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[NABOKOV-L] [QUERY] Living in a looking-glass world:Gogol and
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In his biography of Gogol, Nabokov observes that:
"Gogol, being Gogol and living in a looking-glass world, had a knack of thoroughly planning his works after he had written and published them"
[...] "...This explanation has the same depressing effect as his later considerations of related subjects have - unless we can believe that he was pulling his reader's leg - or his own. Viewed as a plain statement we have here the incredible fact of a writer totally misunderstanding and distorting the sense of his own work"
[...] "He was a strange sick creature - and I am not sure that his explanation of The Government Inspector in not the kind of deceit that is practiced by madmen [...]. he was given to dreaming things into his books long after they had been written..."
Although I still believe VN's own prefaces were not directed at "pulling his reader's leg", not his forewords and post-scripts I wonder now about one or two sentences he inserted in some of these later remarks when he called the reader's attention to a specific detail - perhaps misleading them from others that were set close by.
But Vivien Darkbloom's index notes (in Ada), and Pale Fire's Index are peculiar enough not to be related to VN's opinions on Gogol's "planning a work after it's been published" ( "living in a looking glass-world", ie "Semblerland"?), his "leg-pulling" or "misunderstanding and distorting the sense of his own work", like a "madman" "dreaming things into his books..."
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"Gogol, being Gogol and living in a looking-glass world, had a knack of thoroughly planning his works after he had written and published them"
[...] "...This explanation has the same depressing effect as his later considerations of related subjects have - unless we can believe that he was pulling his reader's leg - or his own. Viewed as a plain statement we have here the incredible fact of a writer totally misunderstanding and distorting the sense of his own work"
[...] "He was a strange sick creature - and I am not sure that his explanation of The Government Inspector in not the kind of deceit that is practiced by madmen [...]. he was given to dreaming things into his books long after they had been written..."
Although I still believe VN's own prefaces were not directed at "pulling his reader's leg", not his forewords and post-scripts I wonder now about one or two sentences he inserted in some of these later remarks when he called the reader's attention to a specific detail - perhaps misleading them from others that were set close by.
But Vivien Darkbloom's index notes (in Ada), and Pale Fire's Index are peculiar enough not to be related to VN's opinions on Gogol's "planning a work after it's been published" ( "living in a looking glass-world", ie "Semblerland"?), his "leg-pulling" or "misunderstanding and distorting the sense of his own work", like a "madman" "dreaming things into his books..."
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/