Vladimir Nabokov and Women Writers by Mariya D. Lomakina A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Slavic Languages and Literatures) in The University of Michigan 2014 Doctoral Committee: Associate Professor Olga Y. Maiorova, Co-Chair Professor Omry Ronen, Co-Chair (Deceased) Associate Professor Herbert J. Eagle Professor Yuri Leving, Dalhousie University Associate Professor Andrea P. Zemgulys © Mariya D. Lomakina 2014 Acknowledgments This dissertation would not have been written without generous support and encouragement of several people. I am extremely grateful to my dissertation advisor, Omry Ronen, whose energy, sense of humor, dedication to Russian literature, and extraordinary kindness have encouraged many of his students to write and complete their dissertations. He will be greatly missed by me, by his other students, and by all those who knew him. I would like to express my gratitude to the chair of my dissertation committee, Olga Maiorova, for her help and advice on how to proceed with and finish my dissertation. My gratitude also goes to Yuri Leving for his kind interest in my work and his invaluable comments on my topic and dissertation. My ideas grew stronger as a result of conversations with Herbert Eagle, and I thank him for his comments and his endless help with editing my work. My gratitude goes to Andrea Zemgulys, whose insightful comments have also influenced the final outcome of my dissertation. I also wish to thank my friends for their support and interest in my graduation: Sara Feldman, Anjali Purkayastha, Hirak Parikh, and Isaiah Smithson for being good friends in need, the wonderful Stephens family for always being there for me, Chris and Vera Irwin, William and Margaret Dunifon for their hospitality, Brad Damaré and Yana Arnold for spending time together, Mila Shevchenko and Svitlana Rogovyk for their teaching advices, and Jean McKee for her patience in answering all the questions I had. ii Last but not least, I thank my parents Dmitry and Liubov Lomakin for their help and encouragement, my husband Anton Vorontsov for his love and patience, and my daughters Marina and Katherine who made it all worthwhile. The completion of the dissertation was made possible by the support of the Rackham School of Graduate Studies at the University of Michigan. iii Table of Contents: Acknowledgments........................................................................................................................... ii List of Abbreviations ..................................................................................................................... vi Abstract ........................................................................................................................................ viii Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1 Vladimir Nabokov and Some Women Writers of Russian Modernism ....................... 15 1.1 Women Writers and Nabokov's Reviews. ...................................................................... 17 1.2 Nabokov and Akhmatova ............................................................................................... 33 1.3 Nabokov and Tsvetaeva ................................................................................................. 46 1.4 Nabokov and Gippius ..................................................................................................... 58 Chapter 2 Methods of Intertextuality and Women Writers in Nabokov's Art: “A Slice of Life” and “The Admiralty Spire” ........................................................................................................... 69 2.1 Nabokov’s Story “A Slice of Life” as an Anti-parody of Female Writing .................... 74 2.2 “The Admiralty Spire” and the Problem of Female Poetics in Nabokov's Art. ............. 85 Chapter 3 “Artists in Disguise”: The Role of the Creative Woman in Nabokov’s Art ................ 99 3.1 Elegance as Art: the Aesthetic Function of Nabokov's Women .................................. 102 3.2 Agents and Co-creators: the Mediatory Function of Nabokov's Female Characters. .. 114 iv 3.2.1 On the Role of “Rusalka” in Nabokov's Art ......................................................... 137 3.2.2 The “Rusalka” Principle and Nabokov's Literary Women. .................................. 142 3.3 Look at the Harlequins! and the Metaliterary Function of Nabokov's Female ................. Characters. ............................................................................................................................... 154 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................. 164 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................... 170 v List of Abbreviations Note: Books by Vladimir Nabokov unless otherwise noted. A Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle (New York: Vintage, 1990) AnL The Annotated Lolita, ed. by Alfred Appel Jr. (New York: Vintage, 1991) AY Boyd, Brian. Vladimir Nabokov. American Years (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1991) BS Bend Sinister (New York: Time, 1964) G The Gift, trans. by Michael Scammell and Dmitri Nabokov with Vladimir Nabokov (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1971) Gl Glory (New York: Vintage, 1991) IB Invitation to a Beheading, trans. by Dmitri Nabokov with Vladimir Nabokov (New York: Putnam, 1959). LL Lectures on Literature, ed. Fredson Bowers (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1980) LRL Lectures on Russian Literature, ed. Fredson Bowers (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich/Bruccoli Clark, 1981) LATH Look at the Harlequins! (New York: McGraw- Hill, 1974) NG Nikolai Gogol (Norfolk, Conn.: New Directions, 1944) PF Pale Fire (New York: Vintage, 1989) P Pnin (New York: Vintage, 1989) vi RLSK The Real Life of Sebastian Knight (New York: New Directions, 1968) RB A Russian Beauty and Other Stories, trans. by Dmitri Nabokov and Simon Karlinsky with Vladimir Nabokov (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1973) RY Boyd, Brian. Vladimir Nabokov. Russian Years (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1991) SL Selected Letters, 1940-1977, ed. by Dmitri Nabokov and Matthew J. Bruccoli (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich/Bruccoli Clark Layman, 1989) SSAP Sobranie sochinenii amerikanskogo perioda, 5 vols. (St. Petersburg: Symposium, 1999) SSRP Sobranie sochinenii russkogo perioda, 5 vols. (St. Petersburg: Symposium, 1999-2000) SM Speak, Memory: An Autobiography Revisited (New York: Vintage, 1989) Stikhi Ann Arbor, Mich.: Ardis, 1979 ST The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov, ed. and mostly trans. by Dmitri Nabokov (New York: Knopf, 1995) SO Strong Opinions (New York: Vintage, 1990) TT Transparent Things (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1972) NWL The Nabokov-Wilson Letters, ed. by Simon Karlinsky (Berkeley and Los Angeles: U of California P, 2001) vii Abstract Vladimir Nabokov and Women Writers Mariya Lomakina This study sheds light on a heretofore neglected aspect of Nabokov studies: his attitude toward women writers and their literary art. Nabokov’s critical statements about women writers, ranging from dismissive remarks to fully negative reviews, have created for some scholars a view of him as “a literary misogynist” who wants to make his readers, especially women, feel stupid and powerless. I investigate whether there is any justice in branding him with such a label. Indeed, if taken literally, some of his declarations, because of their sarcastic tone, could lead to a false impression of the anti-female stance. However, a close analysis of some of Nabokov’s key works that express opinions about women writers (these include both fiction and non-fiction) suggest that in most cases Nabokov's opinions are based strictly on an author's artistic and stylistic tendencies and not on the author's gender. In my first chapter, I examine the nature of Nabokov’s critical statements in his reviews. In addition to addressing the poetics of a certain group of female writers, they express an important aspect of his literary vision in general. This chapter also examines Nabokov's literary relationships with his era's most prominent women poets: Anna Akhmatova, Marina Tsvetaeva, and Zinaida Gippius. Their literary “shadows” appear in Nabokov's novels Pnin, The Gift, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, the story “Vasily Shishkov,” and other works. My second chapter explores Nabokov's intertextual methods in the viii stories “A Slice of Life” and “The Admiralty Spire.” When viewed together, they provide a new more favorable perspective on Nabokov's treatment of women writers. My third chapter addresses the author’s representation of fictional literary women whose metaliterary role attests to Nabokov's own literary views. Nabokov's targeted critiques and his evaluation of the most gifted women poets and prose writers, his stylizations and parodies, his efforts to recast what was aesthetically weak in the works of others, and his metaliterary use of women writers as characters in his prose all point to a stance on artistic value that is independent of gender. ix Introduction My thesis is prompted by Vladimir Nabokov's critical statements about women writers made in his non-fictional and fictional works, explicitly and implicitly. Ranging from high praise of some women writers to the more frequently dismissive remarks about others, these statements have raised a very specific question