Nabokov's Fifth Arc: Nabokov and Others on His Life's Work

Published by University of Texas Press 1982

Nabokov's Fifth Arc

Nabokov and Others on His Life's Work

Edited by: J. E. Rivers and Charles Nicol

https://doi.org/10.7560/755222

Overview
Contents

About this book

In his autobiography Speak, Memory, Vladimir Nabokov compared his life to a spiral, in which “twirl follows twirl, and every synthesis is the thesis of the next series.” The first four arcs of the spiral of Nabokov’s life—his youth in Russia, voluntary exile in Europe, two decades spent in the United States, and the final years of his life in Switzerland—are now followed by a fifth arc, his continuing life in literary history, which this volume both explores and symbolizes.

This is the first collection of essays to examine all five arcs of Nabokov’s creative life through close analyses of representative works. The essays cast new light on works both famous and neglected and place these works against the backgrounds of Nabokov’s career as a whole and modern literature in general. Nabokov analyzes his own artistry in his “Postscript to the Russian Edition of Lolita,” presented here in its first English translation, and in his little-known “Notes to Ada by Vivian Darkbloom,” published now for the first time in America and keyed to the standard U.S. editions of the novel. In addition to a defense of his father’s work by Dmitri Nabokov and a portrait-interview by Alfred Appel, Jr., the volume presents a vast spectrum of critical analyses covering all Nabokov’s major novels and several important short stories. The highly original structure of the book and the fresh and often startling revelations of the essays dramatize as never before the unity and richness of Nabokov’s unique literary achievement.

Author / Editor information

J. E. Rivers is Professor of English at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Charles Nicol was Professor of English at Indiana State University.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Introduction Charles Nicol and J. E. Rivers Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
Part 1 The Fifth Arc
Nabokov: A Portrait Jr. Appel Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	3
Nabokov's Critical Strategy James M. Rambeau Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	22
A Few Things That Must Be Said on Behalf of Vladimir Nabokov Dmitri Nabokov Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	35
Toward the Man behind the Mystification Phyllis A. Roth Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	43
Part 2 The First and Second Arcs
Nabokov's Assault on Wonderland Beverly Lyon Clark Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	63
The Conjuror in "The Potato Elf" Walter Evans Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	75
The Cartesian Nightmare of Despair William C. Carroll Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	82
Invitation to a Beheading and the Many Shades of Kafka Margaret Byrd Boegeman Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	105
Part 3 The Third Arc
Focus Pocus: Film Imagery in Bend Sinister Beverly Gray Bienstock Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	125
Deciphering "Signs and Symbols" Larry R. Andrews Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	139
Humbert Humbert and the Limits of Artistic License Gladys M. Clifton Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	153
Parody and Authenticity in Lolita Thomas R. Frosch Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	171
Postscript to the Russian Edition of Lolita Vladimir Nabokov Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	188
Pnin: The Wonder of Recurrence and Transformation Julian W. Connolly Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	195
Part 4 The Fourth Arc
Pale Fire: The Art of Consciousness Marilyn Edelstein Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	213
Speak, Memory: The Aristocracy of Art Carol Shloss Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	224
Ada or Disorder Charles Nicol Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	230
Notes to Ada by Vivian Darkbloom Vladimir Nabokov Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	242
Notes to Vivian Darkbloom's Notes to Ada J. E. Rivers and William Walker Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	260
The Problem of Text: Nabokov's Last Two Novels Paul S. Bruss Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	296
Notes on Contributors Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	309
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	313

Language: English
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 334

eBook

Published: September 12, 2014
ISBN: 9781477302873