Rich in its complexity, Vladimir Nabokov’s The Gift deviates from standard literature in its lack of a standard narrative form. The Gift is structured in five chapters that vary significantly in tone, voice, pacing and narrative purpose; although Fyodor can be considered the main protagonist, the stylistic changes, shifting perspectives and "presentation of time" (Dolinin 7) within each chapter suggests that Fyodor 's voice cannot reliably be considered as the voice of the narrator. This is further
syllabus - Kafka, Woolf, Joyce and Eliot. Authors such as Arthur Miller and his Death of a Salesman, F. Scott Fitzgerald with The Great Gatsby or Marcel Proust with his In Search for Lost Time have made it considerably difficult to single out Vladimir Nabokov as the author that I think should be studied on our module. Not only are his novels remarkable, but also his relationship to language and even his life are so fascinating to the point I think Lolita should be on everybody’s bookshelf. Even the
In a literary piece, the reenactment of a certain type of reality is directly assimilated by the mimetic criticism of readers, concerning their experiences in the real world, the present world and the literary world. Various postmodernist writers employ this technique in their writings for the purpose of engaging and interacting their readers with the realist ideas they present throughout their work. Reality is presented in different ways so that it essentially influences the reader’s perspective
What makes a good writer? More importantly; what makes a good reader? It’s the critical examination skills that Vladimir Nabokov pushes for as well as a good imagination. And don’t forget a good dictionary! Nabokov argues that to be a good reader no preconceptions should have been made upon entering into a new text. He feels that it is insulting to the author when readers limit the world created by the author through their prior generalizations. But forming ideas prior to analyzing something is
The Immorality of Immortality in Lolita All art is immoral. - Oscar Wilde With his 1955 novel Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov invents a narrator by the name of Humbert Humbert who is both an exquisite wordsmith and an obsessive pedophile. The novel serves as the canvas upon which Humbert Humbert will paint a story of love, lust, and death for the reader. His confession is beautiful and worthy of artistic appreciation, so the fact that it centers on the subject of pedophilia leaves the reader conflicted
by advocating for the removal of the distasteful topic from literature; while others argue that though the content is vulgar, there is an intended meaning the author wishes to express. I would have to side with the latter of these two positions. Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita is one such novel that has produced concern over its questionable subject matter. On the surface, the novel tells of a fourteen year old girl becoming seduced by a middle aged man, but Lolita goes much deeper than its sexual substance
Russian Anya as an English Girl Alice: Translation as an Adaptation The tale of Lewis Carroll Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland belongs to the most famous works of world literature. Despite the fact that it is translated into different languages, it counts as one of the hardest novels to translate. In this story, English language is the main actor and powerful character. Alice together with Lewis Carroll peers into the depths of semantic expressions and only juggle with them throughout the story.
by Vladimir Nabokov and Orlando by Sally Potter The novels, Orlando by Virginia Woolf and Laughter in the Dark by Vladimir Nabokov, as well as the film, Orlando, written and directed by Sally Potter, are all self-reflexive, or metafictional, i.e., they draw our attention to the processes and techniques of writing and the production of cinema. All three share similarities and differences in setting, narrative technique, characterization and theme. The settings of the above three works all
Introduction Arguably the most controversial novel published in the 20th century, Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita is described as “a shocking book” by TIME Inc. (1958). After nearly sixty years, society’s views on the fiction do not seem to have changed a lot. Given the fiction’s sensitive topic, Nabokov encountered numerous obstacles in getting Lolita published in America (Boyd, 1991); its publication in China is even more complex. Part of the reason for this lies in the Chinese moral values and the nation’s
The reader of a metafiction raises the question-which is the real world? The ontology of “any fiction is justified/validated/vindicated in the context of various theories of representation in the field of literary art and practice. Among these theories the seminal and the most influential is the mimetic theory. The theory of mimesis (imitation) posits that there is a world out there, a world in which we all live and act, which we call “the real world”. What fiction does (for that matter any art)