his 1938 novel Dar, Nabokov
explores this ineffableness and timelessness of color as a philosophical
problem. Chapter Two of the novel is chiefly devoted to the search by
Feodor, the protagonist-poet, to endow the memory of his father with the
same qualities as the experience of color: he wishes, in short to make his
time-bound and interpretable words about his father resistant to the
ironies of history, change, and dialogue. I will explain how the images of
the rainbow and the iridescent eyes of the horsefly are representative of
the philosophical problems and potentials of color and of memory: they
become, in _Dar_, a means to represent Feodor's utopian attempts to
overcome his subjectivity and mortality.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
3. Paper Title: The "Olgalized" Otherworld of Bend Sinister
Author: Elena Sommers
Affiliation: University of Rochester
Address: 98 Torrington Drive, Richester, NY 14618
Email: eara@uhura.cc.rochester.edu
Completed in May of 1946, Bend Sinister is the first novel Nabokov
wrote in America "half a dozen years after she and [he] had adopted each
other." In his "Introduction" Nabokov identifies the main theme of the
novel as "the beating of Krug's loving heart, the torture an intense
tenderness is subjected to^J" and further advises that "the book was
written and should be read^J for the sake of the pages about David and his
father" (165). Daring to go beyond Nabokov's specific instructions on how
to approach BS, this paper examines the novel "for the sake of the
pages about David and his [mother]," "the beating of [Olga's] loving
heart," the throbbing presence of which is felt throughout the novel.
Mergent with iridescent "potustoronnost" upon her death, Olga becomes the
otherworld charging it with her special presence, feminizing, in a real
sense, "Olgalizing" it.
Throughout the novel the "Olgalized" otherworld will appear to
Krug and David in different shapes and forms carefully, but not
unnoticeably disguised, trying to "steer [its] favorite[s] in the best
direction," bringing them comfort, warning them of danger and showing that
love survives death. Olga will communicate with her son and husband
through the medium of senses, painting the black and white world of
Padukgrad into all the colors of the rainbow, comforting the grieving Krug
with a tender kiss of a snowflake and reaching out to David as a warm
touch of a sudden breeze. The world of "eternal caress" manifests its
presence in the novel through certain themes, among which are the
maternal, the crushed tenderness connected with the accident, and finally,
the beauty of childhood innocence and fragility of life.
In an attempt to come to terms with the excruciating verisimilitude
of the murder of the eight-year-old David, the paper explores the
symbolism behind Chardin's famous "The House of Cards" placed by Olga in
her husband's study before her death. One of Chardin's most moving images
of childhood, the portrait embodies the uncertainty and fragility of life
itself, emphasizing the precariousness of our existence. Meant to act as
a breath of wind in its most otherworldly sense, the portrait is seen as
Olga's own front cover illustration of the novel, in itself an initiation
into Nabokov's universe where love, compassion and tenderness are the
norm.
With references to Nabokov's later novel, Pnin, the paper
discusses such Nabokov's notions as love, "redemption from hellish
despair," and compassion as one of the main passwords into the writer's
world of "eternal caress.