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Re: VN vs. Freud (fwd)
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From: Brad Buchsbaum <brad@petlab.mssm.edu>
> From: Susan Sweeney <sweeney@HOLYCROSS.EDU>
>
> Sometimes I think that Nabokov's readers are overly eager to
> demonstrate their allegiance to VN by joining in his attacks on Freud. At
> any rate, it seems more useful to try to figure out why VN concerned
> himself with Freud at all. (And, of course, why so vehemently?)
I'd like to point out that, just as one can criticize Bill Clinton
without neccessarily cleaving to Newt Gingrich, it is possible to find
Freud's theories objectionable without implicitly playing minion to
Vladimir Nabokov. Freud has been rejected by science and this has
happened independently of any of the half-dozen or so Nabokovian quips on
the subject.
I don't think that Freudian theory can "endanger" one's childhood any
more than it can redeem it. This is on the right track though. VN's
childhood came to an abrupt and tragic conclusion during a war that was
inspired by Marxist ideology. Thus, Marx became for Nabokov the villain
who tore him away from his homeland, language, and legacy. Let me quote
from _The Eye_
"It is silly to seek a basic law, even sillier to find it. Some
mean-spirited little man decides that the whole course of humanity can
be explained in terms of insidiously revolving signs of the zodiac or
as the struggle between an empty and a stuffed belly....Luckily no such
laws exist: a toothache will cost a battle, a drizzle cancel an insurrection.
Everything is fluid, everything depends of chance...."
Freud's theory of the mind parallels Marx's philosophy--both
isolate one aspect of a vastly complex phenomenon and claim supreme
importance for it. Freud didn't invent the unconscious, he invented its
omnipotence. Marx claimed that history was fashioned _entirely_ by
economic factors and class struggles. Thus, Nabokov detested Freud by
association, but Marx is the true, the prototypical villain. VN referred
to Marx and Freud, I believe, as "twins" and he called Freud's paradigm a
"police state of the mind"--which is an allusion to Marx. So, Marx pulled
the trigger--he stole VN's childhood--but Freud was a post-hoc accomplice.
Brad Buchsbaum
brad@petlab.mssm.edu
> From: Susan Sweeney <sweeney@HOLYCROSS.EDU>
>
> Sometimes I think that Nabokov's readers are overly eager to
> demonstrate their allegiance to VN by joining in his attacks on Freud. At
> any rate, it seems more useful to try to figure out why VN concerned
> himself with Freud at all. (And, of course, why so vehemently?)
I'd like to point out that, just as one can criticize Bill Clinton
without neccessarily cleaving to Newt Gingrich, it is possible to find
Freud's theories objectionable without implicitly playing minion to
Vladimir Nabokov. Freud has been rejected by science and this has
happened independently of any of the half-dozen or so Nabokovian quips on
the subject.
I don't think that Freudian theory can "endanger" one's childhood any
more than it can redeem it. This is on the right track though. VN's
childhood came to an abrupt and tragic conclusion during a war that was
inspired by Marxist ideology. Thus, Marx became for Nabokov the villain
who tore him away from his homeland, language, and legacy. Let me quote
from _The Eye_
"It is silly to seek a basic law, even sillier to find it. Some
mean-spirited little man decides that the whole course of humanity can
be explained in terms of insidiously revolving signs of the zodiac or
as the struggle between an empty and a stuffed belly....Luckily no such
laws exist: a toothache will cost a battle, a drizzle cancel an insurrection.
Everything is fluid, everything depends of chance...."
Freud's theory of the mind parallels Marx's philosophy--both
isolate one aspect of a vastly complex phenomenon and claim supreme
importance for it. Freud didn't invent the unconscious, he invented its
omnipotence. Marx claimed that history was fashioned _entirely_ by
economic factors and class struggles. Thus, Nabokov detested Freud by
association, but Marx is the true, the prototypical villain. VN referred
to Marx and Freud, I believe, as "twins" and he called Freud's paradigm a
"police state of the mind"--which is an allusion to Marx. So, Marx pulled
the trigger--he stole VN's childhood--but Freud was a post-hoc accomplice.
Brad Buchsbaum
brad@petlab.mssm.edu