Vladimir Nabokov

[Stewart]

Some of Nabokov's more famous works may be in English, but he wrote nine novels in Russian. And since I'm currently reading his first novel, Mary, I figure it would make sense to have a thread in his name.

Without wanting to liberally borrow a biography from Wikipedia, let's just say that he was born in April 1899 (dates differ, depending on the calendar in use) and died in July 1977. Aside from being arguably one of the 20th Century's best English prose stylists, his interests also extended to lepidoptery and chess problems.

Much is made of his switch from Russian to English at the halfway point of his writing career, about how someone whose first language was Russian can make the leap to another language and do it better than native speakers. From what I understand he was bilingual from the start - the Wikipedia articles states that:

The family spoke Russian, English and French in their household, and Nabokov was trilingual from an early age. In fact, much to his father's patriotic chagrin, Nabokov could read and write English before he could Russian.

Whether this is true or not - and why shouldn't it be? - I suspect may be expanded upon in his autobiography, Speak, Memory.

BIBLIOGRAPHY (Russian)

• Mary (1926)
• King, Queen, Knave (1928)
• The Luzhin Defence (1930)
• The Eye (1930)
• Glory (1932)
• Laughter In The Dark (1933)
• Despair (1934)
• Invitation To A Beheading (1936)
• The Gift (1937)
• The Enchanter (1939)

BIBLIOGRAPHY (English)

• The Real Life Of Sebastian Knight (1941)
• Bend Sinister (1947)
• Lolita (1955)
• Pnin (1957)
• Pale Fire (1962)
• Ada Or Ardor (1969)
• Transparent Things (1972)
• Look At The Harlequins! (1974)
• The Original Of Laura (unfinished)

Add to those novels and novellas collections of short stories, poetry, some drama, a number of translations back and forth between Russian and English, a few titles of literary criticism, and more pertaining to lepidoptery and you have a prolific body of work. It's interesting to note the frequency in which his Russian novels appeared, and how - no doubt as they got more playful - the gaps grew between English novels.

While I have a number of his books amongst my collection, the only one of his I've read in full is Lolita, so I'm no position to wax lyrical about him. But he's an interesting character, his books and their trickery are intriguing still, and the recent controversy over the will he/won't he burn it, as regards Dmitri Nabokov and The Original Of Laura ensures that he will continue to be talked about, respected, and read.

RELATED THREADS

• Mary
• Pale Fire
  

[Stewart]

The Original Of Laura ensures that he will continue to be talked about, respected, and read.

There's a photograph of The Original Of Laura in Le Monde.

[pontalba]

Actually from what I've been able to gather, Speak, Memory and Brian Boyd's bio[s] of Nabokov my main sources, Nabokov was actually tri-lingual early on. English and French as a very young child, and when his father realized that young Vladimir [at age 5] barely spoke any Russian at all, he immediately engaged a tutor in same.

[Stewart]

A previously unpublished short story by Nabokov, appearing in the New Yorker: Natasha (1924).

[pontalba]

Thanks for the link Stewart.

Beautiful.

[Stewart]

More Nabokov news, this time pertaining to The Original Of Laura, with a quote from Nabokov's biographer, Brian Boyd:

I think it is a fascinating novel. It is very fragmentary, people shouldn?t expect to be swept away. He is doing some very brilliant things with the prose, the story just flashes by, the characters are rather unappealing. It seems a technical tour de force, just as Shakespeare?s later works where he is extending his own technique in very, very concentrated ways. [The text is as] grotesque in some ways as, and unsavoury in different ways from, Lolita. It?s the kind of writing that induces admiration and awe but not engagement.

Apparently it's full title is The Original Of Laura: Dying Is Fun and features a main character called Philip Wild,

a brilliant neurologist. He is fat, very fat. Comically fat. Comically ugly. And tormented by a marriage to a woman much younger than he and terribly fickle. At a certain moment, he begins, humorously, playfully, to reflect on the question of self-destruction. But soon after, he decides that he absolutely does not want to think about the idea of definitive suicide. He wants, on the contrary, a reversible suicide.

[Pynchon]

Hello everyone

This is a question for all the Nabokovians here. I just read a Paris Review interview with John Banville. When talking about the subject of rhythm, Banville claims that Nabokov's prose has "no music.... it doesn't sing".

When I read that, I was confused. Many critics had showered Nabokov with acclaim for this "great prose style." Of course that is a vague and meaningless accolade. What I need to know is this: Do you think Nabakov's prose has "no rhythm." Banville's explains by blaming Nabokov's admission of being tone-deaf.

Banville failed to show any textual evidence to support his argument. I'd love to hear what you think. I wish we could get Martin Amis or Michael Chabon, two great Nabokovians, to give us their opinion.

I look forward to this discussion.

[JTolle]

I'm assuming this thread will be moved because it doesn't belong with the Writers pages...

But otherwise, Banville sounds like a jealous ass. I recently read his The Book of Evidence with all its beautiful passages and lyrical prose, nostalgic and sensitive and etc. Well, it doesn't hold a candle to Nabokov. Pale Fire, Speak, Memory tower over it. Banville wishes he could write like Nabokov. This isn't a case like Joseph Brodsky's English-language poetry where you could make the case that he doesn't exactly write or understand certain phrases in English with 100% accuracy or like a native speaker would, this is more like Joseph Conrad, who owned the language.

Of course I haven't read the interview so I'll be doing that now.

[JTolle]

Well, now having read Banville's interview I feel a bit shamed. I'd delete what I wrote but it's a nice reminder to myself not to plunge into things like that.

I may have gotten a tad defensive because I thought I saw Banville dismissing Nabokov out of hand, trying to raise himself in stature once Nabokov was gone from the "lyric" scene Banville inhabits, sort of how Tolstoy refused to acknowledge Shakespeare's mastery.

To quote the passage "Pynchon" has referred to with a bit more fullness:

"It all starts with rhythm for me. I love Nabokov?s work, and I love his style. But I always thought there was something odd about it that I couldn?t quite put my finger on. Then I read an interview in which he admitted he was tone deaf. And I thought, that?s it?there?s no music in Nabokov, it?s all pictorial, it?s all image-based. It?s not any worse for that, but the prose doesn?t sing. For me, a line has to sing before it does anything else. The great thrill is when a sentence that starts out being completely plain suddenly begins to sing, rising far above itself and above any expectation I might have had for it. That?s what keeps me going on those dark December days when I think about how I could be living instead of writing."

He makes what I might deem a fair argument. Nabokov does have rhythm and lyricism, but Banville may be right in that, in his sense, Nabokov doesn't "sing". I think he's talking about Joyce really as the ultimate "singer" of English Lit, as well as the Baroque prose writers and the Metaphysical poets, you can see their influence on Banville's work very easily, and Banville mentions Joyce in the interview a few times.

[childeroland]

So Donald Westlake is a great novelist (according to Banville) but Nabokov's prose has no music. Nabokov. Um, okay.

[Pynchon]

@JTolle

Hello again, and hello 'JTolle' !

That was my first post on this forum. I apologise if the question about Nabokov went in the wrong place.

JTolle, it is genuinely exciting to have come across someone who is so familiar with the work of Nabokov as well as Banville. Here I am in London, joining a website to argue about what Banville had said. And within a few hours, there is an erudite reply, from Ohio. Thank goodness for the internet !

I'm glad you left your first thought about this question!

So would you say Joyce as the "ultimate singer" of prose? What got me really intrigued is that Martin Amis, in Experience, talks of Nabokov and Saul Bellow as his "twin peaks." And Amis's prose is wonderfully baroque. Don't you think so? As Amis says in the Paris Review interview, a writer's 'voice' is all rhythm. Yet, Banville simply dismisses Nabokov as having "no music."

I think Harold Bloom would have a lot to say about this !

[JTolle]

Yes, the internet can be a strange and surprising place. Quite the invention. Though I wouldn't claim to be "so familiar" with Banville, of whom I've just read one novel, and even of Nabokov I've read only a few works.

I can't say for sure if I consider Joyce to be the "ultimate singer" of English-language prose, I'd have to throw Shakespeare in the conversation as well as Sir Thomas Browne or Jeremy Taylor and William H. Gass, who each have their own merits and who all sing in their own ways. But Joyce is indisputably one of the greatest lyrical writers.

Sadly, I've read neither Amis nor Bellow, though I have a friend who encourages me every time I see him to borrow his copy of Time's Arrow and Bellow just seems, from all I've heard, to be a writer I would appreciate greatly. But that doesn't keep me from agreeing with Amis' in his observation about voice. Trying to think of one major novelist who doesn't have some kind of "rhythm" to their work, I can't think of any right now, but I'm sure I'm missing someone.

Harold Bloom has the best things to say, I'm off now to read his Art of Criticism interview on Paris Review, which I appreciate so much for making all of its interviews available online.