Nabokov's Pale Fire: The Magic of Artistic Discovery by Brian Boyd

Review by: Eric Naiman

Slavic Review, Vol. 60, No. 2 (Summer, 2001), pp. 458-459
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Slavic Review

458

here (71), still,his thesisis problematic.Populist "tendencies"in the finalthirdof the

nineteenthcenturywere like "Nietzscheantendencies"in the firstthirdof the twentieth:
nowhere,part of the general discourse,and when pinned down in the pareverywhere,
It is true thatthe growthof populism in Russia cannot be
ticulars,oftencontradictory.
understood withoutMarxism,and that Bakhtin argued against Marxism'slaws as did
Mikhailovskiiand Lavrov.But thisis parallel development,opposition to the same enemies.Brandist'stheme,itappears,is "Bakhtinand RussianPopulism";his thirdtermcould
be anynumberof negated optionsor secondaryinfluences.
The closing essay (and its sole Russian contribution)recapitulatesthe centralyet
phantom role of Marxian thoughtin thisvolume. In "WhatIs Marxismin Linguistics?"
VladimirM. Alpatovsurveysthe schools and concludes thatup throughthe 1930s, "no
specificallyMarxistlinguisticswas constructed"(183). Withthe onset of Stalinismcame
outrightfraud,in the person of Nikolai Marr;in due course thisfraudwas unmasked (in
Stalin's1950 attack on Marrism). But politics,Alpatov insists,is not everything."The
influenceof Marxism,not necessarilyconscious," shaped Russian attitudestowardthe
field.It spared Russian linguists"twoapproaches towardtheirobject of studythatwere
verycommonin the scholarshipofothercountries":"pureempiricism,analysisoffactsfor
the sake of facts"and the inclination"to treatits object of studyas a game" (191). Take
Marxismseriously,Alpatovseems to recommend:it mightnot be true in its particulars,
your specificdisciplinemightnot reap concretewisdomfromit,but it will create good
mentalhabitsand inclineyourquest towardsobrietyand integralknowledge.
Alpatov'sessayis one defenseforwhatotherwisemightappear to be the quixoticorientationof thisanthology.The majorityof its contributorstake Marxismveryseriously
indeed. That tradition-flankedbyitsHegelian predecessorsand "WesternMarxist"successors-is for them an indisputablepivot.But a great deal of theirenergyis then expended tryingto justifyBakhtin'smanifestdeviationsfromthattradition.One wonders
For whatAlpatovstatesof
if another startingpoint mightnot have been more efficient.
ofLanguage(1929/1973) could in factbe apV. N. Voloshinov'sMarxismand thePhilosophy
plied to much in Bakhtin:thatit "scarcelycontradictsMarxism,but neitherdoes it have
anythingto do withit" (182). This is neitherinsultnor censure. It is a commenton the
powerof criticalschools to centerus and to structureour mostearnestattemptsat objectivereasoning-which is itself,of course,a profoundMarxianinsight.
CARYL EMERSON

Princeton
University

Discovery.By Brian Boyd. Princeton:Princeton

Nabokov'sPale Fire: The Magic ofArtistic
Press,1999. xii, 303 pp. Notes. Bibliography.Index. $29.95, hard bound.
University
Hazel did it.For decades scholarshave argued overwho "wrote"PaleFire.Some have suggestedCharlesKinbote (or Botkin),othershave argued forJohnShade. Now Brian Boyd
proposes Shade's dead daughter.
inspirationbehind poem and
Boyd'sinsistencethatHazel's ghostis the otherwordly
commentaryrestson a single,highlytenuous claim. At the poem's end "a darkVanessa
witha crimsonband" fliesaround Shade, warninghim,perhaps,ofimpendingdeath.This
because it has earlierbeen "named"in a coded
has been viewedas otherworldly
butterfly
messagebya pale light-identifiedbyVladimirNabokovand othersas theghostofstrokewas Maud. The
afflictedAunt Maud. In 1981 W. W. Rowe suggestedthat the butterfly
is firstinvokedto describeShade's wife,Sybil,and Boydmustgo througha series
butterfly
contortionsto pin downtheVanessaas Hazel. In Nabokov's
of subtextualand intratextual
spun book, almosteverywordreflectsmanyothers,but Boydwantsto finda single
tightly
not unlike Nabokov's
"solution."As a result,he windsup playinga game of substitutions
"wordgolf."Almostanyimage can lead to Hazel withinfiveor six moves.
Shootinga 200 on the ElysianFields impressesmore than a 20 on a shamefullysimplifiedcourse. Boyd'sargumentis intriguing.I foundmyselfcollectingmore evidence in
his favoreven as I dissentedfromhis centralpremise."Virginshave writtensome resplen-

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459

BookReviews

dentbooks"-the originalemphasis is Sybil'sbut should also be read as hintingat the

reflectiveessence of thenovel'stitle."Itwas no use, no use" Shade writesof his daughter's
maladroitnessin a line meant as a Nabokovianmantraabout the nonutilitariangloryof
to swallow.The Vanessa (The Red AdMIRal, or haris too difficult
art.But the butterfly
VALDa) is so much more obviouslyVN, the "bigger,more respectable,more competent
Gradus,"theauthorwho mustput an end to all his characters'existenceeven as he salutes
and welcomessome of them"home." (The assassin,Gradus,is at one point called a "caricature" of the Vanessa; when he triesto provide a royalistwithKinbote's secretsignan X-he makes instead "an uncertainV-for-Victory
[or Vladimir?]sign,"like "an inshadowgrapher.")Ratherthanlocate artisticinspirationin
competentand half-paralyzed
all itscentralpersonages.
creativepowerto virtually
a singlecharacter,PaleFiredistributes
This is Nabokov'sMurderon theOrientExpress:Everybodydone it. The funlies in discerning how Nabokov markseach "creative"characteras a fingerof the pen's guidinghand.
"Bores... debate the Cause ofPoetryon Channel 8." Boydstressesthe importanceof
signas symbolicof the survivalof charactersinto an
the "lemniscate."He sees thisinfinity
ratherthan as a statementabout the novel's form-an infiniteseriesof reflecafterlife,
of bottomlesslight,
and index, "a triptych
tionsand linkagesamong poem, commentary,
a reallyfantasticmirror."Boydwantsto turnpoetry'sessence,itsform,intoitsplot,to find
a cause forpoetrythatwilliron out the curvesand kinksand make "thewhole involuted,
bogglingthingone beautifulstraightline." The resultis his own,elaborate shadowstory
about how Hazel inspiresfirstthischaracter,thenthatone.
showsthe intenBoyd'sPaleFirewillchange how we read Nabokov's.Boydbrilliantly
sitywithwhichthe threepartsof the novel "recall"one another.His investigationof suibto Nabokov'suse ofAlexander
good is his sensitivity
textsis oftenbreathtaking;
particularly
Pope, Sir WalterScott,JonathanSwift,and T. S. Eliot. (By emphasizingthe presence of
T. S. Eliot in toilets,Nabokov scatologizesTheWasteland.)Occasionally,Boyd stumblesin
his treatmentof importantpredecessors,mostnotablyWilliamRowe and PriscillaMeyer.
(Boyd'sfirstbook contained an anti-Roweappendix,yetRowe's chiefsin seems to have
name exchangedforanother,that
first.Withone four-letter
been playingspot-the-spook
appendix would in manyrespectsread like a critique of the book under review). But
mychieffeelingsupon finishingBoyd'sbook-in fact,thisis a book withwhichdevotees
of Nabokovwillneverbe finished-were immensegratitudeand admiration.Boyd sheds
so much lighton Nabokov,demands so much effortof himself,and is so readyto anticithatmanywill
pate readers' potentialdoubts and the advent of futureinterpretations,
findthe experienceof readinghim exhausting,intoxicating,and empowering.Above all,
Nabokov
' PaleFireis a manifestoforclose reading.There can be no betterrecommendationthanthat.
ERIC NAIMAN

Berkeley
University
ofCalifornia,

The Futurismof VasiliskGnedov.By CrispinBrooks. BirminghamSlavonic Monographs,

of Birmingham,2000. viii,204 pp. Notes.
no. 31. Birmingham,Eng.: The University
Glossary.Index. ? 18.00,paper.
Bibliography.
Gnedovby CrispinBrooksis the firstbook devoted to the studyof
TheFuturismofVasilisk
poet VasiliiIvanovichGnedov (1890-1978). Based on a dissertationby Brooks,the work
is focused on Gnedov'searlywriting(1913-1919) in the contextof Russian modernism.
(68) poems during his lifetime,and he
Gnedov wrote only about fifty"Futurist-style"
years
near the startofhis career.Butwar,revolution,and nearlytwenty
achievednotoriety
removedhim fromthe centerof the artistic
in prisoncamp duringthe purgeseffectively
avant-garde.Only relativelyrecentlyhas attentionagain returnedto Gnedov,both from
poetsin Russia.AlthoughGnedov
scholarsofRussianmodernismand fromcontemporary
his experimentswithnonstandardlanguage bringhis
was a memberof the egofuturists,
AlekseiKruchenykh
workintomeaningfulassociationwiththemoreradicalcubo-futurists
lanand VelimirKhlebnikov.Gnedovdenied thathe was a writerofzaum'or transrational

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