Subject
RJ: THE VANE SISTERS (fwd)
Date
Body
EDITOR'S NOTE: Roy Johnson <Roy@mantex.demon.co.uk> continues his series
on Nabokov's short stories. The series which has treated the stories in
chronological order has become especially apt since it has coincided with
the Knopf issue of VN's complete collected stories. NABOKV-L once again
thanks Roy Johnson for his series. Please make your responses to NABOKV-L.
-----------------------------------------------
This week's story - THE VANE SISTERS
-----------------------------------------------
'The Vane Sisters' (March 1951) can be regarded almost as
Nabokov's farewell to the short story as a literary form. He
created for himself a specially difficult task in the
manipulation of narrative: the problem of having a first person
narrator transmit to the reader information of whose existence
he is himself unaware. As Wayne Booth commented shortly after the
story was published
"'The Vane Sisters' carries the pleasure of secret
communication [between author and reader] about as far
as it can go in the direction of what might be called
mere cryptography" (Booth,p.301)
The principal device used to achieve this effect is the
deployment of yet another unreliable narrator. He is an unnamed
Frenchman teaching literature at a girl's college in America. One
of the eponymous sisters, Sybil, is having an affair with another
member of the college's staff - D. The other sister, Cynthia,
recruits the help of the narrator to stop the affair - but it is
too late: Sybil commits suicide. The narrator subsequently gets
to know Cynthia better as she tries to enlist him in a circle of
believers in the occult. He remains sceptical, she spurns him,
and they drift apart. Some years later his colleague D reveals
that Cynthia too has just died, and the narrator goes home at
night full of presentiments that Cynthia might haunt him in some
way. He wakes up next day disappointed that she has failed to
manifest herself, and in recounting this fact reveals as an
acrostic hidden in his last words a message from her which
concerns not just one but both sisters.
The trick is very neatly done, and is one which, as Nabokov
himself suggests "can only be tried once in a thousand years of
fiction" (TD,p.218). And it is not just a cheap cryptogram or a
revelation of identity: the message has a significance which
connects it to two other aspects of the story. The first of these
is Cynthia's beliefs in manifestations from the afterlife. She
believes that these will take the form of short moments in a
person's life which are influenced by another person's spirit:
"a string of minute incidents just sufficiently clear
to stand out in relief against one's usual day then
shading off into vaguer trivia as the aura gradually
faded" (p.228)
It is these beliefs about which the narrator is sceptical, yet
the story opens with his sudden feeling of elation at watching
icicles melting in the sunlight: "it only sharpened my appetite
for other tidbits of light and shade" (p.220). Following this he
spots "The lean ghost, the elongated umbra cast by a parking
meter upon some damp snow" (p.220). We also learn, in the course
of his narrative, that his favourite painting (of Cynthia's) is
"'Seen through a Windshield'...a windshield partly covered with
rime, with a brilliant trickle (from an imaginary car roof)
across its transparent part" (p.226).
This elation of the narrator's is precisely the sort of
manifestation Cynthia's theory has postulated, and this is
confirmed by the acrostic of which he is unaware which reads,
when extracted by the reader from his narrative "Icicles by
Cynthia. Meter from me. Sybil." (p.238).
The acrostic is also linked to the important feature of the
narrator's unreliability and lack of self-awareness. We are given
two or three hints about him. The first two the reader is able
to check as indicators of his lack of acuteness. Nabokov plants,
partly as a joke from author to reader, his lack of consciousness
regarding his own narrative:
"I wish I could recollect that novel or short story
(by some contemporary writer, I believe) in which,
unknown to its author, the first letters of the words
of in its last paragraph formed...a message" (p.230)
Of course, this is the very story he is telling, but it does not
occur to him to check his own last paragraph for messages. He is
also unable to understand a very simply coded description of a
chess set: "What seemed to be some Russian type of architectural
woodwork ('figures on boards - man, horse, cock, man, horse,
cock') all of which was...hard to understand" (p.232).
The other hint is more difficult to disentangle from Nabokov's
own authorial control. For the narrator (as are many of Nabokov's
male protagonists) turns out to be something of a misogynist. He
spends a whole page describing Cynthia in a very unflattering
manner (thick eyebrows, coarse skin, hairy legs) and the widowed
lady who is his neighbour he describes as "resembling a mummified
guinea pig" (p.235).
But there is another set of data within the account to suggest
that Nabokov is deliberately planting information to cast doubt
on his narrator's reliability. For Cynthia accuses him of being
"a prig and a snob...[who] only saw the gestures and disguises
of people" (p.234) - the implication being that *she* sees a lot
more. Our confidence in accepting this view is confirmed by the
events of the narrative itself (Cynthia and Sybil *are* able to
send their 'message') and we are offered extra assurance by such
delicately and finely applied details as the fact that Cynthia
makes her accusation "through pear-shaped drops of sparse rain"
(p.234) which echo the icicle drops of the signal between them.
One might argue that the trickery involved outweighs the
importance of the subject, but the story is masterfully
constructed nevertheless. What is the test for acceptability in
such a case? Sean O'Faolain's case against what he calls the
'whip-crack ending' is that there is less reason to re-read the
story if everything in it depends upon some surprise revelation
in its last lines (O'Faolain,p.159). But in the case of 'The Vane
Sisters' we would re-read for the pleasure of seeing how subtly
Nabokov has planted information in his narrator's account, giving
us the satisfaction of being able to work out what is going on
behind the narrator's back as it were. It is in this sense that
Nabokov is amongst the most successful of manipulators of
narrative conventions: he forces his readers to pay especially
close attention to what is being told and lays any number of
traps to mislead their expectations - but always plants
sufficient evidence within the text to enable them to work out
the truth of the matter. In terms of the construction of its
narrative if not the seriousness of its subject matter, 'The Vane
Sisters' is amongst the greatest of Nabokov's achievements as a
writer of short stories, along with 'The Eye', 'Lik', 'Spring in
Fialta', and 'The Return of Chorb'.
----------------------------------------
Next week's story - LANCE
----------------------------------------
Dr Roy Johnson | roy@mantex.demon.co.uk
PO Box 100 | Tel +44 0161 432 5811
Manchester | Fax +44 0161 443 2766
M20 6GZ UK | http://www.[On its way!]
on Nabokov's short stories. The series which has treated the stories in
chronological order has become especially apt since it has coincided with
the Knopf issue of VN's complete collected stories. NABOKV-L once again
thanks Roy Johnson for his series. Please make your responses to NABOKV-L.
-----------------------------------------------
This week's story - THE VANE SISTERS
-----------------------------------------------
'The Vane Sisters' (March 1951) can be regarded almost as
Nabokov's farewell to the short story as a literary form. He
created for himself a specially difficult task in the
manipulation of narrative: the problem of having a first person
narrator transmit to the reader information of whose existence
he is himself unaware. As Wayne Booth commented shortly after the
story was published
"'The Vane Sisters' carries the pleasure of secret
communication [between author and reader] about as far
as it can go in the direction of what might be called
mere cryptography" (Booth,p.301)
The principal device used to achieve this effect is the
deployment of yet another unreliable narrator. He is an unnamed
Frenchman teaching literature at a girl's college in America. One
of the eponymous sisters, Sybil, is having an affair with another
member of the college's staff - D. The other sister, Cynthia,
recruits the help of the narrator to stop the affair - but it is
too late: Sybil commits suicide. The narrator subsequently gets
to know Cynthia better as she tries to enlist him in a circle of
believers in the occult. He remains sceptical, she spurns him,
and they drift apart. Some years later his colleague D reveals
that Cynthia too has just died, and the narrator goes home at
night full of presentiments that Cynthia might haunt him in some
way. He wakes up next day disappointed that she has failed to
manifest herself, and in recounting this fact reveals as an
acrostic hidden in his last words a message from her which
concerns not just one but both sisters.
The trick is very neatly done, and is one which, as Nabokov
himself suggests "can only be tried once in a thousand years of
fiction" (TD,p.218). And it is not just a cheap cryptogram or a
revelation of identity: the message has a significance which
connects it to two other aspects of the story. The first of these
is Cynthia's beliefs in manifestations from the afterlife. She
believes that these will take the form of short moments in a
person's life which are influenced by another person's spirit:
"a string of minute incidents just sufficiently clear
to stand out in relief against one's usual day then
shading off into vaguer trivia as the aura gradually
faded" (p.228)
It is these beliefs about which the narrator is sceptical, yet
the story opens with his sudden feeling of elation at watching
icicles melting in the sunlight: "it only sharpened my appetite
for other tidbits of light and shade" (p.220). Following this he
spots "The lean ghost, the elongated umbra cast by a parking
meter upon some damp snow" (p.220). We also learn, in the course
of his narrative, that his favourite painting (of Cynthia's) is
"'Seen through a Windshield'...a windshield partly covered with
rime, with a brilliant trickle (from an imaginary car roof)
across its transparent part" (p.226).
This elation of the narrator's is precisely the sort of
manifestation Cynthia's theory has postulated, and this is
confirmed by the acrostic of which he is unaware which reads,
when extracted by the reader from his narrative "Icicles by
Cynthia. Meter from me. Sybil." (p.238).
The acrostic is also linked to the important feature of the
narrator's unreliability and lack of self-awareness. We are given
two or three hints about him. The first two the reader is able
to check as indicators of his lack of acuteness. Nabokov plants,
partly as a joke from author to reader, his lack of consciousness
regarding his own narrative:
"I wish I could recollect that novel or short story
(by some contemporary writer, I believe) in which,
unknown to its author, the first letters of the words
of in its last paragraph formed...a message" (p.230)
Of course, this is the very story he is telling, but it does not
occur to him to check his own last paragraph for messages. He is
also unable to understand a very simply coded description of a
chess set: "What seemed to be some Russian type of architectural
woodwork ('figures on boards - man, horse, cock, man, horse,
cock') all of which was...hard to understand" (p.232).
The other hint is more difficult to disentangle from Nabokov's
own authorial control. For the narrator (as are many of Nabokov's
male protagonists) turns out to be something of a misogynist. He
spends a whole page describing Cynthia in a very unflattering
manner (thick eyebrows, coarse skin, hairy legs) and the widowed
lady who is his neighbour he describes as "resembling a mummified
guinea pig" (p.235).
But there is another set of data within the account to suggest
that Nabokov is deliberately planting information to cast doubt
on his narrator's reliability. For Cynthia accuses him of being
"a prig and a snob...[who] only saw the gestures and disguises
of people" (p.234) - the implication being that *she* sees a lot
more. Our confidence in accepting this view is confirmed by the
events of the narrative itself (Cynthia and Sybil *are* able to
send their 'message') and we are offered extra assurance by such
delicately and finely applied details as the fact that Cynthia
makes her accusation "through pear-shaped drops of sparse rain"
(p.234) which echo the icicle drops of the signal between them.
One might argue that the trickery involved outweighs the
importance of the subject, but the story is masterfully
constructed nevertheless. What is the test for acceptability in
such a case? Sean O'Faolain's case against what he calls the
'whip-crack ending' is that there is less reason to re-read the
story if everything in it depends upon some surprise revelation
in its last lines (O'Faolain,p.159). But in the case of 'The Vane
Sisters' we would re-read for the pleasure of seeing how subtly
Nabokov has planted information in his narrator's account, giving
us the satisfaction of being able to work out what is going on
behind the narrator's back as it were. It is in this sense that
Nabokov is amongst the most successful of manipulators of
narrative conventions: he forces his readers to pay especially
close attention to what is being told and lays any number of
traps to mislead their expectations - but always plants
sufficient evidence within the text to enable them to work out
the truth of the matter. In terms of the construction of its
narrative if not the seriousness of its subject matter, 'The Vane
Sisters' is amongst the greatest of Nabokov's achievements as a
writer of short stories, along with 'The Eye', 'Lik', 'Spring in
Fialta', and 'The Return of Chorb'.
----------------------------------------
Next week's story - LANCE
----------------------------------------
Dr Roy Johnson | roy@mantex.demon.co.uk
PO Box 100 | Tel +44 0161 432 5811
Manchester | Fax +44 0161 443 2766
M20 6GZ UK | http://www.[On its way!]