Structure and style : an approach to characterization in Nabokov's English novels : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English at Massey University
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Date
1983
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Massey University
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Abstract
Nabokov was both teacher and artist, and this study
examines his own views about writing and reading, as contained
in his published lectures and interviews, in order to approach
his literary practices in the English novels. For the
purposes of analysing the "architectonics of a text, Nabokov
distinguishes between two aspects of form: style ("the manner
of the author") and structure ("the planned pattern of a work,"
which includes both formal properties--conventions, techniques,
garre--and the arrangement of content--story development, the
"choice" and " interplay" of characters). Part One of this
thesis examines this distinction and its consequences in order
to explain the principles which underlie the self-conscious
strategies of Nabokov's wri ting. The paradoxical alliance of
artifice and realism in what he calls "the facts of fiction"
are related to his attitudes towards 'facts' and 'reality' in
life (Chapter One); the methods of his style, in their
contribution towards a continuing dialectic of forms, involve
distinctions between imitative and innovative styles, and
between impersonal and personal representations (Chapter Two);
his fiction embraces a variety of human discourse, from
scholarly research to art, and plays upon the distinctions
between non-fictive re-construction and artistic re-creation
(Chapter Three). Throughout the English novels, characters are
dramatized in a process of choosing styles which may or may not
conform to Nabokov's structural design but which represent the
"other selves" of personality. Nabokov's structuring of the
novels provides a critical perspective on these stylizations.
The descriptive framework outlined in Part One is the
basis for an account in Part Two of the particular relationships
which are established between structure and style in each of
the English novels. Nabokov's main approach is to present a
narrative through first-person narrators working within
non-fictive conventions of representation . This format is
used in The Rear Life of Sebastian Knight, Pnin, Lolita, Pale
Fire, Ada and Look at the Harlequins! In Bend Sinister and
Transparent Things, however, Nabokov presents the narrative
through omniscient and intrusive authorial figures. Chapters
Four and Five examine the differing narrative structures of
The Real Life of Sebastian Knight and Bend Sinister. In The
Real Life of Sebastian Knight Nabokov establishes a conflict
between the conventions of biography and V.'s stylizations;
this conflict suggests how V. functions as an imitative
novelist, identifying with an idealized portrait of artistic
sensibility. Bend Sinister brings together an outer triune of
author, work of art and reader with an inner triune of world,
totalitarian state and individual in order to explore the
analogies between an artistic " theatre of the mind" and self representation;
in particular, Nabokov's design reveals how
Krug's incomplete self-characterization contributes to his
downfall. Nabokov's structural exploration of "individual
reality" in Pnin (Chapter Six) also draws attention to the way
his narrator's 'biographical' portrait of Pnin is a form of
artistic impersonation; the narrator, together with Jack
Cockerell, is part of a "troika" of personalities, the "radix"
of which is the individual style of Timofey Pnin. Chapter
Seven analyses the way the differing narrative structures of
Pale Fire and Transparent Things play parodically with the
interrelationships and distinctions between artistic and
non-fictive representations. Finally, Chapter Eight offers
some suggestions about the ways in which Nabokov's structuring
of the three memoirs- -Lolita, Ada, and Look at the Harlequins!
--elaborates his concern with memory as the basis of "individual
reality."
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Keywords
Vladimir Nabokov, Russian literature, Russian literature in English