Nabokov´s Spine
During his tenure at Cornell, Vladimir Nabokov liked to exclaim: “Let us worship the spine!” Setting out from this exhortation, the study considers his œuvre in a dual regard, encompassing both the “spine-thrill of delight” that the reader should experience and the conscience suggested by having a spine. If enchantment signals an affection for world and language, virtue implies an interest in moral dilemmas. Examples abound of how the two aspects cannot be conceived of independently. Of defining importance is the writer’s sense of details. Throughout Nabokov’s work, sensuous knowledge is at stake. Time and again he emphasizes: “In reading, one should notice and fondle details.” How to cherish evidentiality if not with the help of small things?
Considering the uneasy kinship of delight and morality, both God and the Devil seem to be hiding in the detail. The study investigates the role of miniscule matter in three analytical steps: (1) the rhetoric of details; (2) the narration of details; and (3) the mediality of details. By also addressing Nabokov’s life during times of turmoil, its scope is widened to include the story of 50 years in exile — spent in rented rooms in Berlin, then in houses owned by US professors on sabbatical, finally at a Swiss hotel.
The first Nabokov monograph in Swedish, the study is directed at readers with a general interest as well as specialists. The intention is to produce an English version. Publishing contacts exist on both sides of the Atlantic.
Final report
Aim and Progression
The research funded has been conducted at 50% of a full professorship. No changes have been made as far as its aims are concerned, neither theoretically nor practically. The purpose has been to investigate the importance of details in Vladimir Nabokov’s work. Linked to this is the question of how details create the evidentiality he associated with shivers along the spine. The project takes in his whole œuvre and studies a variety of texts from between 1920 and 1977: poems, dramas, short stories, novels, essays, lectures, and translations. The 33 analyses are framed by a (theoretically and methodologically oriented) introduction, and a concluding reflection that summarizes vital insights. These close readings – incidentally as many as the number of vertebrae in the spine – follow a cohesive argument, but are independent enough to allow each one to be read separately. In this manner, the project addresses the dilemma of detail-oriented study on the level of content as well as on that of form: How to draw conclusions of a generalized character from a focus on particularities and at the same time respect their specificity or, indeed, singularity?
At the end of the last project year, there was a 500-page manuscript. In the coming months, the text will be edited. The overall argument is complete, however. Ditto close readings, the apparatus, the extensive chronology, as well as the list of sources. The work that remains to be done, then, is stylistic in nature. In agreement with Norstedts Förlag, publication has been set for 2024.
Execution
Because of earlier commitments, in particular a project funded by Vetenskapsrådet which culminated in 2019, three project years were spread over four. As a consequence, the tempo was lowered, which proved beneficial for the maturation of thoughts.
Due to first the pandemic (project years 2 and 3) and then the war in Ukraine (year 4), two research trips had to be cancelled: to the Library of Congress in Washington and St. Petersburg, respectively. In the former case, to some extent archival work could be compensated for digitally (email, Zoom); in return, archival work was both extended and intensified at the New York Public Library, where the larger, more important portion of the estate is deposited. Travel in Nabokov’s footsteps in St. Petersburg as well as in Vyra and Rozhdestveno was not possible, however. Instead of being illustrated with new and older photos (reproduction rights for which, in the latter case, would have required considerable fees), the study will be embellished in ways not typical for a publication of this sort: 50+ drawings will display important items and phenomena in the author’s life and works, as well as with regard to the realm in-between (imagination).
Three Most Important Results
The most significant outcome – “benefit” might be more accurate – concerns the bountiful evidence collected of Nabokov’s acute feel for the sensuous qualities of details. As few other writers, he is able to connect evidentiality with narrative structures and the affection for assumed trivia with larger speculations, often metaphysically inclined, concerning the nature of time and space, memory and obsession.
The project has focused on both how and why details are accorded such prominence – rhetorically, narratively, as well as in terms of media. To a large extent, the hypotheses formulated in the original proposal have been verified. Against the truths of ideologies and the mapping of reality of system builders, Nabokov posited sensuous experience. Here, the detail is both indispensable and finite – a marker of evidentiality in its threatened yet desirable form, which promotes “vertical” story-telling. In contrast to the “horizontality” of the plot, this kind of narration retards progression for the benefit of temporal expansion – a narrative dilation with the ability to catch the richness of the world in precisely its finitude.
On the rhetorical level, details are analyzed in regard to Nabokov’s thinking in images, that is, metaphors and ambiguity, but also with respect to certain letters. The latter are interpreted not only as a signal of fiction’s collusion with biography (several protagonists have names reminiscent of the author’s and begin with V), but also in relation to structural considerations. A cardinal case in point is the letter R, which is the name of one of the protagonists – incidentally a writer – in “Transparent Things“ (1974), a novel narrated by dead souls of which this R will soon be one. The letter alludes to the third person plural of “to be” in the present indicative: “are“. Mirrored and written in Cyrillic, however, it signifies “I” (?), which hardly lacks relevance for a Russian-American author obsessed with symmetries, and who in an interview in 1966 considered himself “a one-man multitude”.
On the narrative level of details, the project investigates the function of ostensibly unimportant particulars – from items of clothing, shaving utensils and walking sticks, to veneer and the reflection of sunlight – in short stories such as “Poseshchenie muzeya” (1939) and “Signs and Symbols” (1948), as well as novels such as “Otchayanie“ (1936; translated as “Despair“ in 1937; revised in 1966) and “Lolita“ (1955). Of particular importance is the narrative technique described thus in Speak, Memory (1966): “I like to fold my magic carpet, after use, in such a way as to superimpose one part of the pattern upon another.”
A third level of analysis concerns the media characteristics of details. Throughout his œuvre, Nabokov displayed a keen interest in the most popular cultural medium of the 20th century. Although both painting and photography play significant roles, no other medium seems as important for his prose as cinema. The project investigates the operation for which Nabokov invented the verb “cinemize” in novels such as “Sogliadatai“ (1930; “The Eye“, 1965) and “Kamera obskura“ (1933; “Laughter in the Dark“, 1938; revised in 1965). Particular attention is devoted to scoptophilia and narrative dilation, the latter being a technique that allows the writer to expand a moment in a manner that seems to transcend death.
If the rhetorical dimension of details shows Nabokov as enchanter, and their narrative dimension allows him to excel as storyteller, the attempt to both celebrate and circumvent finitude points to the third role he claimed writers must assume: that of the teacher. The shivers created by spellbinding prose or suspenseful plotting are thus complemented by a shudder that may also be cold. For the moralist, too, it is indispensable to have a spine.
Dissemination of Research and Results
In the first project year, it was too early to present results. During the second and third, the pandemic posed difficulties. In the last year, however, observations were presented at Akademie Graz and the Institute of Cultural Studies in Vienna, among other places. After the first presentation of the entire project at Södertörn University in April, I plan to lecture at universities in Sweden and abroad. Most presentations will take place after the publication of the monograph, however.
The book is written in such a way that both scholars and general readers may find it of use. Matters of theoretical complexity are discussed, but without burdening jargon. The main body of the text is devoid of footnotes; instead, references have been moved, along with discussions of minor issues, to the Apparatus.
New Research Queries
Because of the pandemic and later the war in Ukraine, the investigation into the importance of place in Nabokov – in particular, the family home in the Morskaya Street and the pavilion at their summer residence – was somewhat marginalized. However, the construction of an imaginary (at times phantomatic) homeland with traits of the Baltic region would be well worth an independent study. Of particular importance are the relations between psycho-geography, the space of memory, and the fond places of imagination for a body of work that spans two world wars, several countries and languages, as well as sixty years of writing characterized by one of the formative experiences of the 20th century: migration.
Nabokov scholarship is highly international; thus far, though, the North European aspects of the œuvre (allusions, references, biographical-historical background) have not been treated extensively. Swedish geography and cultural history especially have barely received attention. In this regard, fictitious places such as “Odevalla”, “Gothland” and “Kronberg” in “Pale Fire“ (1962), but also Nabokov’s contact with Filippa Rolf, carry considerable significance. Rolf was a young Swedish poet who published her first collection of poetry in 1957 and later translated the English version of his last novel in Russian, “Dar“ (1938; “Gåvan“, 1965). She also translated the first Cantos of “Pale Fire“ and seems important for how the book’s narratorial stance is construed. The extensive correspondence with Rolf, today at the New York Public Library, remains to be examined.
The research funded has been conducted at 50% of a full professorship. No changes have been made as far as its aims are concerned, neither theoretically nor practically. The purpose has been to investigate the importance of details in Vladimir Nabokov’s work. Linked to this is the question of how details create the evidentiality he associated with shivers along the spine. The project takes in his whole œuvre and studies a variety of texts from between 1920 and 1977: poems, dramas, short stories, novels, essays, lectures, and translations. The 33 analyses are framed by a (theoretically and methodologically oriented) introduction, and a concluding reflection that summarizes vital insights. These close readings – incidentally as many as the number of vertebrae in the spine – follow a cohesive argument, but are independent enough to allow each one to be read separately. In this manner, the project addresses the dilemma of detail-oriented study on the level of content as well as on that of form: How to draw conclusions of a generalized character from a focus on particularities and at the same time respect their specificity or, indeed, singularity?
At the end of the last project year, there was a 500-page manuscript. In the coming months, the text will be edited. The overall argument is complete, however. Ditto close readings, the apparatus, the extensive chronology, as well as the list of sources. The work that remains to be done, then, is stylistic in nature. In agreement with Norstedts Förlag, publication has been set for 2024.
Execution
Because of earlier commitments, in particular a project funded by Vetenskapsrådet which culminated in 2019, three project years were spread over four. As a consequence, the tempo was lowered, which proved beneficial for the maturation of thoughts.
Due to first the pandemic (project years 2 and 3) and then the war in Ukraine (year 4), two research trips had to be cancelled: to the Library of Congress in Washington and St. Petersburg, respectively. In the former case, to some extent archival work could be compensated for digitally (email, Zoom); in return, archival work was both extended and intensified at the New York Public Library, where the larger, more important portion of the estate is deposited. Travel in Nabokov’s footsteps in St. Petersburg as well as in Vyra and Rozhdestveno was not possible, however. Instead of being illustrated with new and older photos (reproduction rights for which, in the latter case, would have required considerable fees), the study will be embellished in ways not typical for a publication of this sort: 50+ drawings will display important items and phenomena in the author’s life and works, as well as with regard to the realm in-between (imagination).
Three Most Important Results
The most significant outcome – “benefit” might be more accurate – concerns the bountiful evidence collected of Nabokov’s acute feel for the sensuous qualities of details. As few other writers, he is able to connect evidentiality with narrative structures and the affection for assumed trivia with larger speculations, often metaphysically inclined, concerning the nature of time and space, memory and obsession.
The project has focused on both how and why details are accorded such prominence – rhetorically, narratively, as well as in terms of media. To a large extent, the hypotheses formulated in the original proposal have been verified. Against the truths of ideologies and the mapping of reality of system builders, Nabokov posited sensuous experience. Here, the detail is both indispensable and finite – a marker of evidentiality in its threatened yet desirable form, which promotes “vertical” story-telling. In contrast to the “horizontality” of the plot, this kind of narration retards progression for the benefit of temporal expansion – a narrative dilation with the ability to catch the richness of the world in precisely its finitude.
On the rhetorical level, details are analyzed in regard to Nabokov’s thinking in images, that is, metaphors and ambiguity, but also with respect to certain letters. The latter are interpreted not only as a signal of fiction’s collusion with biography (several protagonists have names reminiscent of the author’s and begin with V), but also in relation to structural considerations. A cardinal case in point is the letter R, which is the name of one of the protagonists – incidentally a writer – in “Transparent Things“ (1974), a novel narrated by dead souls of which this R will soon be one. The letter alludes to the third person plural of “to be” in the present indicative: “are“. Mirrored and written in Cyrillic, however, it signifies “I” (?), which hardly lacks relevance for a Russian-American author obsessed with symmetries, and who in an interview in 1966 considered himself “a one-man multitude”.
On the narrative level of details, the project investigates the function of ostensibly unimportant particulars – from items of clothing, shaving utensils and walking sticks, to veneer and the reflection of sunlight – in short stories such as “Poseshchenie muzeya” (1939) and “Signs and Symbols” (1948), as well as novels such as “Otchayanie“ (1936; translated as “Despair“ in 1937; revised in 1966) and “Lolita“ (1955). Of particular importance is the narrative technique described thus in Speak, Memory (1966): “I like to fold my magic carpet, after use, in such a way as to superimpose one part of the pattern upon another.”
A third level of analysis concerns the media characteristics of details. Throughout his œuvre, Nabokov displayed a keen interest in the most popular cultural medium of the 20th century. Although both painting and photography play significant roles, no other medium seems as important for his prose as cinema. The project investigates the operation for which Nabokov invented the verb “cinemize” in novels such as “Sogliadatai“ (1930; “The Eye“, 1965) and “Kamera obskura“ (1933; “Laughter in the Dark“, 1938; revised in 1965). Particular attention is devoted to scoptophilia and narrative dilation, the latter being a technique that allows the writer to expand a moment in a manner that seems to transcend death.
If the rhetorical dimension of details shows Nabokov as enchanter, and their narrative dimension allows him to excel as storyteller, the attempt to both celebrate and circumvent finitude points to the third role he claimed writers must assume: that of the teacher. The shivers created by spellbinding prose or suspenseful plotting are thus complemented by a shudder that may also be cold. For the moralist, too, it is indispensable to have a spine.
Dissemination of Research and Results
In the first project year, it was too early to present results. During the second and third, the pandemic posed difficulties. In the last year, however, observations were presented at Akademie Graz and the Institute of Cultural Studies in Vienna, among other places. After the first presentation of the entire project at Södertörn University in April, I plan to lecture at universities in Sweden and abroad. Most presentations will take place after the publication of the monograph, however.
The book is written in such a way that both scholars and general readers may find it of use. Matters of theoretical complexity are discussed, but without burdening jargon. The main body of the text is devoid of footnotes; instead, references have been moved, along with discussions of minor issues, to the Apparatus.
New Research Queries
Because of the pandemic and later the war in Ukraine, the investigation into the importance of place in Nabokov – in particular, the family home in the Morskaya Street and the pavilion at their summer residence – was somewhat marginalized. However, the construction of an imaginary (at times phantomatic) homeland with traits of the Baltic region would be well worth an independent study. Of particular importance are the relations between psycho-geography, the space of memory, and the fond places of imagination for a body of work that spans two world wars, several countries and languages, as well as sixty years of writing characterized by one of the formative experiences of the 20th century: migration.
Nabokov scholarship is highly international; thus far, though, the North European aspects of the œuvre (allusions, references, biographical-historical background) have not been treated extensively. Swedish geography and cultural history especially have barely received attention. In this regard, fictitious places such as “Odevalla”, “Gothland” and “Kronberg” in “Pale Fire“ (1962), but also Nabokov’s contact with Filippa Rolf, carry considerable significance. Rolf was a young Swedish poet who published her first collection of poetry in 1957 and later translated the English version of his last novel in Russian, “Dar“ (1938; “Gåvan“, 1965). She also translated the first Cantos of “Pale Fire“ and seems important for how the book’s narratorial stance is construed. The extensive correspondence with Rolf, today at the New York Public Library, remains to be examined.