Chapter by Beci Dobbin on Nabokov's "Laughter in the Dark"
Thinking on Thresholds The Poetics of Transitive Spaces TEST
Edited by
Subha Mukherji - Through a combination of case studies and theoretical
investigations, the essays in this book address the imaginative power of the
threshold as a productive space in literature and art. Imprint: Anthem
Press Hardback ISBN 9780857286659
February 2011
"Why does the
position of the threshold exert such a compelling hold on our imaginative lives?
Why is it a resonant space? Why is it so urgently the place of writing – the
place where one may remain, avoid speaking or naming, yet speak from? Through a
combination of case studies and theoretical investigations, this book addresses
these questions and speaks to the imaginative power of the threshold as a
productive space in literature and art."
Table of Contents
Introduction –
Subha Mukherji; Part One: Doors, Windows, Entries; 1. Windows: Looking In,
Looking Out, Breaking Through – Gillian Beer; 2. ‘Zero…Zero…and Zero’: Permeable
Walls and Off-stage Spaces – Jean Chothia; 3. ‘The Queer Part Doors
Play’ in Nabokov’s ‘Laughter in the Dark’ – Beci Dobbin; 4. ‘Invasion
from Outer Space’: The Threshold of Annunciations – Subha Mukherji; Part Two:
Lives and Narratives, Territories and Worlds; 5. Unsettling Thresholds: Mignon
and Her Afterlives – Terence Cave; 6. Dangerous Liaisons: Desire and Limit in
‘The Home and the World’ – Supriya Chaudhuri; 7. Writing Through Osmotic
Borders: Boundaries, Liminality and Language in Mehmet Yashin’s Poetics – Rosita
D’Amora; 8. Dancing and Romancing: The Obstacle of the Beach and the Threshold
of the Past – Jonathan Lamb; Part Three: Matter, Mind, Psyche; 9. ‘Remember Me’
– Michael Witmore; 10. Between Sleep and Waking: Montaigne, Keats and Proust –
Jeremy Lane; Part Four: Reading, Writing, Playing, Listening; 11. Reading on the
Threshold – Jason Scott-Warren; 12. When I Begin I have Already Begun – Gabriel
Josipovici; 13. Thresholds in Improvisation: Freedom, the Eternal Present, and
the Death of Jazz – Rick Foot; 14. Thresholds of Attention: On Listening in
Literature – Angela Leighton; Select Bibliography (including
Discography)