In his article, “Performing Tyranny, Purloining Authority: Nabokov’s Dictators,” Mitch Frye (Alabama School of Math & Science) argues that because Nabokov fled from two tyrannical regimes before finding sanctuary in McCarthy-era America, one naturally expects his fiction to seriously engage the theme of authoritarianism. And, indeed, works ranging from the early short story "Tyrants Destroyed" to the prose-poem "centaur" novel Pale Fire address the problem of political tyranny, but what is most striking about such texts is how they find the author himself role-playing in the persona of the authoritarian. Nabokov's cruel metafictional disposition towards his characters and his repurposing of totalitarian discourse both suggest a creative appropriation of tyrannical practices. Moreover, Nabokov's strict control of textual meaning (evident in his staunch rejection of theory and his brutal interactions with critics) argues for the supreme authority of the creator, leaving him as much authoritarian as author. Nevertheless, his vision of the ideal political state is decidedly democratic and anti-authoritarian; thus, he usurps the authority of the tyrant for the purpose of destroying it. This strategy of using narrative to mediate and critique a powerful political archetype finds a precedent in Milton's seventeenth-century appropriation of monarchical discourse and prefigures DeLillo's modern efforts at representing extremist terrorism. NOJ, Vol. VII, 2013.
Mary McCarthy once stated that Hazel Shade “killed herself young by drowning.” Eric S. Petrie (Michigan State University) questions this very interpretation in his article, “Moonrise over the Moor: Hazel’s Death in Nabokov’s Pale Fire.” Hazel Shade’s life and death is rightly understood in its comic-book formula (ugly girl, despondent over failed romance, abandoned on a blind date, kills herself out of despair), but Petrie suspects that Nabokov’s most ingenious multi-level fiction cannot be taken at a 1950s true-romance face value. Neither Shade nor Kinbote could put the pieces of Hazel’s puzzle together properly, because neither was able to see Hazel for herself and to understand her soul or her interest in the next world. NOJ, Vol. VII, 2013.
As a departure point of his research, Maxim D. Shrayer (Boston College, USA), focuses in “Sites and Sounds of Pomerania in Nabokov’s World” on the summer of 1927, when Vladimir and Véra Nabokov vacationed on the island of Rügen in Western Pomerania. It is believed that the impressions of those happy Baltic weeks left a trace in Nabokov’s second novel, King, Queen, Knave (1928), and also in the short story “Perfection” (1932). Researchers have not yet investigated, however, what Nabokov might have seen and learned while vacationing on Rügen, and how this visual and historical information contributed to his Russian and American works and his translations of his American works into Russian. NOJ, Vol. VII, 2013.
In the study, “Nabokov and Khodasevich: The Lyre Lightens,” Sarah Wilson (Stanford University) argues that, although the friendship between Khodasevich and Nabokov during the interwar years is well documented, its impact on their work has not been fully analyzed. In his foreword to The Gift, Nabokov crowns Khodasevich “the greatest Russian poet that the twentieth century has yet produced.” While critics, including David Bethea and Yuri Leving, acknowledge Fyodor as Nabokov’s alter ego and Khodasevich as a basic model for the character Koncheyev, none have explored the full extent of Khodasevich’s impact on The Gift as a whole. Nabokov’s novel directly references Khodasevich’s book of poetry The Heavy Lyre, as well as major themes from the collection, particularly the tragic fate of the Orphic hero, to whom a heavy lyre is given. Throughout The Gift, Nabokov argues against Khodasevich’s depiction of Orpheus and champions a more hopeful hero with a literary gift that is neither heavy nor tragic. NOJ, Vol. VII, 2013.
Mikhail Efimov’s article, “A Commentary on a Commentary, or How the Heavy Lyre Can be Placed in the Cypress Chest?,” considers the presence of the Russian poets, Khodasevich and Annensky, in the subtext of Nabokov’s The Gift, through the episodic character of Yasha Chernyshevski. В статье Михаила Ефимова “Комментарий к комментарию” рассматривается крaткий предсмертный эпизод, связанный с Яшей Чернышевским. Полная противоположность Федору Годунову-Чердынцеву, Яша, по А. А. Долинину, заканчивает свою «короткую жизнь без просветления, “в душном тупичке имени Иннокентия Анненского”» (Долинин 2008: 223). Предложенное Долининым объяснение вписано им в хорошо известный и подробно описанный контекст литературной полемики 1930-х годов, неприятия Набоковым «парижской ноты» и столкновений с Г. Адамовичем. Не очень понятно, однако, зачем Яша всё-таки держал у себя не только Анненского, но и Ходасевича – коль скоро ему вполне «хватило» морбидного Анненского. Автор статьи пытается объяснить присутствие в последнем Яшином чтении Ходасевича и Анненского «одинаковостью духовной породы». NOJ, Vol. VII, 2013.
Mary McCarthy once stated that Hazel Shade “killed herself young by drowning.” Eric S. Petrie (Michigan State University) questions this very interpretation in his article, “Moonrise over the Moor: Hazel’s Death in Nabokov’s Pale Fire.” Hazel Shade’s life and death is rightly understood in its comic-book formula (ugly girl, despondent over failed romance, abandoned on a blind date, kills herself out of despair), but Petrie suspects that Nabokov’s most ingenious multi-level fiction cannot be taken at a 1950s true-romance face value. Neither Shade nor Kinbote could put the pieces of Hazel’s puzzle together properly, because neither was able to see Hazel for herself and to understand her soul or her interest in the next world. NOJ, Vol. VII, 2013.
As a departure point of his research, Maxim D. Shrayer (Boston College, USA), focuses in “Sites and Sounds of Pomerania in Nabokov’s World” on the summer of 1927, when Vladimir and Véra Nabokov vacationed on the island of Rügen in Western Pomerania. It is believed that the impressions of those happy Baltic weeks left a trace in Nabokov’s second novel, King, Queen, Knave (1928), and also in the short story “Perfection” (1932). Researchers have not yet investigated, however, what Nabokov might have seen and learned while vacationing on Rügen, and how this visual and historical information contributed to his Russian and American works and his translations of his American works into Russian. NOJ, Vol. VII, 2013.
In the study, “Nabokov and Khodasevich: The Lyre Lightens,” Sarah Wilson (Stanford University) argues that, although the friendship between Khodasevich and Nabokov during the interwar years is well documented, its impact on their work has not been fully analyzed. In his foreword to The Gift, Nabokov crowns Khodasevich “the greatest Russian poet that the twentieth century has yet produced.” While critics, including David Bethea and Yuri Leving, acknowledge Fyodor as Nabokov’s alter ego and Khodasevich as a basic model for the character Koncheyev, none have explored the full extent of Khodasevich’s impact on The Gift as a whole. Nabokov’s novel directly references Khodasevich’s book of poetry The Heavy Lyre, as well as major themes from the collection, particularly the tragic fate of the Orphic hero, to whom a heavy lyre is given. Throughout The Gift, Nabokov argues against Khodasevich’s depiction of Orpheus and champions a more hopeful hero with a literary gift that is neither heavy nor tragic. NOJ, Vol. VII, 2013.
Mikhail Efimov’s article, “A Commentary on a Commentary, or How the Heavy Lyre Can be Placed in the Cypress Chest?,” considers the presence of the Russian poets, Khodasevich and Annensky, in the subtext of Nabokov’s The Gift, through the episodic character of Yasha Chernyshevski. В статье Михаила Ефимова “Комментарий к комментарию” рассматривается крaткий предсмертный эпизод, связанный с Яшей Чернышевским. Полная противоположность Федору Годунову-Чердынцеву, Яша, по А. А. Долинину, заканчивает свою «короткую жизнь без просветления, “в душном тупичке имени Иннокентия Анненского”» (Долинин 2008: 223). Предложенное Долининым объяснение вписано им в хорошо известный и подробно описанный контекст литературной полемики 1930-х годов, неприятия Набоковым «парижской ноты» и столкновений с Г. Адамовичем. Не очень понятно, однако, зачем Яша всё-таки держал у себя не только Анненского, но и Ходасевича – коль скоро ему вполне «хватило» морбидного Анненского. Автор статьи пытается объяснить присутствие в последнем Яшином чтении Ходасевича и Анненского «одинаковостью духовной породы». NOJ, Vol. VII, 2013.
