Dominio Fidelidad

representation ultimately generate counter

te chniques which expose them to ridicule . And

this dialectic i s a centre of the history of

fictions . S (My i talic s)

In the Russ ian Formali sts ' view every individual style i s

evolved through a dialectic of forms . A t the same time the

innovatory aspects of form in a particular work do not

neces sarily involve the parodic reaction against e s tablished techniques which Shklovsky describes . Jane Austen , for example , evo lves her individual style within the conventions o f the

realist nove l . Howeve r , a parodic writer such as S terne

2 5 i n the proces s o f evolving his individual style .

Nabokov ' s structuring of his work i s a development of the

parodic reaction to establi she d styles . His fiction

demonstrates that the creative act is both part o f a literary tradition and a self-conscious progres sion from previous s tyles . His novel s consequently undermine the concept of the novel as a fixed or stable form , and hence hi s comment that " one of the functions of all my novel s is to prove that the novel in general

does not exist"

(SO ,

p . 1 1 5 ) . In Nabokov ' s parodi stic novel s

critical analysis becomes an explicit component o f literary creation , and the result i s a body of work which s imultaneously reincorporates and de fami l iarizes literary devices . 6 Moreover , as David Packman points out , " a reflexive Nabokovian text lays bare not j ust the activity o f writing , but the activity of

reading as wel l . " 7 Both the critic and the common reader are challenged : " I f the reader has to work in his turn-so much the

better . Art i s difficult"

(SO ,

p . 1 1 5 ) . Thi s present analy s i s

examines the s tructural strategies o f defamiliarization in Nabokov ' s work .

To start with Nabokov ' s use o f the novel form . David Lodge

divides the genre into four broad c ategories : the real i st nove l , the non-fiction nove l , the fabul ation , and the problematic

8

nove l . The final category , the problematic nove l , for whi ch

Nabokov ' s

Pale Fire

provides Lodge ' s example , i s defined as " the

novel about itself or th e novel whi ch exploits more than one 9 of the previous mode s without fully committing itsel f to any . " Robert Alter sees Nabokov ' s s tructural strategies as a revival of the self-conscious tradition res ul ting in a parodistic novel " that systematically flaunts its own condition of arti fice . " 1 0 As both the se descriptions suggest , Nabokov ' s novel s draw attention to and rework establi shed generic characteristics o f fiction and non-fiction from realist modes s uch a s biographies

to fabulations such as political allegories . V . , the invented

narrator of

The Real Life of Sebas tian Knight ,

claims to be

working within a ' non-fictive ' mode in compiling a biography o f hi s hal f-brother , Sebastian Knight . 1 1 Nabokov exploits the characteristics of biography and novel by es tabli shing a divide b etween the ' non-fictive ' impersonal scholarship that V. sees

himself as engaged in and V . ' s actual attitudes and statements . The reader gradually realizes that V . ' s s upposed biography i s rather an account o f hi s own personal responses to the detai l s

o f Sebastian ' s art and l i fe . Ultimately V . ' s sub j ective

reconstruction of his ' research ' is shown to reveal V . , the fictional compiler of the book , rather than his subj ect ,

Sebastian . 1 2 In thi s ' parodistic ' type o f novel , attention i s drawn to the formal contrivance inherent in non-fiction and fiction alike . 1 3 As Julia Bader points out , Nabokov ' s novel s

parody both modes : " in

Sebastian Knight

the fictional auto­

biography ; in

Pnin

the academic/victim nove l ; in

Pale Fire

critical exege sis ; in

Bend Sini ster

political allegory ; in

Lolita

the erotic memoir ; in

Ada

the family chroni cle . " 1 4 To

Bader ' s l i st may now be added

Transparent Things

( the non­

fiction novel ) and

Look at the Harlequins !

( the literary

autobiography) .

The same dialectic is evident in Nabokov ' s use o f literary device s . Of course any figurative use o f language involve s an essential de familiari zation of accepted usage , unless such figures have hardened into " dying metaphors " or cliche s . 1 5 I am not claiming , therefore , that de fami liarization i s a unique property of Nabokov ' s wri ting ; rather , I seek to outline the

particular and dominant strategies employed by Nabokov . One

such s trategy is his use of puns . Jes sie Lokrantz divides

Nabokov ' s puns into five categorie s : Allusive , Connective ,

h . . d 1 1 6 h h .

T ematlc , Ironlc an Ornamenta . T ese s e trace s ln some

depth , calculating their incidence in the six English nove l s

up to and including

Ada.

A few examples will serve to show how ,

in Lokrantz ' s words , Nabokov ' s puns unite several levels o f thought which are " de liberate and o ften central to the ideas

1 7

being expre ssed . " As Lokrantz points out , proper names o ften

contain puns . Mr Goodman

(RLSK) ,

for instance , is an immoral

opportunist ; hi s name stands in ironic contrast to hi s attitudes.

In

Ada

Aqua has difficulty in distingui shing b etween " a time­

pi ece and a piece of time "

(A ,

p . 2 6 ) , a play on words that ties

in with the novel ' s thematic concern with time . Literary

allusions are als o compressed into puns : the reference in

Ada

2 7

a compound pun . A l iterary source ( Dickens ' title together with

his character Jo ' s determination to avoid "horsepittle " ) i s fused with a parodic dig at Freudian psychiatric institution s .

In addition to puns , Nabokov employs a number o f device s where , through an alteration to conventi onal locutions ,

conventional perception i s chal lenge d . These devices range from

the simple trans ferred epithe t to animism. Lolita , after a

mee ting with Quil ty , sits "with one hand dreaming in her print­

flowered l ap "

(L ,

p . 2 0 0 ) . When Adam Krug returns home after

the death o f his wi fe the inanimate ob j ects o f his world gree t him : "He entered the e levator which greeted him with the small sound he knew , half stamp , half shive r , and its feature s lit

up"

(BS ,

p. 2 9 ) . O ften this personification o f inanimate

ob j ects i s taken to unexpected extremes : "A l atticed gallery looked across i ts garlanded shoulder into the garden and turned

sharply toward the drive "

(A ,

p . 4 0 ) .

Another maj or s trategy in Nabokov ' s novel s i s the parodic

use of allus ions . In

Lolita

Nabokov ' s first-person narrator ,

Humbert Humbert is a self-conscious s tyl is t . As Humbert recall s re-reading Charlotte ' s " confe s s ion" o f love for him, h e confesses to his own realization o f the legitimatized physical access to Lolita that marriage to Charlotte would afford him : " Suddenly , gentlemen o f the j ury , I felt a Dostoevskian grin dawning

( through the very grimace that twisted my lips) l ike a dis tant

and terribl e sun "

( L ,

pp . 69-70 ) . The parodic incorporation

of literary allusions continues as Humbert Humbert self­

consciously quotes a l ine of poetry that celebrates the parental bond he intends to abuse : " ' To hold thee lightly on a gentle

knee and print on thy soft cheek a parent ' s kiss . . We ll-

read Humber t ! "

(L,

p. 7 0 ) .

In l ike manner , Nabokov parodically incorporates the

convention o f alluding to other art forms when describing events,

characters or scenes in a nove l . In

A

d

a

Dan Veen ' s death i s

a grotesque enactment o f a Bosch painting :

Dan has died an odd Boschean death . He

thought a fantastic rodent sort o f rode

him out o f the house . They found him too

l ate , he expired in Nikulin ' s clinic , raving about that detail of the picture .

the Vienna Academy o f Art .

(A ,

p . 3 4 3 )

Alternatively , i n

Bend Sini ster ,

Nabokov plays upon e lements

of stagecraft . At the interview between Krug and Paduk a

' make-up artist ' i s invoked to trans form the initial description of Paduk :

In a word , he was a l i ttle too repulsive to be credible , and so l et us ring the bell

(held by a bronze eagle ) and have him

beautified by a mortician . Now the skin is

thoroughly cleansed and has assumed a smooth

marchpane colour . A glossy wig with auburn

and blond tresses artistically intermixed

covers his head . Pink paint has dealt with

the unseemly scar .

(BS ,

pp . 1 2 3 - 2 4 )

In the ver s ions o f the interview between Krug and Paduk , the intrusion of first the guards , and then Nabokov with stage directions for the two main actors culminates in a parodic inversion of the drama analogy :

The seedy tyrant or the president o f the State , or the dictator , or whoever he was --the man Paduk in a word , the Toad in another --did hand my favourite character a my sterious batch o f

neatly typed page s . The actor playing the

recipient should be taught not to look at his

hand while he takes the papers

very s lowl y

( keeping those l ateral lower- j aw muscles in movemen t , please) but to stare straight at the

give r : in short , look at the giver first ,

then

lower your eyes to the gift . But both were

clumsy and cross men , and the experts in the cardiarium exchanged solemn nods at a certain point ( when the milk was upset) , and they , too ,

were not acting .

(BS ,

pp . 1 30 -3 1 )

Here Nabokov ' s authorial intrus ions simultaneously defamil i arize hi s own use of l i terary devices and assert the ' aesthetic

reality ' of his fictional world .

Ultimate ly Nabokov ' s self-conscious strategies can be seen as direct or indirect authorial intrusions which call attention

to an individual style as the key to creativity . As Adam Krug

in

Bend Sinister

proceeds towards phys ical as well as mental disintegration , Nabokov intervene s directly in the text reminding us that both the self-conscious artifice and the

29 reali sm of hi s fictional world are a product o f authorial s tyle :

I knew that the immortali ty I had conferred on the poor fellow [Krug ) was a slippery

sophi sm , a play upon words . But the very

last lap of h i s l i fe had been happy and it had been proven to him that death was but a

que stion of style.

(BS

1 p . 2 0 0 )

Here also Nabokov suggests that a movement from one s tate o f awarenes s to another is , like the shift from nove l istic real i sm

to self-conscious artifice , a styli stic change . By

defamiliarizing conventional literary device s , he exposes the

power of existing styles to mould perception . In

Ada

Van

dis covers Dan ' s collection o f Forbidden Masterpi ece s , one o f which depi cts two misbehaving nude s , a boy and a girl ; late r , while sunbathing with Ada , Van ' perceive s ' the scene through a " styli stic transition " back to the painting :

Anyway ( this may be purely a styli stic transition) , he felt himself transferred into that forbidden masterpiece one

afternoon .

. .

(A,

p . 1 1 3 )

Throughout hi s work , then , Nabokov sets up a dichotomy between

his

style and conventional style that draws attention to the

activity o f writing . Thi s parallels the more generalized

de familiarization he achieves through the parodic reworking o f generic characteristic s .

Similarly , Nabokov draws attention to the activity of

reading , forcing the reader to question traditional expectations about the novel and its relationship to " so-cal led ' real-life ' "

(LDQ , p . 1 ) . The reader ' s expectations here are based on hi s

experience o f establi shed mode s , which tend to be dominated by the conventions of ' realism ' in non-fiction and in realist novel s . Mos t obviously , the strategie s o f direct and indirect authorial intrusions j olt the reader back to an awareness that the fictional world is an independent , imaginative i llusion made

out of words . At the same time , Nabokov subtly parodies the

reader ' s necessary involvement in the fictional world . In the

interview chapter o f

Bend Sinister ,

Paduk i s firs t de scribed

Paduk , clothed from carbuncle to bunion in field grey , stood with his hands behind

hi s back and

his back to the reader.

(BS , p . 1 2 3 , my ital i c s )

Nabokov al so plays upon the convention o f the direct

addres s to the reade r . Traditionally this device has been used in two main ways : to affirm the ' reality ' of a narrator and his fictional ' hi story ' ; and to acknowledge the relationship of

author and reader to the proces ses o f compos ition . An extended

example of Nabokov ' s parodic reworking of the convention occurs in

Lo lita ,

where it i s integral to h i s characteri zation of h i s

first-person narrator . Humbert Humbert ' s apparently self­

conscious addre sses to the reader are plays through which he seeks to disguise and trans form h i s own nature by simulating

moral , emotional and artistic sensitivities . His efforts to

manipulate the reader culminate in the plea that the artis ti c immortal ity h e has conferred upon Lol ita negates hi s murder o f Quilty :

And do not pity C . Q . One had to choose between him and H . H . , and one wanted H . H . to exist at least a couple of months longer , so as to have him make you live in the minds of later generations .

(L ,

p . 3 1 5 )

As a re-reader o f hi s own narrative Humbert would dismis s the

crime against Quilty . His styli stic ability to induce other

readers to do the same thing is parodically mirrored in John Ray ' s ' editorial ' preface which makes only one brief re ference

to the murder of Quilty . Al ternatively , in

Pnin

the unnamed

narrator ' s use o f direct address to strengthen the illusion o f impersonal biographical reconstruction i s called into ques tion by his recour se to omniscient narration and stream-of­

consciousnes s techniques to depict hi s subj ect , Pnin . In

Transparent Things

the direct addre sses to the reader draw attention to and expli cate ' authorial ' choices and proc e s s e s that are finally thwarted by Hugh Person ' s fai lure to heed the warning o f "his main ' umbral companion ' " :

warning him that he should l eave Witt there and then for Veron a , Florence , Rome , Taormina ,

i f S tre s a was out . He did not heed hi s shadow ,

and fundamentally he may have been righ t . We thought that he had in him a few years o f animal pleasure ; we were ready t o waft that girl into hi s bed , but a fter all it was for him to decide , for him to die , i f he wi she d .

( TT ,

p . 1 0 1 )

Nabokov de familiarizes the direct addres s to th e reade r , then , by using the convention in unexpec ted ways .

3 1

The parodic reworking o f motifs drawn from older literature is another s trategy which c an reverse reade rs ' expec tations o f

the plot . Among the instances o f this device traced by earl

·

L

• t

1 8 '

h ' f ff '

R . Proffer ln

a ,

l S t e motl . As Pro er polnts

out , the reader might be mis led by the

Carmen

allusions into

expecting the final confrontation between Humbert and Lolita to result in her dea th . 1 9 Ins tead Nabokov parodies both the traditional use o f classical ' storie s ' for ' universali zing ' a particular narrative , and the literary riddle-solving that i s

its resul t . He does this by incorporating and then reversing

the traditional story :

Carmencita� Zui demandais -je

. . . ' One

In document Evaluación de la implementación de la estrategia AIEPI en el modulo IRA, en una empresa social del estado, Cali 2018 (página 60-63)