Vladimir Nabokov was acutely aware of the image that readers and critics held of him. Deriding the notion that he was a “frivolous firebird,” he predicted that the day would come when someone would declare him to be a “rigid moralist kicking sin” and “assigning power to tenderness, talent, and pride” (SO, 193). Not only did Nabokov’s prediction come true, but critics continue to discover new facets of the writer’s legacy to highlight and explore. As a result, it has become clear that the man and his work evince enormous complexity. The facile labels applied to Nabokov early in his career – the “cool aesthete,” “impassive gamester” – have been replaced by other labels (if not “rigid moralist,” then “highly ethical” writer, metaphysician, philosopher). Yet all of these labels are proving to be simply one-dimensional; the full depth of Nabokov’s talent has yet to be plumbed. Indeed, in recent years, new aspects of Nabokov’s formidable intellectual legacy, such as his research as a lepi.
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Slavic and East European Journal
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"The present article is a short review of Vladimir Nabokov’s literature. It deals with the basic scientific works, the main subject of which is Nabokov’s prose and poetry. The article also represents the leading tendencies of studying V. Nabokov’s works of literature and a modern aspect."
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In her essay “Nabokov’s Duels with Literature”, Violeta Stojmenovic traces the duel motif in two of Nabokov’s early stories (“Podlets” and “Lebeda”), The Real Life of Sebastian Knight and Ada, or Ardor, analyzing its transformation from a literary into a meta-literary and meta-narrative motif. While in Nabokov’s stories from the 1930s the motif gave the narrator occasion to concentrate on the internal world of his characters and on issues of (in)authenticity, in the novels, the duels are presented as symbolic encounters between remote moments in time and, eventually, as a model for the relationship of human consciousness with time. The different duels in Nabokov’s oeuvre, in step with the changes in his work and relations toward literary and cultural traditions, draw this motif out of a culturally recognizable context. It loses its referential function and serves as a nostalgic and metatextual commentary, as well as a means of shifting from representation of specific cultural phenomena to representations of representations.
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Nabokov Online Journal (Vol. XII)
A review of a new collection of interviews with Nabokov, focusing on how it differs from the volume "Strong Opinions."
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