Matt Morris: Robbe-Grillet is
rarely discussed on this forum, despite VN's obvious enjoyment of his
novels. Given that THE ORIGINAL OF LAURA is supposed to be a radical
departure from Nabokov's work, and given VN's interest in R-G's
boundary-expanding/breaking writing, especially late in his career, I was
curious if TOOL follows somewhat in this high-modernist path
[...] TOOL sounds to me more like something that exists in a
Robbe-Grillet abstraction (at least from the bits of details that have emerged.)
[...] VN's descriptions of Gogol's everyday writings
always reminds me of Robbe-Grillet.
JM: I wish I could read R-G with the same
enjoyment I find in VN or were able enjoy his other
favorites: Updike, for example. Or dislike his dislikes ( Thomas Mann,
Dostoevsky...)
My amateurish
standpoint is rather comfortable because it demands from me no
particular discipline as what is recquired from a scholar.
From this
touristic perspective I see Nabokov as one who was able to deal with what
has been quickly evolving into "hypertexts" without letting go of
the "text", or who was able to break away from the freudian
unconscious ( its "metaphor-metonimy" structures) while still
adhering to an internal ordering process. There is never a chaos
from excessive "difference" or from emissions that
follow a Barthesian "plaisir du texte." Our tickets are never one-way
only.
I wonder if Matt
Morris could expand his suggestion about what he finds in VN ( with his bet in a
transcendent otherworld) and the high-modernist path and bring us some
examples of Robbe-Grillet that he considers more illustrative?