The Zemblan Who Came in from the Cold, or Nabokov's Pale Fire, Chance, and the Cold War

Belletto, Steven

doi:10.1353/elh.2006.0022

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 29 publications

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“…Mizruchi’s insistence that we understand Lolita as a novel painfully enmeshed in the aftermath of the holocaust, compulsively rehearsing the imagery of the death camps, provides a powerful counterargument to those who would prefer to read it as a formalist triumph in which historical contingency is transcended. Since then, work by Steven Belletto (2006) and Adam Piette (2009) has sought to ask what it means to think of Nabokov as a Cold War writer with his own ideological investments in the conflict, rendered visible through espionage, surveillance and the metaphor of nuclear fusion. My own work on reading Nabokov alongside Walter Benjamin and Theodor Adorno has examined how Nabokov’s writing adapted its modernist premises in the face of the rise of Nazism and the Second World War in Europe and the United States (2006a, 2006b, 2009b).…”

Section: Nabokov’s Limits: History and The Bodymentioning

confidence: 99%

Transitions in Nabokov Studies

Norman

2010

Literature Compass

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This article maps recent transitions in Nabokov Studies and places them in the context of the history of the field as it has developed since the 1960s. While many critics have allowed Nabokov's own injunctions and 'strong opinions' to establish the parameters of their research, various scholars over the last decade have shown a willingness to transgress the rules of Nabokovian reading. From historicist approaches to Lolita as a holocaust novel, to controversial questions concerning ethics and ideology, I survey some of the best work on the author and suggest ways in which Nabokov Studies might develop in the future. In the past, many of the most radical readings of Nabokov have focused on Lolita, but the posthumous publication of The Original of Laura now invites renewed focus on the late fiction, while there remains the necessity of exploring Nabokov's place within the contexts of modernism and of world literature.

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Section: Nabokov’s Limits: History and The Bodymentioning

confidence: 99%

Transitions in Nabokov Studies

Norman

2010

Literature Compass

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Nabokov's Postmodernism: The Matter of Discourse and Survival in Pale Fire

Abbasi¹,

Amani²

2013

JLTR

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Postmodernist fiction, Brian McHale believes, is always about death. Nabokov's Pale Fire (1962) as an allegory of death and writing is about John Shade’s poetic meditations on life and death. The present study is an attempt to explore the relationship between death and writing by applying McHale's theory to Nabokov's novel to show how life is equated with discourse, and death with the end of discourse and silence. The two author-figures—Shade and Kinbote—struggle to continue their narration(s) by reconstructing their selves through and into language, for they know that end of discourse brings their nonexistence. Ontologically speaking, Kinbote who can be Shade the poet provides the reader with a long commentary on Shade's poem, and extends his narration in order to delay fate and remain alive

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The Zemblan Who Came in from the Cold, or Nabokov's Pale Fire, Chance, and the Cold War

Cited by 2 publications

References 29 publications

Transitions in Nabokov Studies

Transitions in Nabokov Studies

Nabokov's Postmodernism: The Matter of Discourse and Survival in Pale Fire

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