Vladimir Nabokov - Look at the Harlequins!

[pontalba]

"Look at the Harlequins!" by Vladimir Nabokov

 

Theatre of the Absurd. Yes, that is really the first expression that comes to mind when thinking back of this lovely last full novel of Vladimir Nabokov. If "Mary", his first novel was the most straight forward, then "Look at the Harlequins!" has to qualify, not as the most complex, that prize would surely have to go to either "Lolita" or more likely "Pale Fire", but as the funniest take-off of his own life. With allusions to not only his own life, and his novels, this book is richly carpeted with layering upon layering by the Master.

Superficially, it is the story of Vadim Vadimovich N., a Russian-American author with....shock...the same birth year of one Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov. The story of his three, or was it four wives [?], his beloved daughter Belle and various and sundry mistresses along the way. Vadim's dance with Dementia scrolls throughout the book intertwining with wives, books and travels that include a furtive return to his homeland.

I would not recommend this novel to someone that has not read any of Vladimir Nabokov's books mostly because half the enjoyment is in the knowing which facet of his own life or which novel he is paralleling, but if you've read Some, this book is a must.

[Guest Tiresias]

A brilliant book, pontalba, but one that raises lots of questions and demands (for me, at least) several rereads.

 

The narrator's relationship to his daughter, Isabel, obviously has a lot to do with Lolita. I sensed, but by no means resolved, the connection.

 

I was also unsure of how the narrator's madness tied into the pseudo-autobiographical element of the novel since Nabokov was manifestly sane—though a number of his characters (the inimitable Charles Kinbote) are complete nutters.

 

In short, there seemed to be a lot of subtlety playing beneath a surface that I barely scratched.

 

The reread is obligatory, and looked forward to.

[pontalba]

Ahhh, sorry I posted in the Pnin thread before I saw this.

 

Yes, Belle had a great deal to thank Lolita for it's true, and the under cover trip to Russia perhaps was the one VN --- I don't want to say "wished he'd taken", but the trip he was nostalgic about not having taken. Perhaps.

 

I do want to finish VN's books, and reread Harlequins for sure.

It's been a couple of years since I read it and details have faded I am afraid.

[Guest Tiresias]

I read the equally tricky Transparent Things immediately after (or was it before?) Look at the Harlequins! As if matters weren't already complicated enough.

 

Not recommended!

[pontalba]

I read the equally tricky Transparent Things immediately after (or was it before?) Look at the Harlequins! As if matters weren't already complicated enough.

 

Not recommended!

I'm holding off on that one till last.

I read Lolita first, then The Enchanter, um...Pnin then I think and Glory and The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, then decided to work my way from the beginning. But slipped Harlequins in the middle somewhere. I've only read 12 I think.

Oh, have you read the new introduction to Laughter in the Dark by John Banville? Worth the price just for that, of course it's an extra copy.

[Paul]

Ah, you all are into the good ones, where somehow I feel that his imagination is roaming looser and wilder! Harlequins is just wonderful as each woman comes and goes and he teases us to wonder whether this is the one, or else just who she is anyway. Until finally just one more comes along. Transparent Things takes up again his long fascination with the after life in a very cleverly constructed slender story. It is the perfect example that he, the magician, can work his sleight-of-hand close-up in a very small room and still dazzle the audience. I've enjoyed all of his novels, missing only two so far, but these are among the gems, in my opinion.

[Guest Tiresias]

You remember Vadim's strange affliction: He is unable, as he imagines himself walking down the street, to change directions. Instead, he has to rotate the world around the axis of his own point-of-view until where he wants to go is before him.

 

Throughout the novel, I kept raising my eyebrows at his complicated descriptions of this oddity, and seriously wondering where he (Nabokov) was going with it. No plot spoilers here, but the way Nabokov sets up and then deploys this device to bring the theme of dementia to its climax is one of the high points of the novel. Just brilliant.

[pontalba]

Yes , but I think what I loved about it was the suspense of hmmm, is that 3 or 4 wives, and his working a Vera figure into the book. Really in a way she was throughout the book, but I'm speaking of the end now.

[Guest Tiresias]

Nabokov never says much about his wife, but the inevitable "to Vera" opening almost every one of his books speaks volumes.

 

The Surrealists said, "A pram in the hallway is the enemy of art," just as Francis Bacon before them had called a wife and children, "hostages to fortune, for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief."

 

But there are a number of great writers who had stalwart marriages and staid domestic lives. Nabokov had his Vera, Joyce his Nora, and Robert Musil his Martha. (In music, Bach takes the cake, having achieved his truly prolific output among a unbelievable brood of 20 children!)

Edited August 3, 2008 by Tiresias

[pontalba]

In a BBC interview the interviewer asked Nabokov if he could say how much Vera had contributed to his work, he answered "No." I took that to mean that she had contributed so very much that he could not possibly enumerate her input.

If you don't have it already, I'd highly recommend Brian Boyd's two volume bio of VN, one covers the "Russian Years", and the second the "American Years", I purchased them second hand on Amazon several years ago at a very reasonable rate, in the trade paperback edition.

 

In addition to an extensive bio, they contain a comprehensive synopsis and analysis of each of VN's books.

[Ben Mines]

In a BBC interview the interviewer asked Nabokov if he could say how much Vera had contributed to his work, he answered "No." I took that to mean that she had contributed so very much that he could not possibly enumerate her input.

If you don't have it already, I'd highly recommend Brian Boyd's two volume bio of VN, one covers the "Russian Years", and the second the "American Years", I purchased them second hand on Amazon several years ago at a very reasonable rate, in the trade paperback edition.

 

In addition to an extensive bio, they contain a comprehensive synopsis and analysis of each of VN's books.

 

Have you read Boyd's analysis of Pale Fire?

[pontalba]

Have you read Boyd's analysis of Pale Fire?

Not yet, I have it and am saving it for when I finally read Pale Fire. I understand it is most helpful. Have you?

[Ben Mines]

Not yet, I have it and am saving it for when I finally read Pale Fire. I understand it is most helpful. Have you?

 

No, but I am aware of his premise. Using a cryptological analysis, Boyd tries to prove that the novel is not written by Charles Kinbote nor even by John Shade under the pseudonym of Kinbote but Shade's dead daughter from beyond the grave.

 

Having read Pale Fire, this seems a little strained to me, though I suppose there is a precedent for something of the kind in the short story The Vane Sisters.

[sirinrob]

Like pontalba im working my way through the Master's books. Read all of the russian ones - bar 2 which I'm still trying to get hold of 'Defense' and 'The eye'. Now moving onto the American ones, once i get over my obsession of rereading the 'The Gift'

 

In fact I have read 'The Real Life of sebastian Knight' and 'Bend Sinster' so 'Lolita' next up. From whats been said in this thread cant wait to get to 'Transparent Things' and 'Look at the Harlequins'