1st Edition

Discourse and Ideology in Nabokov's Prose

Edited By David H. J. Larmour Copyright 2002
    192 Pages
    by Routledge

    192 Pages
    by Routledge

    The prose writings of Vladimir Nabokov form one of the most intriguing oeuvres of the twentieth century. His novels, which include Despair, Lolita and Pale Fire, have been celebrated for their stylistic artistry, their formal complexity, and their unique treatment of themes of memory, exile, loss, and desire.
    This collection of essays offers readings of several novels as well as discussions of Nabokov's exchange of views about literature with Edmund Wilson, and his place in the 1960s and contemporary popular culture.
    The volume brings together a diverse group of Nabokovian readers, of widely divergent scholarly backgrounds, interests, and approaches. Together they shift the focus from the manipulative games of author and text to the restless and sometimes resistant reader, and suggest new ways of enjoying these endlessly fascinating texts.

    Introduction: collusion and collision PART I The artist and ideology 1 The Nabokov–Wilson debate: art versus social and moral responsibility 2 Two organ-grinders: duality and discontent in Bend Sinister PART II Discourses of gender and sexuality 3 Okrylyonnyy Soglyadatay – The winged eavesdropper: Nabokov and Kuzmin 4 Getting one past the goalkeeper: sports and games in Glory 5 The crewcut as homoerotic discourse in Nabokov’s Pale Fire PART III Lolita 6 Seeing through Humbert: focussing on the feminist sympathy in Lolita 7 Discourse, ideology, and hegemony: the double dramas in and around Lolita PART IV Cultural contacts 8 Nabokov and the sixties 9 Vladimir Nabokov and popular culture

    Biography

    David Larmour is Professor of Classics and Comparative Literature at Texas Tech University. He co-edited Russian Literature and the Classics (1996) and since 1997 has been one of the editors of the journal Intertexts.

    'I would like to stress that the volume makes for fascinating reading.' - MLR 99.2, 2004