In the opening lines of Laugther in the Dark we find: "Once upon a time there lived in Berlin, Germany,
a man called Albinus. He was rich, respectable, happy; one day he abandoned his
wife for the sake of a youthful mistress; he loved; was not loved; and his life
ended in disaster." In Nabokov's opening Lecture on English Literature Nabokov
says that "... great novels
are great fairy tales”. However, in the postface of
"Lolita" he writes that "in modern times
the term "pornography" connotes... certain strict rules of
narration...Thus,in pornographic novels, action has to be limited to the
copulation of clichés. Style, structure, imagery should never distract the
reader from his tepid lust... (a mentality stemming from the routine of "true"
fairy tales in childhood)."
Although I'd always been
intrigued by the differentiation Nabokov
established between novelistic "great fairy tales" and the "
'true' fairy tales in childhood," I understood that, contrary to what happens in
a good novel for Nabokov, the latter, like it''s observable in adult
pornographic novels, must follow specific rules of narration
that include a predictable ending. And yet, in "Laugthter in the Dark"
(Camera Oscura) Nabokov not only begins his novel with a
traditional kernel of uniqueness indicated by "once upon a time" but
he immediately reveals his novel's yarn. Inspite of its title, this
novel is not about movie-making, scripts or actors. Actually its beginning
comprises "a dark cinema" and in its closing chapters cause its
central character to become blind and thereby missing the
overall pornographic action and perverse laughter centered around
him*.
Nabokov, as a youth,
studied and particularly enjoyed medieval texts which, in a way, can be regarded
as "fairy-tales" and where the action that is taking place in
each chapter is outlined at the start. In the Arthurian Legends and in
the Rhine Tales (those are the associations that came to my mind &
rather vaguely),however, this kind of predictability never spoils the enjoyment
of the annunciated plot**. I gather that Nabokov's ambitions at that
time included structure, imagery and style along with the task of
holding up suspense in a profusion of announced or (apparently)
predictable plots (something we also meet, in part, in some
of his short-stories, in Lolita, in Pale Fire
and even in Transparent Things). I wonder if his preference
for the unreliable narrators has a determining role in this...
................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
* While searching for a few quotes, I came
across Don B.Johnson 2008 article online, a reminder about which I take the
opportunity to bring up now:
Don BARTON JOHNSON,« Ada's “Last Tango” in Dance,
Song and Film »,cyc, Volume 24 n°1,mis en ligne le 20 mars 2008
URL :
http://revel.unice.fr/cycnos/index.html?id=1045
POSLEDNEE
TANGO: Iza Kremer’s new Russian lyrics
are credited for the plot line of a silent film starring Vera Kholodnaya, the
most famous Russian female star of her era. The film was appropriately called
Poslednee Tango.9 The
film, released in May 1918, was silent, but it is safe to assume that the song
was used as live musical accompaniment at each showing. Kholodnaya appeared in
one last film that Nabokov may have seen. Following a performance in Odessa, she
contracted Spanish influenza and died. Her elaborate funeral was the subject of
a documentary news clip featuring her cortege and casket.
Poslednee Tango flickers in and out of several Russian later novels. The
most famous, Ilf and Petrov’s Zolotoi telenok (1931) [The Golden Calf], was among the few Soviet
novels that Nabokov enjoyed. The song appears in chapter XX entitled
“Командор танцует танго,” where the rogue hero Ostap Bender sings the first few
bars to himself and is so carried away that even his samovar and typewriter join
in the melody as he launches into a solo tango dance.10
The scene and song appear in several
screen versions of Zolotoi telenok.
The youthful Vasily Aksyonov also drew
on the song as the title and motif of a surreal travel piece about a 1963 film
festival in Argentina.11 As a
curious aside, I note that the song, retitled “Kiss of Fire” and graced with new
lyrics, enjoyed a renaissance in the summer of 1952 when it was Number One on
the American Hit Parade for fourteen weeks. It was recorded by several pop
singers, including Tony [Martin?] (who figures on Lolita’s
Hit Parade) and Louis Armstrong (who receives a passing nod in Pale Fire).
** - The same fascination we find in Ruth
Rendell's "A Judgement in Stone."