The Goalkeeper: The Nabokov Almanac

349 Pages·2010·7.27 MB·English

by  Yuri Leving

>
THE GOALKEEPER
>
> > > > > >
THE GOALKEEPER
THE NABOKOV
ALMANAC
Edited by Yuri Leving
Boston
2010
Publication was made possible EDITORIAL BOARD
through the generous support of
the Department of Russian Studies, Editor
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Yuri Leving (Dalhousie University)
Dalhousie University
Associate Editor
Nassim W. Balestrini
Excerpts from the works of
(University of Regensburg)
Vladimir Nabokov by special
arrangement with the Estate of
Associate Editor for Reviews
Vladimir Nabokov. Andrei Rogatchevski (University of Glasgow)
All rights reserved.
Editorial Assistant
Olga Gurin (Independent Scholar)
Editorial Board
Library of Congress John Barnstead (Dalhousie University)
Cataloging-in-Publication Data Stephen Blackwell (University of Tennessee)
Brian Boyd (The University of Auckland,
The goalkeeper : the Nabokov almanac /
New Zealand)
edited by Yuri Leving.
Alexander Dolinin (University of
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references. Wisconsin-Madison)
ISBN 978-1-936235-19-3 Donald Barton Johnson
1. Nabokov, Vladimir Vladimirovich, (University of California, Santa Barbara)
1899-1977—Criticism and interpretation. Georgy Levinton (European University,
I. Leving, IUrii. St. Petersburg)
PS3527.A15Z715 2010
Maria Malikova (Institute of Russian
813’.54—dc22
Literature (Pushkinskii Dom), St. Petersburg)
2010038364
Eric Naiman (University of California,
Copyright © 2010 Academic Studies Press Berkeley)
All rights reserved Akiko Nakata (Nanzan Junior College, Japan)
Tatiana Ponomareva
Book design by Ivan Grave
(Vladimir Nabokov Museum, St. Petersburg)
David Rampton (University of Ottawa)
Published by Academic Studies Press in 2010
Thomas Seifrid (University of Southern
28 Montfern Avenue
Brighton, MA 02135, USA California)
[email protected] Savely Senderovich (Cornell University)
www.academicstudiespress.com Tadashi Wakashima (Kyoto University)
Effective December 12th, 2017, this book will be subject to a CC-BY-NC license. To view a copy of this
license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/. Other than as provided by these licenses, no
part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or displayed by any electronic or mechanical means
without permission from the publisher or as permitted by law.

The open access publication of this volume is made possible by:

This open access publication is part of a project supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
Humanities Open Book initiative, which includes the open access release of several Academic Studies
Press volumes. To view more titles available as free ebooks and to learn more about this project, please
visit borderlinesfoundation.org/open.

Published by Academic Studies Press
28 Montfern Avenue
Brighton, MA 02135, USA
[email protected]
www.academicstudiespress.com
The goalkeeper is the lone eagle, the man
of mystery, the last defender . . .
— Vladimir Nabokov, Speak, Memory
Not that we know a fool thing about
football.
— Truman Capote, “A Christmas Memory”
>
V
CONTENTS
SLIDE TACKLE
From the Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IX
TEAM
About the Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . XIII
> > > > > > > > > > >
FIELD
Forum
Brian Boyd, Jeff Edmunds, Maria Malikova, Leona Toker
Nabokov Studies: Strategic Development of the Field
and Scholarly Cooperation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
> > > > > > > > > > >
FIRST TIME BALL
Russian Nabokov
Neil Cornwell
Orhan Pamuk and Vladimir Nabokov on Dostoevsky . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Franklin Sciacca
Sacrifi cing the Maiden(’s)Head: Decoding Nabokov’s Burlesque of Sex
and Violence in Invitation to a Beheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Yelizaveta Goldfarb
Irony Behind the Iron Curtain: Internal Escape from Totalitarianism
in Nabokov’s Invitation to a Beheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Alexander Moudrov
Nabokov’s Invitation to Plato’s Beheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
> > > > > > > > > > >
CENTER CIRCLE
Forum
Alice Lotvin Birney, Isaac Gewirtz, Tatiana Ponomareva, Katherine Reagan
Institutionalizing Nabokov: Museum, Archive, Exhibition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
> > > > > > > > > > >
NARROWING THE ANGLE
Memoir
Irwin Weil
A Neophyte’s Collision with Vladimir Vladimirovich . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
VI
CONTENTS
> > > > > > > > > > >
CORNER ARC
English Nabokov
Gerard de Vries
Nabokov’s Pale Fire and Alexander Pope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Conall Cash
Picturing Memory, Puncturing Vision: Vladimir Nabokov’s Pale Fire . . . . . . 124
John A. Barnstead
Two Notes on Pale Fire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
Juan Martinez
A Fold of the Marquisette: Nabokov’s Lepidoptery in Visual Media . . . . . . . . 158
> > > > > > > > > > >
GOAL BOX
Interview
An Interview with Dmitri Nabokov by Suellen Stringer-Hye
“Laura is Not Even the Original’s Name” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
> > > > > > > > > > >
ONE TOUCH PASS
Nabokov Across the Lines
Samuel Schuman
“Which is Sebastian?” What’s in a (Shakespearean and Nabokovian) Name? 193
Marta Pellerdi
Aesthetics and Sin: The Nymph and the Faun in Hawthorne’s
The Marble Faun and Nabokov’s Lolita . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
Mikhail Efi mov
Nabokov and Prince D. S. Mirsky . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
> > > > > > > > > > >
CORNER FLAG
Interview
An Interview with Alvin Toffl er by Yuri Leving
“Lost in Transit” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230
> > > > > > > > > > >
MIDFIELD LINE
Forum
Priscilla Meyer, Christine Raguet, David Rampton, Corinne Scheiner
Teaching Nabokov . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
> > > > > > > > > > >
RED CARD
Archive
Yuri Leving
“The book is dazzlingly brilliant . . . But”
Two early internal reviews of Nabokov’s The Gift . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
VII
CONTENTS
> > > > > > > > > > >
DANGEROUS PLAY
Conference
Marie Bouchet
“Revising Nabokov Revising” Nabokov Conference in Kyoto . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
> > > > > > > > > > >
PENALTY AREA
Book Reviews
Zoe Aiano
Graham Vickers, Chasing Lolita: How Popular Culture Corrupted
Nabokov’s Little Girl All Over Again . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273
Joseph Lynch
Approaches to Teaching Nabokov’s Lolita,
edited by Zoran Kuzmanovich and Galya Diment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
Rose France
Verses and Versions: Three Centuries of Russian Poetry,
selected and translated by Vladimir Nabokov,
edited by Brian Boyd and Stanislav Shvabrin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281
Siggy Frank
Vladimir Nabokov, Tragediia gospodina Morna: P’esy, lektsii o drame,
introduced and edited by Andrei Babikov . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286
Jan F. Zeschky
Pekka Tammi, Russian Subtexts in Nabokov’s Fiction: Four Essays . . . . . . 291
> > > > > > > > > > >
END LINE
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297
Index of Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311
>
SLIDE TACKLE
From the Editor
Am I so round with you, as you with me,
That, like a football, you do spurn me thus?
You spurn me hence, and he will spurn
me hither:
If I last in this service, you must case
me in leather.
— William Shakespeare,
The Comedy of Errors (II, 1)
Evgeni Nabokov, a goaltender for the
Russian national ice hockey team,
was about to lose his temper. Fierce
Canadians did not leave any chance
for Russians to win the game this
time. Russia bitterly lost a quarterfi nal
match at the 2010 Winter Olympics
held in Vancouver — 7:3. As the
dramatic game continued, one hoped
that Evgeni remembered his celebrated
namesake who stated: “I was less
the keeper of a soccer goal than the
keeper of a secret.”1 What breathtaking
eternal truths was Vladimir Nabokov
pondering as he stood at the goal? Did
they have any relation to the worlds of
his fi ction? What was the riddle behind
his creative success? Who invents the
rules of literary games based on the
structures and strictures of language?
The questions are manifold; the
contributors to the present collection
of articles are trying to tackle some of
them.
1 Vladimir Nabokov, Speak, Memory (New York:
G. P. Putnam’s Sons), 268.
IX