Nabokov S Otherworld

A major reexamination of the novelist Vladimir Nabokov as "literary gamesman," this book systematically shows that behind his ironic manipulation of narrative and his puzzle-like treatment of detail there lies an aesthetic rooted in his intuition of a transcendent realm and in his consequent redefinition of "nature" and "artifice" as synonyms. Beginning with Nabokov's discursive writings, Vladimir Alexandrov finds his world view centered on the experience of epiphany--characterized by a sudden fusion of varied sensory data and memories, a feeling of timelessness, and an intuition of immortality--which grants the true artist intimations of an "otherworld." Readings of The Defense, Invitation to a Beheading, The Gift, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, Lolita, and Pale Fire reveal the epiphanic experience to be a touchstone for the characters' metaphysical insightfulness, moral makeup, and aesthetic sensibility, and to be a structural model for how the narratives themselves are fashioned and for the nature of the reader's involvement with the text. In his conclusion, Alexandrov outlines several of Nabokov's possible intellectual and artistic debts to the brilliant and variegated culture that flourished in Russia on the eve of the Revolution. Nabokov emerges as less alienated from Russian culture than most of his emigre readers believed, and as less "modernist" than many of his Western readers still imagine. "Alexandrov's work is distinctive in that it applies an `otherworld' hypothesis as a consistent context to Nabokov's novels. The approach is obviously a fruitful one. Alexandrov is innovative in rooting Nabokov's ethics and aesthetics in the otherwordly and contributes greatly to Nabokov studies by examining certain key terms such as `commonsense,' `nature,' and `artifice.' In general Alexandrov's study leads to a much clearer understanding of Nabokov's metaphysics."--D. Barton Johnson, University of California, Santa Barbara Originally published in 1991. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Table of contents

In an unnamed dream country, Cincinnatus C. is condemned to death by beheading for "gnostical turpitude", an imaginary crime that defies definition. After spending his last days in jail, he simply wills his executioners out of existence.

In this book, Brian Boyd surveys Vladimir Nabokov's life, career, and legacy; his art, science, and thought; his subtle humor and puzzle-like storytelling; his complex psychological portraits; and his inheritance from, reworking of, and affinities with Shakespeare, Pushkin, Tolstoy, and Machado de Assis. Boyd also offers new ways of reading Lolita, Pale Fire, Ada or Ardor, and the unparalleled autobiography, Speak, Memory, disclosing otherwise unknown information about the author's world. Sharing his personal reflections as he recounts the adventures, hardships, and revelations of researching Nabokov's life? oeuvre?, he cautions against using Nabokov's metaphysics as the key to unlocking all of the enigmatic author's secrets. Assessing and appreciating Nabokov as novelist, memoirist, poet, translator, scientist, and individual, Boyd helps us understand more than ever Nabokov's multifaceted genius.

Morris re-evaluates Nabokov's poetry and demonstrates that poetry was in fact central to his identity as an author and was the source of his distinctive authorial - lyric - voice.

Nabokov and Nietzsche: Problems and Perspectives addresses the many knotted issues in the work of Vladimir Nabokov – Lolita's moral stance, Pnin's relationship with memory, Pale Fire's ambiguous internal authorship – that often frustrate interpretation. It does so by arguing that the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, as both a conceptual instrument and a largely unnoticed influence on Nabokov himself, can help to untie some of these knots. The study addresses the fundamental problems in Nabokov's writing that make his work perplexing, mysterious and frequently uneasy rather than simply focusing on the literary puzzles and games that, although inherent, do not necessarily define his body of work. Michael Rodgers shows that Nietzsche's philosophy provides new, but not always palatable, perspectives in order to negotiate interpretative impasses, and that the uneasy aspects of Nabokov's work offer the reader manifold rewards.

The concept of nothing was an enduring concern of the 20th century. As Martin Heidegger and Jean-Paul Sartre each positioned nothing as inseparable from the human condition and essential to the creation or operation of human existence, as Jacques Derrida demonstrated how all structures are built upon a nothing within the structure, and as mathematicians argued that zero – the number that is also not a number – allows for the creation of our modern mathematical system, Narratives of Nothing in 20th-Century Literature suggests that nothing itself enables the act of narration. Focusing on the literary works of Vladimir Nabokov, Samuel Beckett, and Victor Pelevin, Meghan Vicks traces how and why these writers give narrative form to nothing, demonstrating that nothing is essential to the creation of narrative – that is, how our perceptions are conditioned, how we make meaning (or madness) out of the stuff of our existence, how we craft our knowable selves, and how we exist in language.

First published in 1995. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.