Subject
ACLA Conference Papers on Nabokov: Abstracts
Date
Body
From cphenson@indiana.edu Wed May 28
At the annual American Comparative Literature Association Conference,
held April 10-13, 1997 in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico,
I organized a 13-person seminar on "Exploring Fictional Worlds."
As might be expected, Nabokov's work came up repeatedly, and
two of the papers addressed his work specifically.
Cary Henson, ABD
Dept. of Comparative Literature
Indiana University
Lecturer, Milwaukee School of Engineering
cphenson@indiana.edu
http://www.execpc.com/~cphenson/
-------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------
Charles Nicol, Indiana State University
CATEGORIZING ADA: A TYPOLOGY OF NABOKOV'S WORLDS
According to Nabokov, "reality" is a word that must always be used in
quotation marks. Every individual has not only a unique viewpoint but
lives in a unique world. In addition, every novel is itself a world
created by its author.
Most of Nabokov's novels take place in our normal universe, what I might
call our consensus world. But some of his characters live in their own
clearly invented worlds. Charles Kinbote is an obvious example; Humbert
Humbert less obviously lives in his own world as well.
Yet there are also Nabokov novels that take place in other places than our
consensus world. Invitation to a Beheading, which takes place in the
distant future, is the clearest example. Bend Sinister takes place in the
twentieth century but in an invented country.
Which kind of place is Anti-terra, the world on which Van and Ada live in
Ada? As described, Anti-terra has a scrambled history and geography
compared with that of our world, and the novel seems to explain this in a
science-fiction manner: Anti-terra is the result of time- forks, and has
taken a different path than our world. This world can be seen as "real,"
and has been so seen by at least two prominent Nabokov scholars, Alfred
Appel and Brian Boyd.
On the other hand, Anti-terra can be seen as the mental construct of Van
and Ada, whose incestuous love affair of eighty years duration has led
them away from normal reality into a fantasy existence. This view has
been argued by Bobby Ann Mason and myself.
When I wrote on Ada fifteen years ago, Brian Boyd's view had not been
published. I would like to elaborate further on Anti-terra as Van and
Ada's mental construct, offering more evidence than previously, and also
take into account the other viewpoint, to see what common ground can
be found.
-----------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------
Faustian Reflections in Nabokov's Pale Fire
by
Dominique Jullien, Columbia University
I propose to explore an aspect of Pale Fire which Nabokovian
criticism has rather overlooked so far: the novel's debt towards the
Faustian myth in general and Goethe's two plays Faust I and II, in
particular. Here are a few main points I plan to develop:
- the paradoxes of world and word.
The mistrust and contempt shown by Faust toward language are,
paradoxically, what bring him back to the world of language and text
contained in his scholarly "cell" (e.g. in particular the Translation
scene). In Pale Fire, the power of language to express reality is both
fantastically expanded (Kinbote's reading of his own Zemblan adventure
into Shade's autobiographical poem emblematizes a virtually unlimited
supremacy of words over things) and drastically curtailed (as both
Kinbote's utopian Zembla and Shade's Wordsmith College, New Wye, are
reduced to mere alphabetical fictions).
- the paradoxes of creation and commentary.
The relationship between text and commentary is a perverted one:
in Pale Fire, the reader has only indirect access to Shade's text,
mediated (and parasitized) by Kinbote's commentary. Similarly, in the
"Student Scene" of Faust I, Mephistopheles quotes the Scripture, revealing
a profoundly unsettling paradox: the commentator-devil is perverting the
divine text as Kinbote does Shade's poem; moreover, he is quoting himself
(his own words, spoken to Eve in Genesis 3:5), just as Kinbote claims that
the materials for the poem "Pale Fire" were provided orally by him, the
unfortunate king of Zembla, during his conversations with the poet.
Creation and commentary are thus reversed. Just as Mephistopheles is
inseparable from Faust (infecting him with the specific disease which
makes him "Faust" -- the combination of boundless desire and infinite
contempt for the world), so Kinbote is inseparable from his poet (so much
so that the one falls victim to the other's assassin). From parasite the
critic becomes the poet's mirror image: text and commentary become mirror
images of each other. Mephistopheles becomes a creator in his own right in
Faust II (particularly at the Emperor's court where he stages the Shower
of Gold and conjures up Helen of Troy); Kinbote is the better poet, the
creator of an entire world, while Shade's domestic talent remains
irremediably limited to a narrow personal experience.
- Microcosm vs. macrocosm.
In the prologue to Faust I, the Poet is nicknamed "Mr. Microcosm".
Shade's autobiographical poem attempts to encompass his entire life;
Kinbote's "commentary", considerably vaster in its goal, attempts to
recapture the entire lost world of Zembla. Both Faust and Pale Fire
describe a conflict between small and great worlds: Shade's and Gretchen's
are the tiny worlds of domestic experience; yet they are meant to
encompass the totality of the human experience, and bear the imprint of
human suffering (deaths of Gretchen's baby sister and of Shade's daughter
Hazel). This link between humanity and smallness is derided by
Mephistopheles and Kinbote: both stories tell of a small world overpowered
and shattered by a greater one.
- Lost kingdoms, dream empires.
Both the emperor's court in Faust II and Kinbote's fantasy kingdom
of Zembla are reigns of illusion. Whereas Faust rises to world empire
through the dreamlike episodes of Helen of Troy and the descent to the
Mothers, Kinbote, conversely, is a fallen king brought low by an uprising
at the Mirror factory, and whose escape from revolutionary Zembla is
marked by the utmost theatricality.
At the annual American Comparative Literature Association Conference,
held April 10-13, 1997 in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico,
I organized a 13-person seminar on "Exploring Fictional Worlds."
As might be expected, Nabokov's work came up repeatedly, and
two of the papers addressed his work specifically.
Cary Henson, ABD
Dept. of Comparative Literature
Indiana University
Lecturer, Milwaukee School of Engineering
cphenson@indiana.edu
http://www.execpc.com/~cphenson/
-------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------
Charles Nicol, Indiana State University
CATEGORIZING ADA: A TYPOLOGY OF NABOKOV'S WORLDS
According to Nabokov, "reality" is a word that must always be used in
quotation marks. Every individual has not only a unique viewpoint but
lives in a unique world. In addition, every novel is itself a world
created by its author.
Most of Nabokov's novels take place in our normal universe, what I might
call our consensus world. But some of his characters live in their own
clearly invented worlds. Charles Kinbote is an obvious example; Humbert
Humbert less obviously lives in his own world as well.
Yet there are also Nabokov novels that take place in other places than our
consensus world. Invitation to a Beheading, which takes place in the
distant future, is the clearest example. Bend Sinister takes place in the
twentieth century but in an invented country.
Which kind of place is Anti-terra, the world on which Van and Ada live in
Ada? As described, Anti-terra has a scrambled history and geography
compared with that of our world, and the novel seems to explain this in a
science-fiction manner: Anti-terra is the result of time- forks, and has
taken a different path than our world. This world can be seen as "real,"
and has been so seen by at least two prominent Nabokov scholars, Alfred
Appel and Brian Boyd.
On the other hand, Anti-terra can be seen as the mental construct of Van
and Ada, whose incestuous love affair of eighty years duration has led
them away from normal reality into a fantasy existence. This view has
been argued by Bobby Ann Mason and myself.
When I wrote on Ada fifteen years ago, Brian Boyd's view had not been
published. I would like to elaborate further on Anti-terra as Van and
Ada's mental construct, offering more evidence than previously, and also
take into account the other viewpoint, to see what common ground can
be found.
-----------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------
Faustian Reflections in Nabokov's Pale Fire
by
Dominique Jullien, Columbia University
I propose to explore an aspect of Pale Fire which Nabokovian
criticism has rather overlooked so far: the novel's debt towards the
Faustian myth in general and Goethe's two plays Faust I and II, in
particular. Here are a few main points I plan to develop:
- the paradoxes of world and word.
The mistrust and contempt shown by Faust toward language are,
paradoxically, what bring him back to the world of language and text
contained in his scholarly "cell" (e.g. in particular the Translation
scene). In Pale Fire, the power of language to express reality is both
fantastically expanded (Kinbote's reading of his own Zemblan adventure
into Shade's autobiographical poem emblematizes a virtually unlimited
supremacy of words over things) and drastically curtailed (as both
Kinbote's utopian Zembla and Shade's Wordsmith College, New Wye, are
reduced to mere alphabetical fictions).
- the paradoxes of creation and commentary.
The relationship between text and commentary is a perverted one:
in Pale Fire, the reader has only indirect access to Shade's text,
mediated (and parasitized) by Kinbote's commentary. Similarly, in the
"Student Scene" of Faust I, Mephistopheles quotes the Scripture, revealing
a profoundly unsettling paradox: the commentator-devil is perverting the
divine text as Kinbote does Shade's poem; moreover, he is quoting himself
(his own words, spoken to Eve in Genesis 3:5), just as Kinbote claims that
the materials for the poem "Pale Fire" were provided orally by him, the
unfortunate king of Zembla, during his conversations with the poet.
Creation and commentary are thus reversed. Just as Mephistopheles is
inseparable from Faust (infecting him with the specific disease which
makes him "Faust" -- the combination of boundless desire and infinite
contempt for the world), so Kinbote is inseparable from his poet (so much
so that the one falls victim to the other's assassin). From parasite the
critic becomes the poet's mirror image: text and commentary become mirror
images of each other. Mephistopheles becomes a creator in his own right in
Faust II (particularly at the Emperor's court where he stages the Shower
of Gold and conjures up Helen of Troy); Kinbote is the better poet, the
creator of an entire world, while Shade's domestic talent remains
irremediably limited to a narrow personal experience.
- Microcosm vs. macrocosm.
In the prologue to Faust I, the Poet is nicknamed "Mr. Microcosm".
Shade's autobiographical poem attempts to encompass his entire life;
Kinbote's "commentary", considerably vaster in its goal, attempts to
recapture the entire lost world of Zembla. Both Faust and Pale Fire
describe a conflict between small and great worlds: Shade's and Gretchen's
are the tiny worlds of domestic experience; yet they are meant to
encompass the totality of the human experience, and bear the imprint of
human suffering (deaths of Gretchen's baby sister and of Shade's daughter
Hazel). This link between humanity and smallness is derided by
Mephistopheles and Kinbote: both stories tell of a small world overpowered
and shattered by a greater one.
- Lost kingdoms, dream empires.
Both the emperor's court in Faust II and Kinbote's fantasy kingdom
of Zembla are reigns of illusion. Whereas Faust rises to world empire
through the dreamlike episodes of Helen of Troy and the descent to the
Mothers, Kinbote, conversely, is a fallen king brought low by an uprising
at the Mirror factory, and whose escape from revolutionary Zembla is
marked by the utmost theatricality.