Thomas Karshan: there's been some discussion on the
list of my TLS article on Nabokov, and of my recently published book, Vladimir
Nabokov and the Art of Play, which I'd like to comment on. Of the three major
areas of debate- 1) symbolism, 2) Freud, and 3) belief (and the 18th
century) - I’ll write on each separately.First, Jansy de Mello's comments on
symbolism ["Naiman ...in "Kinbote's school"."love of fleeting
minutiae" by someone afflicted by "logomania"...] My point in my TLS
piece was that Nabokov held two potentially contradictory views of what good
reading is, and that in Pale Fire he dramatised their possible (but not
necessary) irreconcilability...To my mind, in Pale Fire Nabokov humorously
embodies these two ways of reading, in Kinbote and in Conmal. Each is absurd;
each embodies, but in a dangerously exaggerated way, something essential to good
reading. .."
JM: As in the old joke about
Frankenstein - let's get to the body, in parts ( or split
Nabokov in two: Shade/Kinbote; Kinbote/Conmal?).
I enjoyed the distinction Karshan presents
between two views which "reflect the
centaur-like dual nature of literature, which belongs *both* to the trinity of
poetry, music, painting (the arts), *and* to the trinity of philosophy, history,
and poetry (the discourses)..." and the ellucidation that, in Pale Fire,
Nabokov embodies these two views in Kinbote and in Conmal. I see now
that this is why he situates Naiman in the Kinbote
school
Sure, I fully agree
with Karshan. I consider Naiman's logomanic "freudianism" dangerously
exaggerated (whereas Maar, who promised to explore the nervous tissue that
underlies any symbol, mercifully allowed his hints to dissolve into thin
air).
TK [ to JM's: What strikes me over
and over is how imprecisely the term "symbolism" is employed whenever it is
quoted or re-applied. It is often used indifferently as synonimous of "icon",
"sign", "index," whereas the eminently symbolic dimension of language is not
sufficiently considered...] "On that point, we come on to the question of
what ‘symbolism’ is or isn’t, in and beyond Nabokov.... There are certainly
kinds of ‘symbolism’ - as Jansy says, “the eminently symbolic character of
language” – which Nabokov’s work relies on, fosters, and draws its inspiration
from. ... he said that “all art is in a sense symbolic...once you detach a
symbol from the artistic core of the book, you lose all sense of enjoyment..."
JM: Indeed, what every critic
considers to be the "symbolic" dimension of language has to be
clarified, and by him, in the first place.
Nabokov and Coleridge seem to feel comfortable
by considering that "art is in a sense symbolic." I'm not
comfortable with that because of the restriction contained in "in a
sense." As I see it (after reading Lacan) for them language has
become a mere carrier of verbal symbols or of verbally rendered
images and tools.
It is easier to agree when Karshan recognizes that
"All good non-philosophical writing must
insist on its right to use terms with a specific meaning given by the context of
the sentence – otherwise you would have a patent deodorised technical
prose," but I value even more the effort to
identify "who speaks" and from "where he speaks" (the "subject
of the ennunciation"), when discussing "symbols", since this is what
differenciates the "personal" quality ( the unique vertex) of the
symbol that's being used, and extracts it from the traditional, generic
context,.obedient solely to grammar and syntax*.
Perhaps, instead of splitting Nabokov or condensing his
tactics under the image of a "centaur," one can also consider that the
"unreliable narrator" is instrumental for Nabokov's shifts of perspective, which
serve him to dissimulate his authorial intentions, voice, ideas: who is
speaking, in what context and when, are a dedicated reader's permanent
challenges, not only a postmodern distancing jolt.
..................................................
* - In the foreword to Didier Machu's new book on
Lolita, Jeff Edmunds plays with Rimbaud's remark by warning us that the
foreword he is writing is not a pastiche of erring John Ray, Jr' s foreword,
since: "JE est un autre" (JE= Jeff Edmunds and, the non-subjectified "I" from
Rimbaud's sentence.) - a very Nabokovian
move.