Subject
Goldschweer Work
Date
Body
NABOKV-L thanks Ulrike Goldschweer <goldsub3@rz.ruhr-uni-bochum.de> for
the following response to the request for individual reports on new
publications and work in progress, as well as for posing some interesting
questions. I urge others to follow his good example.
----------------------------------------------------------
I'm a teacher of Russian literature at the Institute of Russian and
Soviet Culture at the University of Bochum (Ruhr-Universitaet Bochum),
Germany, and wrote a dissertation on chaos-theory and its possible
contributions to literary theory and practice, exemplified by some texts
of VN and of Andrej Bitov, which is now being prepared for
publication.
There is also an article forthcoming entitleld "Drei Museen: Inber,
Nabokov, Bitov" (Three museums: Inber, Nabokov, Bitov) that is
dealing with the museum motif in Vera Inber's story "Majja" (1926),
Nabokov's "Visit to a Museum" and Bitov's "Fotografija Pushkina
(1799-2099)".
I would like to know, if anyone is working on these or a related
subjects, too.
I'm especially interested in the Russian short stories of VN and in
the problem of literary (cultural, methodological, philosophical...)
complexity.
I'm currently thinking about the following questions:
1. Is there a tradition of the museum-motif in Russian literature?
I thought that there is one, but found up to now very little evidence
(the above mentioned authors, and - perhaps - Zamjatin, Ju.Dombrovskij,
a few poems...).
2. What do you think about reading the early collections of VN's
short stories (Vozvrashchenie Chorba, Sogljadataj, Vesna v Fialte) as
narrative cycles?
3. Why did Nabokov choose a female narrator for the story "A Slice of
Life"? As far as I know, it's the only female narrator in his whole
work. My thesis: it's meant as a parody on a certain kind of trivial
literature, written mostly by women (cf. also the story "Admiraltejskaja
igla"). I think there are a lot of expressions suggesting this interpretation,
but the proof is still missing.
Does VN mention any concrete work of this kind?
By the way: Thank you for the prompt answer to my first question to
this forum concerning the publication of "Volshebnik".
Regards
Ulrike Goldschweer
Lotman-Institut fuer russische und sowjetische Kultur
Ruhr-Universitaet Bochum
goldsub3@rz.ruhr-uni-bochum.de
the following response to the request for individual reports on new
publications and work in progress, as well as for posing some interesting
questions. I urge others to follow his good example.
----------------------------------------------------------
I'm a teacher of Russian literature at the Institute of Russian and
Soviet Culture at the University of Bochum (Ruhr-Universitaet Bochum),
Germany, and wrote a dissertation on chaos-theory and its possible
contributions to literary theory and practice, exemplified by some texts
of VN and of Andrej Bitov, which is now being prepared for
publication.
There is also an article forthcoming entitleld "Drei Museen: Inber,
Nabokov, Bitov" (Three museums: Inber, Nabokov, Bitov) that is
dealing with the museum motif in Vera Inber's story "Majja" (1926),
Nabokov's "Visit to a Museum" and Bitov's "Fotografija Pushkina
(1799-2099)".
I would like to know, if anyone is working on these or a related
subjects, too.
I'm especially interested in the Russian short stories of VN and in
the problem of literary (cultural, methodological, philosophical...)
complexity.
I'm currently thinking about the following questions:
1. Is there a tradition of the museum-motif in Russian literature?
I thought that there is one, but found up to now very little evidence
(the above mentioned authors, and - perhaps - Zamjatin, Ju.Dombrovskij,
a few poems...).
2. What do you think about reading the early collections of VN's
short stories (Vozvrashchenie Chorba, Sogljadataj, Vesna v Fialte) as
narrative cycles?
3. Why did Nabokov choose a female narrator for the story "A Slice of
Life"? As far as I know, it's the only female narrator in his whole
work. My thesis: it's meant as a parody on a certain kind of trivial
literature, written mostly by women (cf. also the story "Admiraltejskaja
igla"). I think there are a lot of expressions suggesting this interpretation,
but the proof is still missing.
Does VN mention any concrete work of this kind?
By the way: Thank you for the prompt answer to my first question to
this forum concerning the publication of "Volshebnik".
Regards
Ulrike Goldschweer
Lotman-Institut fuer russische und sowjetische Kultur
Ruhr-Universitaet Bochum
goldsub3@rz.ruhr-uni-bochum.de