Subject
Brodsky & Nabokov (fwd)
Date
Body
EDITOR'S NOTE. The roughly-joined remarks, paraphrases, and quotes below
are my collation of far more eloquent writings linking two of the XXth
century's more important literary figures. My apologies for the ligatures;
my thanks to the people I quote. D. Barton Johnson
------------------------------------------------
Nobelist Joseph Brodsky died on January 28, 1996. Scheduled for a
new round of heart surgery (the first had been in 1976), he apparently
died getting up from his writing desk. Brodsky, who came to English much
later in life than VN, never abandoned his Russian Muse although he came
to write his beloved English with a certain flair. Brodsky was to the
Third Wave Russian literary exodus what Nabokov was to the First--that
rare figure, the exile who broke into the ranks of the American literary
establishment.
Nabokov and Brodsky never met and yet they had a relationship with
each other due to their work and to common friends who played considerable
roles in their lives. Carl and Ellendea Proffer, the young Slavists who
were soon to found Ardis Press which would republish VN's Russian works
and publish Brodsky, first met the latter in 1969 in Moscow. They first met
Nabokov in
Lugano on their back from the USSR that same year. Carl had already
written _Keys to Lolita_, one of the first books devoted to VN and had
been in correspondence with the author. (The "Mark V. Boldino" that Proffer
thanks in his "Acknowledgements" is a partial anagram of Nabokov who had
read the manuscript.) During their Soviet stay the couple had
clandestinely distributed Nabokov books and spoken with many of his
Russian readers. (Ellendea was later to write an article " Nabokov's
Russian Readers" in Appel and Newman, 293-309.) In Lugano they spoke with
the Nabokovs about his Russian readership and about the "underground"
Russian literary scene, including Brodsky. Although the Nabokovs were
always careful to distance themselves from Russian writers, both loyalists
and dissidents, they, often through the Proffers, assisted the latter.
They asked that a pair of jeans be sent to Brodsky in their name (Boyd II,
p. 570). According to Carl Proffer's posthumous book _The Widows of
Russia_ (Ardis, 1987, p. 47), Brodsky had read THE GIFT, LOLITA, THE
DEFENSE, and INVITATION TO A BEHEADING and thought Nabokov a great writer.
"He praised Nabokov for dealing with 'the vulgarity of the age' and for
being 'merciless'." Nabokov, he said, knew "the true scale of things" and
his place in it--as any great writer must. The only prose writers of the
past that had meaning for him were Nabokov and Platonov. In fact, Brodsky
and Nadezhda Mandelstam had a two-year falling out over their opposing
views of Nabokov. Their positions eventually reversed themselves. On
Brodsky's part this was not unconnected with learning that Nabokov had not
dismissed his poem "Gorbunov and Gorchakov," a work he himself thought
very highly of. By the time Brodsky was expelled in 1972, he was quite
cool about Nabokov and made only passing reference to him in his many
literary essays. In many ways Brodsky was a product of Soviet society
while Nabokov was no less a product of his time. Perhaps the gap was too
wide to be bridged. Nevertheless, both artists held in common certain
aesthetic views.
Rather oddly, the _New York Review of Books_ dated Feb. 1, 1996
(but put together well before poet's heart attack) carried a Brodsky poem
"Via Funari," translated by the author from his original Russian, and a
review-essay "Speaking for Language" on Brodsky's new book _On Grief and
Reason: Essays_ (pp. 28-31). David Levine's accompanying caricature of
Brodsky as a slightly truculent, middle-aged cherub sitting on a cloud is
almost uncanny in its timing. In his essay, the novelist J. M. Coetzee
remarks two parallels between Brodsky (born 1940) and his fellow Saint
Petersburgian Vladimir Nabokov.
"In his Nobel Prize lecture Brodsky sketches out an aesthetic credo
on the basis of which an ethical public life might be built. Aethetics, he
says, is the mother of ethics, in the sense that making fine aesthetic
discriminations teaches one to make fine ethical discriminations. Good art
is thus on the side of good. Evil, on the other hand, 'especially
political evil, is always a bad stylist.' (At moments like this Brodsky
finds himself closer to his illustrious Russo-American precursor, the
patrician Vladimir Nabokov, than he might wish to be.)"
In discussing Brodsky's "jagged" trains of thoughts, his "shuttling"
between coloquial and formal diction, and his penchant for the "bon mot",
Coetzee again draws an apt parallel: "In his fascination with the
echo-chamber of the English language, he is again not unlike Nabokokv,
though Nabokov's linguistic imagination was more disciplined (but also,
perhaps, more trammeled."
Few scholars have done more than make passing comparisons to the
two Russo-English writers. The only extended comparison I have seen is
David Bethea's final chapter "Exile as Pupation: Genre and Bilingualism in
the Works of Nabokov and Brodsky" in his book _Joseph Brodsky and the
Creation of Exile_ (Princeton, 1994). Based largely on butterfly imagery
in the work of the two poet-writers, Bethea notes the profound difference
in outlook, the shift from Nabokov's confidence in "transcendental
signifiers" to Brodsky's skepticism about any certainties. I can think of
no better closing to my scattered remarks than to quote Bethea's
concluding sentence (p. 251): "If Nabokov is a great postsymbolist, then
Brodsky is a great postmodernist, the poet who is orphaned and exiled in
every conceivable sense, physical and metaphysical. All he has is his
language, the words on the printed page, his metaphorical butterfly wing,
and this is the one membrane, the one flimsy barrier, separating him
from the _nichto_ [No Thing] of nonbeing."
D. Barton Johnson
Department of Germanic, Slavic and Semitic Studies
Phelps Hall
University of California at Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, CA 93106
Phone and Fax: (805) 687-1825
Home Phone: (805) 682-4618
are my collation of far more eloquent writings linking two of the XXth
century's more important literary figures. My apologies for the ligatures;
my thanks to the people I quote. D. Barton Johnson
------------------------------------------------
Nobelist Joseph Brodsky died on January 28, 1996. Scheduled for a
new round of heart surgery (the first had been in 1976), he apparently
died getting up from his writing desk. Brodsky, who came to English much
later in life than VN, never abandoned his Russian Muse although he came
to write his beloved English with a certain flair. Brodsky was to the
Third Wave Russian literary exodus what Nabokov was to the First--that
rare figure, the exile who broke into the ranks of the American literary
establishment.
Nabokov and Brodsky never met and yet they had a relationship with
each other due to their work and to common friends who played considerable
roles in their lives. Carl and Ellendea Proffer, the young Slavists who
were soon to found Ardis Press which would republish VN's Russian works
and publish Brodsky, first met the latter in 1969 in Moscow. They first met
Nabokov in
Lugano on their back from the USSR that same year. Carl had already
written _Keys to Lolita_, one of the first books devoted to VN and had
been in correspondence with the author. (The "Mark V. Boldino" that Proffer
thanks in his "Acknowledgements" is a partial anagram of Nabokov who had
read the manuscript.) During their Soviet stay the couple had
clandestinely distributed Nabokov books and spoken with many of his
Russian readers. (Ellendea was later to write an article " Nabokov's
Russian Readers" in Appel and Newman, 293-309.) In Lugano they spoke with
the Nabokovs about his Russian readership and about the "underground"
Russian literary scene, including Brodsky. Although the Nabokovs were
always careful to distance themselves from Russian writers, both loyalists
and dissidents, they, often through the Proffers, assisted the latter.
They asked that a pair of jeans be sent to Brodsky in their name (Boyd II,
p. 570). According to Carl Proffer's posthumous book _The Widows of
Russia_ (Ardis, 1987, p. 47), Brodsky had read THE GIFT, LOLITA, THE
DEFENSE, and INVITATION TO A BEHEADING and thought Nabokov a great writer.
"He praised Nabokov for dealing with 'the vulgarity of the age' and for
being 'merciless'." Nabokov, he said, knew "the true scale of things" and
his place in it--as any great writer must. The only prose writers of the
past that had meaning for him were Nabokov and Platonov. In fact, Brodsky
and Nadezhda Mandelstam had a two-year falling out over their opposing
views of Nabokov. Their positions eventually reversed themselves. On
Brodsky's part this was not unconnected with learning that Nabokov had not
dismissed his poem "Gorbunov and Gorchakov," a work he himself thought
very highly of. By the time Brodsky was expelled in 1972, he was quite
cool about Nabokov and made only passing reference to him in his many
literary essays. In many ways Brodsky was a product of Soviet society
while Nabokov was no less a product of his time. Perhaps the gap was too
wide to be bridged. Nevertheless, both artists held in common certain
aesthetic views.
Rather oddly, the _New York Review of Books_ dated Feb. 1, 1996
(but put together well before poet's heart attack) carried a Brodsky poem
"Via Funari," translated by the author from his original Russian, and a
review-essay "Speaking for Language" on Brodsky's new book _On Grief and
Reason: Essays_ (pp. 28-31). David Levine's accompanying caricature of
Brodsky as a slightly truculent, middle-aged cherub sitting on a cloud is
almost uncanny in its timing. In his essay, the novelist J. M. Coetzee
remarks two parallels between Brodsky (born 1940) and his fellow Saint
Petersburgian Vladimir Nabokov.
"In his Nobel Prize lecture Brodsky sketches out an aesthetic credo
on the basis of which an ethical public life might be built. Aethetics, he
says, is the mother of ethics, in the sense that making fine aesthetic
discriminations teaches one to make fine ethical discriminations. Good art
is thus on the side of good. Evil, on the other hand, 'especially
political evil, is always a bad stylist.' (At moments like this Brodsky
finds himself closer to his illustrious Russo-American precursor, the
patrician Vladimir Nabokov, than he might wish to be.)"
In discussing Brodsky's "jagged" trains of thoughts, his "shuttling"
between coloquial and formal diction, and his penchant for the "bon mot",
Coetzee again draws an apt parallel: "In his fascination with the
echo-chamber of the English language, he is again not unlike Nabokokv,
though Nabokov's linguistic imagination was more disciplined (but also,
perhaps, more trammeled."
Few scholars have done more than make passing comparisons to the
two Russo-English writers. The only extended comparison I have seen is
David Bethea's final chapter "Exile as Pupation: Genre and Bilingualism in
the Works of Nabokov and Brodsky" in his book _Joseph Brodsky and the
Creation of Exile_ (Princeton, 1994). Based largely on butterfly imagery
in the work of the two poet-writers, Bethea notes the profound difference
in outlook, the shift from Nabokov's confidence in "transcendental
signifiers" to Brodsky's skepticism about any certainties. I can think of
no better closing to my scattered remarks than to quote Bethea's
concluding sentence (p. 251): "If Nabokov is a great postsymbolist, then
Brodsky is a great postmodernist, the poet who is orphaned and exiled in
every conceivable sense, physical and metaphysical. All he has is his
language, the words on the printed page, his metaphorical butterfly wing,
and this is the one membrane, the one flimsy barrier, separating him
from the _nichto_ [No Thing] of nonbeing."
D. Barton Johnson
Department of Germanic, Slavic and Semitic Studies
Phelps Hall
University of California at Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, CA 93106
Phone and Fax: (805) 687-1825
Home Phone: (805) 682-4618