December 1925: Nabokov Between Work and Play

Abstract

Nabokov's most explicit expression of his lifelong fascination with games is his December 1925 essay, "Breitensträter – Paolino," which begins with the claim that "Everything in the world plays." In the same month, however, he published a short story, "A Guide to Berlin," whose central section is entitled "Work." In these two pieces Nabokov explores competing visions of life and art as play and as work, which he had found discussed in an essay of 1922, "Praise of Idleness," by his early mentor Iulii Aikhenval'd. The vision of play goes back to Friedrich Schiller, that of work to Marx, Tolstoy, and other nineteenth century writers. Each entails a profoundly different style, ideology, and set of assumptions about the mind. We cannot identify Nabokov exclusively with either vision.

Transitions in Nabokov Studies

“…We can also see the beginnings of a critical interest in Nabokov’s relationship to philosophy. For some time, Leona Toker’s reflections on Nabokov in relation to Bergson and Schopenhauer (1988, 1989, 2005) stood out as an exception in the field, but Thomas Karshan’s two articles on Nabokov and ideas of play (2006, 2009) have shown that there is interesting territory to be excavated here 6 . Karshan finds in the aesthetic philosophy of Kant and Schiller a compelling context for examining Nabokov’s development as an artist from the structured game playing of the early Russian fiction through to the free play of the later novels.…”