Nabokov: The Mystery of Literary Structures

by Leona Toker

Overview

Vladimir Nabokov described the literature course he taught at Cornell as "a kind of detective investigation of the mystery of literary structures." Leona Toker here pursues a similar investigation of the enigmatic structures of Nabokov's own fiction. According to Toker, most previous critics stressed either Nabokov’s concern with form or the humanistic side of his works, but rarely if ever the two together. In sensitive and revealing readings of ten novels, Toker demonstrates that the need to reconcile the human element with aesthetic or metaphysical pursuits is a constant theme of Nabokov’s and that the tension between technique and content is itself a key to his fiction. Written with verve and precision, Toker’s book begins with Pnin and follows the circular pattern that is one of her subject’s own favored devices.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801422119
Publisher:	Cornell University Press
Publication date:	03/09/1989
Series:	Cornell Studies in the Philosophy of
Pages:	262
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Leona Toker is Professor of English at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She is the author most recently of Towards the Ethics of Form in Fiction: Narratives of Cultural Remission.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

2. Pnin: The Quest That Overrides the Goal

3. Mary: "Without Any Passport"

4. King, Queen, Knave, or Lust under the Linden

5. The Defense: Secret Asymmetries

6. Glory: "Good Example of How Metaphysics Can Fool You"

7. Laughter in the Dark: Guinea Pigs and Galley Slaves

8. Invitation to a Beheading: "Nameless Existence, Intangible Substance"

9. The Gift: Models of Infinity

10. Bend Sinister: The "Inner" Problem

11. "Reader! Bruder!" Broodings on the Rhetoric of Lolita

12. Conclusion

Editorial Reviews

Toker (English, Hebrew University, Jerusalem) follows the circular pattern that is one of her subject's own favored devices. Beginning with a discussion of Pnin, she treats a number of recurrent features of Nabokov's fiction; and she concludes by analyzing Lolita, written shortly before Pnin, and discusses, in the chronological order of their composition, eight other novels. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

"In each chapter Toker carefully reconstructs a novel for us—those are not mere plot summaries, but mature products of several re-readings—and proceeds to make her way through the novel's numerous patterns, images, themes and motifs in an attempt to show that most of them relate not only to Nabokov's art but also to his heart. Her readings of the novels are invariably sensitive and refreshingly sophisticated, they provide new angles and do not overstate the obvious."—SEEJ

From the Publisher