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. (University of p. cm. Alexander Dolinin 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 2010038364 Literature (Pushkinskii Dom), St. Petersburg) 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 28 Montfern Avenue Thomas Seifrid (University of Southern 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 SLIDE TACKLE With the launch of the Nabokov Online Journal (www.nabokovonline. com) almost four years ago, it was clear that the times were changing and that the era of electronic press had overstepped the threshold at which some colleagues could frown upon the suspicious Internet and its murky webs. In order for scholarship to remain dynamic we have to keep abreast with the times and employ cutting-edge technology — all this without compromising scholarly quality. Bringing Nabokov studies to a virtual portal has allowed us to offer operative responses to the growing demands of modern academia and to stay in touch with our readership. On average, Nabokov Online Journal enjoys 600 to 1000 hits each month, from fi fty countries and territories, ranging from Estonia to Hungary and South Korea. Thanks to the help of Google tools (a detailed breakdown and maps, overview of traffi c sources, keyword searches, average time spent on site, and other useful data), we are able to monitor our readers’ preferences and strive to provide general public and refi ned experts alike with intellectually rewarding material. One cannot help but imagine and appreciate those few loyal visitors who browse our site still using frail dial-up connections from remote Ukraine. In 2009 we introduced the new look of the journal. I am particularly grateful to the members of the editorial board, friends, and colleagues for their creative input when we tried to conceptualize the main page. Only one question was posed then: what specifi c verbal images from Nabokov’s prose evoke your acute and memorable visual perceptions? The results can be seen online; they are accompanied by unattributed quotes which appear and vanish on the main page along with playful animation (hopefully, the Nabokovians will derive pleasure from recognizing the sources of these quotes). The design work was done by a talented Israeli art guru, Andrey Bashkin, who transformed mere chaotic ideas into a functional and aesthetically appealing website. The background soundtrack is by Sergei Rachmaninoff, a great Russian composer and an avid reader of Nabokov, and is performed by Sergei Prokofi ev. Himself an ardent goalkeeper, the author of Lolita viewed soccer as more than a game. The goalkeeper “is the lone eagle, the man of mystery, the last defender,” he writes in his memoirs.2