-------- Original Message --------
"I don't think that Wilson was unable to discern "shadow stories" in
Nabokov (and elsewhere)! Nabokov's fiction abounds with almost
limitless "separate parallel fictional universes" with extended
sub-plots and even incidental characters.* I dare say he seldom
resorted
to a single "revealed story" (of the kind he described for "Signs and
Symbols") because he was not simply a "yarn-spinner" but an
"enchanter."**"
Well I can tell you for sure that Wilson did _NOT_ discern Jane
Austen's
shadow stories---he knew there was something there, but he had idea
what
it was, so what he came up with was that Emma was a closet
lesbian---which in my opinion was an accurate sense of Emma's
unconscious experience vis a vis the other main female characters in
the
novel, but was only one small "tile" in the very complex "mosaic" of
the
full shadow story of Emma, involving _all_ the major characters. Wilson
was too entranced with the Freudian aspects of the novel to realize
that
the Freudian sexual experience of Emma was only a piece of the whole.
VN to EW: "In connection with /Mansfield Park/ I had them read the
works
mentioned by the characters in the novel - the two first cantos of the
"/Lay of the Last Minstrel/," Cowper's /"The Task/," passages from
/King
Henry the Eighth/, Crabbe's tale "/The Parting Hour/," bits of
Johnson's
/The Idler,/ Browne's address to "/A Pipe of Tobacco/" (Imitation of
Pope), Sterne's /Sentimental Journey/ (the whole gate-and-no-key"
passage comes from there - and the starling) and of course /Lovers
Vows/. in Mrs Inchbald's inimitable translation (a scream)... I think I
had more fun than my class." How like dear Professor Pnin enjoying
his Pushkin class! Most of the Austen authors will be transmongrelized
all over Nabokov's fiction, I think. "
Nabokov was smart enough to realize that Jane Austen's literary
allusions were there in her novels (in this instance, Mansfield Park)
for reasons other than to show off her own erudition, but I don't think
he realized that these were actually important clues to the shadow
story
of the novel.
As for your final comment, can you explain what you mean? ;)
*
*
>
............................................................................................................................................................................................
> * -Nabokov's eye for detail and the unexpected "life" bubbling up,
is
> shown at the end of his CD lecture when he describes a humble guy,
who
> holds horses and calls coaches, catching a coin: "this gesture,
this
> one gesture, with its epithet "over-handed" - a trifle - but the
man
> is alive foreve in a good reader's mind." ..."A great writer's
world
> is indeed a magic democracy where even some very minor character,
even
> the most incidental character like the person who tosses the
twopence,
> has the right to live and breed."
Austen went even further--she deliberately created the impression in
her
novels that the minor characters were there for nothing other than
fleshing out a background, but covertly, she gave each of them an
important thematic purpose, pointing to the shadow story.
Cheers, ARNIE
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