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Часть текста: thereto, I shall now discuss matters more literary, less metaphysical, partly in the interest of the maintenance of my own mental equilibrium, partly in response to what an impartial observer would certainly characterize as the overly vociferous behest of my good, but sometimes impatient, editor, who enjoined me, in a fax sent to the seedy but comfortable hotel in Villefranche-sur-Mer where I was recovering from recent scholarly labors, to "get on with it." (Incidentally, the sea softly plashing against the sandy edge of this charming townlet is, at noon, a deep azure hue, recalling a certain lake in my homeland, a distant northern land. And at night, I have noticed on my insomniac rambles, the moon casts slivers of silvery light upon the ink-black waters. Do remind me to say more of this later.) The original contract for this book (signed three years ago with a then noticeably more solicitous publisher whose name I am legally bound not to mention) stipulated that the text be comprised not only of biography proper (of which the reader has already enjoyed, I trust, a taste) but also of criticism of each of Nabokov's books. In lieu of any sensible reason not to proceed in any but a chronological, or pseudo-chronological, fashion, I turn now to Korol', dama, valet , 2 a novel quite different from Mashen'ka , strangely lacking in luster, which a 28-year-old Sirin began in July of 1927 and a 29-year-old Sirin completed in June of the following year, not very far from here, I'm told. The plot, though banal, perhaps bears repeating. A brooding, not unattractive boy named Frants arrives in a large German city--manifestly Berlin though unnamed in the book--with the hope that...

2. Anniversary notes

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Часть текста: anxious to eliminate slight factual errors of which such a marvelous gift must be free; for I knew what pains the editors, Charles Newman and Alfred Appel, had taken to prepare it and remembered how firmly the guest co-editor, when collecting the ingredients of this great feast, refused to show me any plum or crumb before publication. BUTTERFLIES Butterflies are among the most thoughtful and touching contributions to this volume. The old-fashioned engraving of a Catagramma- like insect is delightfully reproduced twelve times so as to suggest a double series or "block" of specimens in a cabinet case; and there is a beautiful photograph of a Red Admirable (but "Nymphalidae" is the family to which it belongs, not its genus, which is Vanessa-- my first bit of carping). ALFRED APPEL, JR. Mr. Appel, guest co-editor, writes about my two main works of fiction. His essay "Backgrounds of Lolita" is a superb example of the rare case where art and erudition meet in a shining ridge of specific information (the highest and to me most acceptable function of literary criticism). I would have liked to say more about his findings but modesty (a virtue that the average reviewer especially appreciates in authors) denies me that pleasure. His other piece in this precious collection is "Ada Described." I planted three blunders, meant to ridicule mistranslations of Russian classics, in the first paragraph of my Ada: the opening sentence of Anna Karenin (no additional "a," printer, she was not a ballerina) is turned inside out; Anna Arkadievna's patronymic is given a grotesque masculine ending; and the title of Tolstoy's family chronicle has been botched by the invented Stoner or Lower (I must have received at least a dozen...

3. Набоков Дмитрий: Отцовские бабочки. Отцовские бабочки. Father's Butterflies (английский язык)

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Часть текста: le curieux, " as the honnкtes gens used to put it in judicious France, " the aurelian, " as the poets said in grove-rich England, the "fly doctor," as they wisecracked in advanced Russian circles) who wished to acquire from books a general notion of the fauna of Europe, including Russia, was compelled to scrabble for his crumbs of information in entomological journals in six languages and in multivolume, hard-to-find editions such as the Oberthьr books or those of Grand Duke Nikolai Mikhailovich. The absence or utter inadequacy of "references" in the atlases ad usum Delphini, the tedious perusal of the index of names enclosed with an annual volume of a monthly journal, the sheer number of these journals and volumes (in my father's library there were more than a thousand of the latter alone, representing a good hundred journals) - all this had to be overcome in order to hunt down the necessary reference, if it existed at all. Nonetheless, even in my exceptionally propitious situation things were not easy: Russia, particularly in the north, dwelt in a mist, while the local lists, scattered through the journals, totally haphazard, scanty, and cruelly inaccurate in nomenclature, only maddened me when at last I ferreted them out. My father was the preeminent entomologist of his time, and very well off to boot, but the ordinary amateur, unable to dispatch his scouts throughout Russia, and denied the opportunity - or not knowing how - to gain access to specialized collections and libraries (and an accidental boon, the hasty inspection of collections at a lepidopterological society or in the cellar of some museum, does not satisfy the true enthusiast, who needs to have the boon always at hand), had no choice but to hope for a miracle. And that miracle dawned in 1912 with the appearance of my father's four-volume work...

4. Вне Лолиты: Вновь открывая Набокова. (Проект CNN, 1999 г.). The Writer

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Часть текста: he had privately published two books of poetry. By the time of his death in 1977, he had published 18 novels, eight books of short stories, along with seven books of poetry and nine plays. In his spare time (when he wasn't collecting, studying and writing about butterflies), Nabokov invented crosswords, translated texts as encompassing as "Alice in Wonderland," wrote academic papers and lectures, critical reviews, and nonfiction works. He also wrote a screenplay for the 1962 movie version of "Lolita," directed by Stanley Kubrick. In short, he was obsessed with words and was not intimidated by genre. He spent his working life trying to capture the perfect style and structure on the page, in the same way he netted a butterfly that fluttered in his path. Nabokov, known as VN, first gained acclaim in Berlin, writing in his native Russian language and developing a following with fellow émigrés. In 1923, shortly after his graduation from Cambridge, Nabokov was busy with work - he published four plays (including "Death" and "The Grandfather") and two books of poetry ("The Empyrean Path" and "The Cluster"). His first book, "Mary," was published in 1926. The story details a young émigré's longing for the love he left behind in Russia, the battle between what is memory and what is real, and the inevitable disappointment of facing both. The book received little...

5. Чарльз Кинбот: Серебристый свет. Подлинная жизнь Владимира Набокова. Chapter Nine. Zashchita Luzhina

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Часть текста: book about chess, "a game of skill played by two persons, each having sixteen pieces to move in different ways, on a board divided into 64 squares, alternately light and dark." (I owe this pithy definition to Webster.) If the reader does not know, or has forgotten, the rules to the game, he or she is invited to consult one of the many pamphlets devoted to chess that must surely exist in every language written and read in the civilized world. The word chess derives from Middle English ches or chesse , thence from Old French eschec (francophones will hear here an echo of the French word for failure, a not irrelevant observation for the case under discussion), or echac ,2 thence from Persian shah , a king, the most important piece in the game. Luzhin, the eponymous hero, is our king: He remembered especially the time when he was quite small, playing all alone, and wrapping himself up in the tiger rug, to represent, rather forlornly, a king (p. 70, 4). (Indeed. A young and pretty princelet, I too played at being king. Note the tiger rug, which will reappear later as a "belaia medvezh'ia shkura, raskinuv lapy, slovno letia v blestiashchuiu propast' pola" (p. 68, 8) ["a white bearskin with spread paws... as if flying in the shiny abyss of the floor" (p. 119, 8)], an image which links, alas, the raiments of royalty with a flying leap into the void.) Even as a young child, then, our lonely king has his mantle, but it is not until he reaches seedy manhood that he receives a crown, and, simultaneously, a queen: I ko vsemu etomu teper' pribavilas' dymchataia...

6. Интервью Набокова на английском языке. Wisconsin Studies, 1967 г.

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Часть текста: notes from the conversation were later recast as formal questions-and-answers. The interviewer was Nabokov's student at Cornell University in 1954, and the references are to Literature 311-312 (MWF, 12), a course on the Masterpieces of European Fiction (Jane Austen, Gogol, Dickens, Flaubert, Tolstoy, Stevenson, Kafka, Joyce, and Proust). Its enrollment had reached four hundred by the time of Nabokov's resignation in 1959. The footnotes to the interview, except where indicated, are provided by the interviewer, Alfred Appel, Jr. For years bibliographers and literary journalists didn't know whether to group you under "Russian" or "American. "Now that you're living in Switzerland there seems to be complete agreement that you're American. Do you find this kind of distinction at all important regarding your identity as a writer? I have always maintained, even as a schoolboy in Russia, that the nationality of a worthwhile writer is of secondary importance. The more distinctive an insect's aspect, the less apt the taxonomist is to glance first of all at the locality label under the pinned specimen in order to decide which of several vaguely described races it should be assigned to. The writer's art is his real passport. His identity should be immediately recognized by a special pattern or unique coloration. His habitat may confirm the correctness of the determination but should not lead to it. Locality labels are known to have been faked by unscrupulous insect dealers. Apart from these considerations I think of myself today as an American writer who has once been a Russian o! ne. The Russian writers you have translated and written about all precede the so-called "age of realism, " which is more celebrated by English and American readers than is the earlier period. Would you say something about your...

7. Rowe's symbols

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Часть текста: no great quarrel with the first two, entitled "A Touch of Russian" and "N. as Stage Manager," I must protest vehemently against a number of indecent absurdities contained in the third part, entitled "Sexual Manipulations." One may wonder if it was worth Mr. Rowe's time to exhibit erotic bits picked out of Lolita and Ada-- a process rather like looking for allusions to aquatic mammals in Moby Dick. But that is his own choice and concern. What I object to is Mr. Rowe's manipulating my most innocent words so as to introduce sexual "symbols" into them. The notion of symbol itself has always been abhorrent to me, and I never tire of retelling how I once failed a student-- the dupe, alas, of an earlier teacher-- for writing that Jane Austen describes leaves as "green" because Fanny is hopeful, and "green" is the color of hope. The symbolism racket in schools attracts computerized minds but destroys plain intelligence as well as poetical sense. It bleaches the soul. It numbs all capacity to enjoy the fun and enchantment of art. ...

8. Интервью Набокова на английском языке. Time, 1969 г.

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Часть текста: one is not aware of sharing mannerisms with a detestable kinsman. I loathe Van Veen. The following two quotations seem closely related: "I confess I do not believe in time. I like to fold my magic carpet, after use, in such a way as to superimpose one part of the pattern upon another. " (Speak, Memory) and "pure time, perceptual time, tangible time, time free of content, context and running commentary-- this is my time and theme. All the rest is numerical symbol or some aspect of space. " (Ada). Will you give me a lift on your magic carpet to point out bow time is animated in the story of Van and Ada? In his study of time my creature distinguishes between text and texture, between the contents of time and its almost tangible essence. I ignored that distinction in my Speak, Memory and was mainly concerned with being faithful to the patterns of my past. I suspect that Van Veen, having less control over his imagination than I, novelized in his indulgent old age many images of his youth. You have spoken in the past of your indifference to music, but in Ada you describe time as "rhythm, the tender intervals between Stresses. " Are these rhythms musical, aural, physical, cerebral, what? Those "intervals" which seem to reveal the gray gaps of time between the black bars of space are much more similar to the interspaces between a metronome's monotonous beats than to the varied rhythms of music or verse. If, as you have said, "mediocrity thrives on 'ideas, ' " why does Van, who is...

9. Левинтон Г. А.: The Importance of Being Russian или Les allusions perdues

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Часть текста: тогда в Анн Арборе. Статья, действительно, была написана в 1973 году [94] и замысел ее состоял в том, чтобы две рецензии составляли единую и концептуальную работу: первая рецензия, на книгу Дж. Т. Локрантц, обсуждала в связи с этой книгой теоретические вопросы, а рецензия на статью К. Р. Проффера — их приложение к наиболее в тот момент [95] актуальному и сложному тексту Набокова. В 1973 г. эта статья была отдана Карлу Профферу, редактору журнала «Russian Literature Triquarterly», но не появилась в книге под его редакцией [96] и долго не появлялась в журнале. В конце концов, лет через пять она (т. е. только первая ее половина) была напечатана в № 14, на котором стояла дата 1976, но реально он вышел значительно позже [97] — и напечатана в искаженном виде. Во-первых, анонимно, во-вторых — пропала вторая половина статьи [98] . Я написал язвительное (или, может быть, просто злобное) предисловие, в котором обвинил редактора во всех смертных грехах, включая плагиат [99] , и скандальное письмо, в котором грозил напечатать статью с этим...

10. Вне Лолиты: Вновь открывая Набокова. (Проект CNN, 1999 г.). His Legacy

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Часть текста: of talent he reached with the novel "Lolita." "He will be increasingly appreciated," says Jeff Edmunds, editor of Zembla, the Web site dedicated to Nabokov and his work. "He crosses national boundaries... he's not considered a modernist, or post-modernist... He's simply Nabokov." D. Barton Johnson, Professor Emeritus at University of California - Santa Barbara and former president of the International Vladimir Nabokov Society, agrees. "There can, I think, be no question that Nabokov is and will remain a prominent figure in the 20th Century canon - at least in American and Russian literature," Johnson says. "Nabokov is one of the rare figures who, at the end of the century, enjoys both a wide popular readership and is firmly entrenched in academe." Nabokov writing at his lectern, Montreux, 1966 Galya Diment, Professor of Russian at University of Washington and the author of "Pniniad: Vladimir Nabokov and Marc Szeftel," says Nabokov's legacy is often split into two different directions. "I think in the general public he will be remembered mostly for 'Lolita," she says. "But he's very much a writer's writer and for that he will be remembered, as well." Nabokov spent his life dedicated to the craft of writing, working with words from his early teens to his late 70s. He wrote his first 10 novels in Russian, the final ten in English (one, "The Original of Laura," was never finished). Through the years, his style evolved, stengthening to a crafty, ambiguous yet controlled monster as he grew older. When he wrote "Lolita," his 1950s novel of pedophiliac obsession, he crossed boundaries that opened the door to new readers. Johnson says "Lolita" serves as a touchstone to Nabokov's work, but his...

Поиск по творчеству и критикеCлово "REFERENCE"

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Cлово "REFERENCE"