"Russia is not quenched," or forbidden topics in the prose of Nabokov

"… I feel for the real world is the modern world the artist creates his own mirage, which becomes a new mir ("world" in Russian) by the very act of his fall, so to speak, when he saw. "Such a response Nabokov has given to an interviewer that he was interested in his view the modern world and contemporary politics. The book containing this interview and many others, the right their opinions, and, in fact, Nabokov is well known not only for his brilliant fiction, but also for his original and uncompromising views on creativity, art and independent instead of the artist in the world. When interviewed, he avoided discussion of "general ideas" as social, political and moral and said that such global concerns are outside the realm of art: "A work of art has no importance for society. It is only important for the individual and the individual reader is important to me. I do not care for the group, community, the masses, and so on … There is no doubt that what makes a work of fiction safe from larvae and rust is not its social importance but its art, its art. A work of art, Nabokov, is a world in itself, driven by their creative imagination. Conducts its own independent existence, unrelated to its historic surroundings and realities. In the introduction to his course on Nabokov's literature once said: "The real … writer who sends planets spinning and models a man asleep and eagerly alter the sleeper's rib, that kind of authority do not give values available to you: you must create for himself. The art of writing is a quixotic if not the art first to see the world as the potentiality of fiction. "In this statement, cosmic visions of grandeur and an obvious reference to the story of Adam and Eve reflect a parallel between the creator, artist and creator of God. In an interview, Nabokov explicitly in this comparison: "A writer designer should carefully study the works of his rivals, including the Almighty. You must have the innate ability not only to recombination, but due to re-create the world.

Nabokov's position is to some extent a reaction to the situation in Soviet Russia, when requirements of the state dominated by the needs of a human being, where the individual has been removed by the collective and the general details. He says that once again the power and independence of personal creativity, the ability of the imagination to build their own worlds and is a clear distinction between fiction and all outside him, including the personality of its creator. "Literature is invention. Fiction is fiction. To call a story a true story is an insult to the truth and art. "

Nabokov insisted on a specific approach to literature and readers. He resigned habitual tendencies to identify with the characters a book in search of clues about the social and political realities of the time the work was written, or trying to be "general ideas" of a book without absorbing all its specifics. Emotional involvement, he said, could also keep the player's objective assessment of the work "… An astute reader reads the book of genius, not to the heart, not with his brain, but with his spine. occurs when the witness Tingle, even if we have a little aloof, a little apart for reading.

Nabokov avoid formulating their ideas under the famous slogan "art for art", as he has avoided the labels of all kinds, but this well-known phrase, can also be used to describe their views and attitudes toward literature. In this hierarchy of values, aesthetic concerns dominate all others, and the influence of a great work of art in your unit is limited to an emotion "in his spine." However, it remains to be seen to what extent the ideas Nabokov enter his own fiction, though his novels are entirely the product of his creative imagination or the result of deep personal experience that the fatty acid saturated with great intensity.

Nabokov has changed countries and languages during his creative life, and it is interesting to analyze whether these changes affected the books. Comparison of two novels by Nabokov, The Gift, written in Russian in Berlin in the 1930s, and Pale Fire, written in English for much later date, may give an idea of these issues.

As Nabokov said in the preface to "The Gift", the main protagonist of the novel is literature Russian Senior and character is a writer, a writer Fyodor Godunov-Cherdyntsev emigrants, which shares many autobiographical details with Nabokov. As Nabokov during his years Post-Cambridge, Fedor lives in Berlin in the 1920s, wrote poetry and made his living giving lessons in English and French. Take, mostly an existence solitary, spending their time, first in literature. happy childhood in St. Petersburg, butterflies and love chess problems, synesthesia, – all have in common Fedor with Nabokov. mirrors episodes Description of some incidents of his life Nabokov shown much later in his autobiography Speak, Memory - for example, the story of a childhood disease: high fever, an obsession with numbers and a huge pencil Faber, given as a gift from the mother.

Perhaps the most Fedor significant actions with Nabokov, is the passionate love of the literary language, faith in the power of writing: "because there are things he (Fedor) wanted to express as naturally as unrestricted as the lungs want to expand, where appropriate words for respiration must exist. "Fedor reflects his interest in rhyme youth and metrics, analysis of the mechanisms by which the words interact well and fit together like pieces of a puzzle to form a harmonious whole poem. Fyodor Nabokov does not like generalities such as social issues, and psychiatry. When considered briefly the possibility of fulfilling their knowledge, demand continues being deaf to Ms. Chernyshevski write about his son, explains his aversion to the idea as follows: "I'd be in deep enmired involuntarily" Freudian new social interest with a bad smell.

Clearly, Fedor (and Nabokov) views on literature are expressed in Fedor (imaginary) conversations Koncheyev with – a fellow emigre poet, the one whose work he admired and whose views he considers necessary. When Fedor and let Koncheyev a literary and walking through the streets together, a single dialogue, brilliant, full of allusions to various works of Russian literature, takes place between them. "… There are only two kinds of books night and a garbage can. Any of a writer who fervently love, or throw it completely "- He said Fedor, and the two proceed to discuss what they think is the best and the worst in the works of famous Russian writers. Both are just disinterested in "general ideas" or the moral significance of the writings that speak of (the things that has always attracted criticism of Russia and has acquired a new importance in the Soviet period), and all they do is purely artistic love findings observed in this or writer that. Leskov was rented Jesus – "Galileo ghostly gray luster fresh and sweet, with a dress the color of ripe plum" or "/ black silk Ms. Odintsev "In Turgenev's Fathers and Sons. Speaking to dismiss Dostoyevsky, Fyodor notes:" In the Karamazov is not somewhere a circular mark left by a wet glass of wine on a table outside – and that he is the only thing "worth saving. As several authors known for their interpretations magnificent nature, Fyodor ruthlessly critical errors in the description of natural phenomena: "My father used to find all sorts of blunders in Turgenev Tolstoy and hunting scenes and descriptions of nature, and as for the unfortunate Aksakov, even embarrassing mistakes are discussed in this field. "All These statements clearly echo Nabokov's own approach to literature, with its love of detail, his insistence on a precise knowledge of nature and the dismissal of all other criteria for judging works of literature.

Nabokov's belief in the power of deception and invention in the creation of fiction is often expressed in their attempts to mislead the reader to implement this or that error in the development of the plot, which, after a few pages, turns out to be an illusion, a fiction character of the imagination. The exchange between Fedor and Koncheyev all turns out to be an illusion: "Who now is really split in the first corner and I was reciting an imaginary dialogue with my way of providing inspiration for a self-learning manual literary? "However, the importance of this conversation not exist in the novel is not limited to the expression of views on art and display devices joke Nabokov. This shows the magnitude of the loneliness of Fedor, the absence partner with whom he could share his knowledge of literature and love of language: the degree of detachment from the world around them. In his book, Memory Nabokov describes how indigenous Europeans were perceived by Russian immigrants in Germany or in France: "The Aborigines were the mind's eye as flat and transparent like figures carved in cellophane, and although we have used their gadgets, applauded his clowns, chose their path plums and apples, no real communication, the wealthy class so prevalent in our environment, between us and them. "The Gift recreates the atmosphere of human and cultural isolation in which Fedor has to live. Deprived of his own cultural background, Fyodor I feel nothing but resentment of the German-speaking world, who is trapped in "Russia's conviction that German is common in small quantities and in large numbers – unbearably vulgar, she knew, a conviction worthy of an artist "- and yet can not help, because it directs all irrational hatred a German who drives a bus (which, ironically, proves to be a Russian.)

Like Nabokov, Fedor is trilingual, but his French and English in its current search for a purely utilitarian, while Russia is still the language of his soul and his art. Driving a bus to one of its teaching jobs tedious, Fyodor think of himself: "… It is a special rare variant have been described and the nameless man, and he is busy with God knows what speed lesson to lesson, wasting his youth in a boring and empty on the Teaching of Foreign Languages poor – Once you have your own language, which he can do what they want – a fly, a mammoth, a thousand different clouds. "This is why there are almost no examples of puns and language change in the Don.

On the way to a new lesson in hate Fedor becomes completely immersed in memories of Russia and his past life there – the memories "quick and simple, to visit as an attack on a lethal disease at any time, anywhere. The warm and sunny vision of the Russian countryside, after a short summer rain is distinguished in such contrast with the surrounding reality and the clear commitment to meet with a student without hope that Fedor ended up skipping the lesson and return home to his writings. This is another theme expressed in the gift with great emotional power – the theme of nostalgia, nostalgia lost homeland. When faced with the question of Russia during their interviews, Nabokov gave answers like "all we need to Russia is always with me" or "exile of an artist means one thing – the prohibition of his books. "Sometimes, however, speaks Russian quite different:" In the first decade of the impoverishment of our century, when traveling with my family in Western Europe I imagined in dreams bed, which would become an exile who aspired to an epithet at a distance, sad and (right forthcoming) unquenchable Russia, under the exotic eucalyptus stations. Lenin and his police beautifully arranged the realization of this fantasy.

The references to Russia in the novels of Nabokov, the special gift is a trace of bitterness and an overwhelming sense of loss probably comes from personal experience. Like Nabokov, Fyodor transforms your inner world in art and poetry, born of memories of childhood, the guarantees, as he says, his years in exile. But even the creative achievements in literature can not fully Fyodor its nostalgia, which sometimes becomes almost a physical sensation: "During many years, I wanted to express in some way he was on his feet he felt that Russia could not recognize the touch and with all your shoes, like a blind man feels hands. "Again and again, I could not imagine a family and moved back home:" And when I return to Russia? What an idiot sentimentality, this bird of prey is a sound that we hope to move to the innocent in Russia. But nostalgia is not the story – that man, "how can we explain this to them? "Immediately after these lines is one of the Central Nabokov thoughts expressed through the words of his character and gave him a final bit ironic: "It is easier for me, of course, for another to live outside Russia, because I know for sure – first because I took his keys, and secondly because, no matter when, one hundred, two hundred years, I live in my books – or at least to some researchers. No, now you have a story of hope, literary history and a … "

In this passage, there are two different views on Russia, two different forms of perception – that of an artist and a simple human being, and is the most independent proud and independent position of an artist who prefers to show the world Nabokov. He has always strongly protested against the identification with the characters, and perhaps, was his way of hiding this part of himself, which contained its own human feelings and dreams, often painful, often powerless insoluble. However, as one of the childhood memories Fedor colors seep into his vision of the letters and irrevocably affect your perception of this world and prohibits private Nabokov, inevitably, between his fiction under various forms and through different characters. Besides the issue of nostalgia, no other personal development highly of the plot in the grant, and Fedor is the relationship with his father. Konstantin Godunov-Cherdyntsev is a browser that is also very absorbed in his occupation and to initiate important changes happening in Russia. In 1917, despite the unstable situation in Russia, went on an expedition and never returned. There is no loss Fedor chases but there is little hope of seeing her father again, still dreaming of his return, to imagine that someday meet her father in the street, or listening a phone call … In one of the most moving episodes of the novel, the phone rings, after all in the middle of the night, and Fedor ran to the house his former mistress on the streets of Berlin, which soon became a beautiful and mysterious world is reminiscent of St. Petersburg in a sleepless night. Fedor enters the room and sees his father. "With a groan and a sob Fedor took a step toward him, and the collective feeling of fleece jacket, big hands and cut supply cut whiskers Ecstasy heat swelled happy living, spacious and heavenly in their heart of ice melted and dissolved. And yet, almost unbearable at this time the whole scene turns out to be a false turns Nabokov and Fyodor wakes from another dream in the morning cold and empty.

Nabokov refused a work of art a kind of "Truth" of his art, but the episode with the father of Fedor radiates the truth of man: the heat, desire, vulnerability, the emptiness of broken hope … Only recalls the death of his father Nabokov, to understand where all this comes.

In The Gift, blankets are often transparent, and its hero is presented from many angles. It is not just a writer who "sail through life as a possibility of fiction, is a human being who sees the world through the prism of their own experiences, joys and pains.

The donation was the last novel Nabokov wrote in Russian. In 1940 he immigrated to the United States and from He has written major works in English only. The change, he said, has not been easy: "My complete change of Russian prose in English prose has been very painful – Learning to handle things after losing seven or eight fingers in an explosion. "Pale Fire, one of Nabokov's novels in English, was written in part at the end of their stay in the U.S., partly in Switzerland, where Nabokov spent his last years. Romance has important structural and thematic similarities donation. As the donation, if all is the chapter devoted to a separate Tchernychevski Fedor's biography, a book about himself, Pale Fire contains a work of literature in it – a long poem written by an American poet John Shade. The rest of the novel is a commentary, most of which has nothing to do with the poem itself. Distance is a complex story Zembla, whose king was on the throne by the revolution and left the country. Little by little, it became clear that Charles Kinbote, Shade resident and author of the commentary, is itself the fugitive king. Therefore, as in the donation, there is an issue of Exile and the theme of creativity, but in Pale Fire to take a different developments.

As Kinbote explains that "the name Zembla is a corruption of the Zemlya not Russia, but Semblerland, a land of reflections, resemblers. Zembla language resembles several European languages, including time. There are signs Russian evident in it, and some words are taken almost unchanged: for example, is a picture of bogtyr (Bogatyr "in From Russia) in a history book Zembla, and there are "stone-face, square shoulders komizars" (Russian: Commissioner) maintaining order in the streets after the revolution Zembla. Moreover, French and German can be vaguely discerned in other sentences. "Minnamin, Gut mag Alkan, dirstan Pern (My Darling, God is hungry, thirsty for the devil)," – A nurse told Zembla Kinbote, and means in addition to Russia "alkat" and possibly the English "pernicious", "My Friend" "Gott" and the first German "möchten.

Nabokov said in interviews that Zembla is not Russia, and indeed, there is another Russian in the novel, a Totalitarian state that contributes to the revolution Zembla. Kinbote talks on "tainted gold robot troops and a police state his powerful ground for a mile sea only have not been paid in Zembla Revolution. Zembla Kinbote talks constantly, but their memories This lack the depth of human feeling, which marks the nostalgia of Fedor. Although Kinbote repeat again and again "my" Zembla "dazzling Zembla," the tenderness that shines through the most beautiful pages of t Gif is absent from history. It is essentially a story of himself and fled the country. For a king, Kinbote shows a remarkable lack of interest in the revolution that affected the country and possible causes that have led to it. He is more concerned about aesthetics and literary delights and invites the whole business of politics "a boring subject. Since the revolution, all I can say is that it was "boring and unnecessary. Kinbote attitude Nabokov is a certain indifference towards the social and political issues. In general, the theme of exile is treated in the novel with a certain coldness and detachment, but there are passages which, for its lyricism and deep heat can compare with the gift. For example, Kinbote comments on his roommate who gets up early in the morning and the flowers of plants with a curious name: Heliotropium Turgenev. "It the flower that smells like a dark intensity of the timeless, and the garden bench and a wooden house in a far northern country. Even without reference Turgenev it is clear that this land, to Nabokov, is none other than Russia, – and not the monstrous police state in the vicinity of Zembla, but Russian real Immortal Beloved Memory Nabokov. And this short passage retains more freshness and emotional power that the descriptions of Zembla colors of the mountains that have no counterpart in the author's childhood memories.

It seems that Kinbote, exile is not so much the loss of the country that the loss of his name and title (now in hiding), and therefore a certain loss of identity, and thus their isolation and alienation is more comprehensive than Fedor on gifts. One criticism of Pale Fire interprets their behavior as follows: "… looking to get the poet John Shade to confirm your identity, to validate the reality Zembla is the hope of salvation by turning it into a poem. With perseverance Kinbote manic keeps talking about the shadow of Zembla: "I hypnotized him saturated with my vision, I pressed him, with a generosity of a drunken savage, all I could do anything to make me. Kinbote calls his relationship with the poet "friendship", but really can not laugh shadow like a human being with hopes and pains. Commenting on the poem, not full parties in the shadow of the woman and her daughter. Sybil Shade, which protects her husband against intrusion of his neighbor, for Kinbote, is equally annoying obstacle on the road, and he bid for the lines that the shadow dedicated to his wife are only "intimate shameful. Kinbote height addresses the issue of Shade's daughter, Hazel, suicide, obviously, a very painful and personal to the poet, as if it were a mere figure of speech: "It all seems too hard and long, especially since the timer has already been worked to death by Flaubert and Joyce." When Kinbote feels lonely and scared at home empty, which means that the shadow of a heart attack – just an excuse to come and escape the loneliness and fear. At the end of the novel, when the shadow was shot by mistake the murderer, his "friend" is in no hurry for help: instead, hastened to hide the poem, which, he believes, contains the story of his life.

In contrast Kinbote, Juan Cortina, appears to be much more attractive character, and has some features that provide more warmth to his image: it can be lazy like the food, cognac and wine, he loves his wife and daughter, and is generally more tolerant of people who are not as bright and talented as him. Nabokov gives nature of some of its most cherished thoughts. For example, the shadow, which is also a professor of literature, expresses his views on education: "In First, rejecting the ideas, and social origin, and get the first year to shake, is drunk on the poetry of Hamlet or Lear, to read with your spine and head. "However, given the personality of the shadow seen in the novel through Kinbote indifferent gaze, his inner world is more or less hidden from the reader. Only in the poem Shade you can look at the issues concerning the poet. The poem, in general, a search is hard, difficult to sense an attempt to make sense of the enigma of life and death, to find a way to transcend his mortality. No thought or emotion that can alleviate human being prisoner in his own world over. All failed, with the exception of art: the art itself, the art inside a single reality, in perfect inner harmony, which can be seen as reflecting a trend wide:

I think I understand

The existence, or at least a small part

In my life for my art

In terms of pleasure combined …

"Combinatorial Pleasure" in fact is not important only in the poem of the shadow, but throughout the novel. As in The Gift, artistic detail is a focus of concentration in Pale Fire, but here the focus is on a subtle level, though the language itself analyzed. Pale Fire is an example of dense prose, even where individual words are not just makes sense: they become in a sense, itself a subject of romance. One of the best pictures of shadow and his family is a reminder of the evening when he and his daughter Sandra helped to understand the words of his textbook English really dark. A difference of one letter in the words "mountain" and "source" becomes crucial in the history of the attempt to penetrate the mystery in the shadows beyond. The book is full of examples of puns, often in several languages, and references to many works of literature (some of which are likely to be specific inventions of Nabokov). In Shade's poem, there are particular combinations such as "Fra Karamazov, muttering inept anything goes", which is a mixture of Alyosha Karamazov Raskol'nikov, and perhaps, the art of Italian painter Fra Angelico religious with spiritual intensity. But no one in the book is more involved in the excavation of Kinbote words. He is constantly concerned with deciphering the literary allusions, dreaming of the interaction of words, meanings, rhymes and sounds. Nabokov said in courses that a dictionary should be a necessary attribute of a good reader, and, ironically, Kinbote, who can hardly be called a good player, closely follows the lines masterpiece of the shadow to your dictionary. For the most part it is an obsession with research references to Zembla and its own history in the poem, but sometimes simply takes aesthetic pleasure in certain lines of it:

Lines 131-132: I was the shadow of the waxwing slain for the feigned remoteness in the crystal.

The exquisite melody of the first two lines of the poem is repeated here. The repetition of this long note was saved from monotony by varying subtle line 132 where the assonance between his second word and rhyme gives the ear a kind of languid pleasure as the echo of a song half sad memory … Shadow really enjoys Says the magic words, and this, the domain of Nabokov, multilingualism, incomparable art and language is its fullest expression in the creation of the poem really wonderful, and other parts of the novel.

Perhaps the refined world of literature Kinbote a way to escape his troubled personal reality, and makes for shade, and, to some extent, Fedor for the gift, and finally to Nabokov. In his commentary, Kinbote an episode in which someone in the presence of the shadow tells the story of a Railways fool who thought he was God and began redirecting the trains. "" (The "crazy") is the right word, "- he (Slade) said. – "One should not apply to a person who deliberately peels off a bored and unhappy past and replaces it with a brilliant invention." However, the comparison Nabokov's novels shows that most of the "brilliant invention" is actually alive when the light his own experience, but "boring and sad illuminates the interior. In Pale Fire walls private retreat in the world of Nabokov's memory and the feeling is thicker than the gift, and the novel follows more closely Nabokov's ideas of art as a hoax invented a world entirely elegant, which must be addressed in aesthetics rather than emotional reasons. This is Pale main difference between Fire and The Gift.

The time may be one of the factors that explain this change: Pale Fire was written almost twenty years later, the gift, as increasingly remote past Nabokov's Russia separately as there were strong links emotional as last year abroad. Another important factor is probably the language. Nabokov was very proud of his works in English and repeatedly called himself himself an American writer, but sometimes it has provided its readers with unexpected revelations, such as: "My private tragedy, which can not, indeed should not, be the concern is that people had to abandon my natural idiom, my natural language, my language was rich, infinitely rich and docile Russian for a second-class brand of English. In another interview, when asked what language he considered the most beautiful, Nabokov answered: "My head says English, my heart, Russia, my ear, "French. It is possible that Russia sent by the emotional power, while English has a more intellectual appeal, and is one reason Pale fire written in English, calls to the brain more than feelings.

One of the most surprising confessions that bridges the inner world of the car is Nabokov in a public poem. A night of Russian poetry, written in English in 1945, is a presentation of a lecture given rhymed Nabokov public hearing American students, predominantly female. Russian poetry is the theme of the conference, but Nabokov approaches as typical for him: he does not talk about schools trends and times. Again, speaking of letters, shapes, complex individual details and hidden tenderness shines through his words, remaining invisible to their listeners. The doctor will ask about your favorite trees and stones, echoing criticism of the gift insensitive, whose "debate about the book Koncheyev brought his response to the type of questionnaire implied author (her favorite flower? favorite hero? where virtue rather than money?) "In the discussion of Pushkin Nabokov Nekrasov and everything melts and melts and the sky and grass, the beauty of poetry and human feeling – and the inevitable theme of exile. Nabokov talking about memories, saying openly: "I remember that I finally followed her everywhere and that the space is" bent. Their private tragedy gets lost in his young listeners, that research innocent calls which becomes more noticeable at the end of a poem:

How can "talk delicious" Russia?

How do you say "good nights?

Ah, that would:

Bessonnitza, Tvoya vzor oonyl strashen i;

Moya Lyubov, otstoopnika prostee.

(Insomnia, your eyes are dull and livid,

my love, forgive this apostasy.)

Private Nabokov Everyone carefully concealed that, he insists, "no can, indeed should not be any "The preoccupation of a sudden it became clear in these stirring lines: long nights, loneliness, guilt, abandonment of language and the longing of difficult access, Russia unforgettable, "Insatiable.

Bibliography

1). Kernan, Alvin B. "The Zembla reading: The public lost in Pale Fire Nabokov. "Vladimir Nabokov (Modern critical views). Ed Harold Bloom. Chelsea House Publishers, 1987. 101-125.

2). Набоков, Владимир. Дар. Москва: Правда, 1990.

3). Nabokov, Vladimir. The Gift. New York: Capricorn Books, GP Putnam's Sons, 1970.

4). —. Lectures on literature. Harcourt Brace & Company, 1982.

5). —. Pale Fire. New York: Quality Book Club Pocket, 1993.

6). —. Poems and problems. McGraw-Hill International, Inc. 1970.

7). —. Speak, Memory. New York: Quality Book Club Pocket, 1993.

8). —. SO. McGraw-Hill International, Inc. 1973.

About the Author

I was born and grew up in Russia. At the age of 20 I had to unexpectedly move to the USA where I spent 6 years. That was when I wrote this and other English-language articles. Now I’m living again in Russia. I teach English and also do web design. Here is my site: www.kotausi.com There you can see some of my works, photographs and other articles.

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