Review: Andrei Bely's Petersburg

A child of the intelligentsia, Andrei Bely (1880-1934) sought not only through scholarship, but also poetry and prose, to expound new artistic ideals based on the Russian Symbolist movement, which touted a return to an ostensible yet eternal past in the face of a decaying Western culture; rejected the narrow logic of materialism and utilitarianism; dabbled in Russian Orthodox-ism and cultural messianism; and foretold a coming apocalypse. Themes which are all touched on in Petersburg.

Aesthetically, Russian Symbolism emphasized the emotional effect symbols, not just as a metaphor for something else, but also the subconscious link they have with the reader: 'Symbolism is the poetry of suggestion, designed to create a mood and awaken a response by means of coded references to exotic subjects and associative thinking', wrote Valery Bryusov, an early practitioner of Russian Symbolism.

Symbolism thus positioned itself as a wholly new and independent literary movement -- that is, an avant garde one -- in so far as it presented an encompassing philosophy and worldview and was experimental in form.

Published in 1916, Bely's Petersburg, was largely written off by the Russian literary establishment for its restless, disjointed plot structure and obscure references; for these same reasons, it subsequently garnered much attention and praise in academia. Nabokov, moreover, put it on par with the best Joyce, Kafka and Proust had to offer, helping cement its status as a 20th Century prose masterpiece.

Petersburg is largely inaccessible to the casual reader, though. There is also the problem of translation, given Bely's propensity for wordplay. I got hold of the latest translation of the novel by John Elsworth, and while it is mostly readable, there are many passages that are completely lost. One involves a fascinating discussion on the absence of the Russian "ы" sound (that is roughly speaking "ее", as in "feet"; though no exact English equivalent exists) in the phonology of the civilized nations of Europe.

Despite its complexity however, there are a few interpretive approaches that might help anchor the reader as they make their way through an admittedly arduous text. One is viewing it within the context of Russia's place between West and East. Bely presents Russia as an inherently Asiatic culture that was artificially Europeanized, for which the city of Petersburg stands as a monumental symbol.

Another way of understanding the novel is as a play on consciousness. The interplay, merging even, of physical reality, consciousness and subconsciousness in and between the various characters make up some of the most alluring passages in the novel, forming the aesthetic plane over which the plot meticulously unfolds. For Bely, thoughts think themselves, consciousness 'expands, ехpands, expands', dreams represent an astral journey.

Lastly, we might view Bely's novel within the larger context of Russian lit. Bely begins each chapter by quoting Pushkin; his characters are absurd to Gogolian proportions; the setting itself, Petersburg, has a surreal quality, in keeping with the mythology of the old capital. We might add to the list the sense of Russia's impending collapse at the hands of orientals that was popular in the literature of the period; the metaphor of the Mongol invasion of Russia is prevalent throughout Petersburg.

Those searching for political and/or social commentary will be somewhat disappointed, though the ideology of political terrorism is curiously summarized at one point in the text:

the era of historically outlived humanism was at an end, and all cultural history stood before us now like an eroded ruin: a period of healthy bestialism was beginning (hooliganism, the riotous behavior of the apaches)… [they] advocated the burning of libraries, universities, and museums [and] the summoning of the Mongols. 

Despite the fact that the plot revolves around a brainy social misfit's attempt at killing his father, a high-ranking government official, with a bomb given to him by a terrorist group, and its setting is a Petersburg amidst political revolution, the novel is mostly apolitical. In fact, you'll find just as much if not more attention paid to the complexities and tumults of familial relations. The novel's most touching and beautiful passage involves a poetic description of the faint cry of cranes flying over Petersburg as a metaphor for recalling one's childhood.

Which ultimately make Petersburg such a frustrating read -- none of the novel's themes are developed to the extent as to unite it under a single idea, philosophy, worldview, things which in Petersburg are always fleeting or contradictory. For some it wouldn't be going too far out on a limb to say that this was taken into account by Bely; that the text's fragmented structure is a reflection of the divided, multiplicitous nature of our existence, which take on many different forms in Petersburg (here we see yet another interpretive fold). But not for me.

Nevertheless, Petersburg is probably a worthwhile read for most interested in all things Russian, especially those with post-modern tastes.

Back to school: MGIMO

Symbol of University and
"International Law Faculty"
written below

You learn a lot about a culture by experiencing its educational system -- in my case, it's system of higher education --

Uni: Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO)
Faculty: International Law
Program: Masters in International Law (3yrs)
First semester classes (Sept-Dec): Roman Law (3hrs per week), History of Russian State and Law (3hrs per week), History of State and Law of Foreign Countries (3hrs per week), Theory of State and Law (3hrs per week)

First, a bit about the University. I originally looked in to going to Moscow State University (MGU), the biggest, most well-known university in the country, whose campus occupies the Stalinist skyscraper sitting atop Sparrow Hills overlooking Moscow, but an acquaintance of mine directed me toward MGIMO upon hearing my plans. MGIMO is smaller and more focused than MGU, from which it broke off in the years leading up to the end of WWII to train specialists in foreign affairs. To this effect, it was used as a kind of feeder program to the KGB. Today, it's prestige has wained -- more a result, I suppose, of the general decline of the educational system in Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union, than anything else. Nevertheless, despite it's lack of international recognition (it's ranked in the 400s) -- and which, to its defense, is mainly due to the fact a big majority of the university's publications are in Russian, not English -- there are many in the country, who regard it "the best" in Russia, at least as far as international studies are concerned.

Main entrance to MGIMO campus on Prospekt Vernadskogo

For me, it makes sense because it's in Moscow, where I live and work, it's cheaper than American law schools, MUCH CHEAPER, and should open up some interesting opportunities here in Moscow, where I want to continue to live and work, IF I manage to meet the requirements of the Program. Plus, believe it or not, Russian government and law is a field I'm more or less interested in.

I'll spare the reader a detailed description of the application process, which was done within a 3-month period last summer. Shortly speaking, it was relatively easy and involved submission of my transcripts and an english test, which was obviously waived in my case. The only hurdle I met was getting my American diploma confirmed by the Russian Ministry of Education, involving a lot of paperwork and translating. Suffice to say, the program accepted about 20 students, 17 of which were young women.

Me in class

Classes started in the middle of September --  for me Monday and Wednesday from 4:00pm to 10pm, though the other students had an extra 6hrs a week of legal english on Tuesday and Thursday. Classes were lecture-based with intermittent seminars and only recommended supplementary literature, no assigned readings, meaning taking notes was of foremost importance. This was difficult for me, given my level of Russian, and the first half of the semester I understood very little of what was said by the professor, especially in Roman Law and History of State and Law of Russia. But my comprehension skills eventually improved and by the end of the course I understood almost everything, but was still unable to take notes effectively in class. Thankfully, my classmates sent me their own upon request, and it didn't end up being a big problem.

Unfortunately, the class structure was poorly organized compared to American universities, where the syllabus and in most cases lecture notes are posted online by the professor. Professors were also relatively inaccessible outside of lectures -- office hours and in most cases even contact info were not made known to the students. Indeed, we were only told our schedule and exactly which courses we were taking a week or so before the start of the course! However, while the university lacks organization compared to American universities, the general quality and professionalism of the professors was very high, especially my professors for Roman Law, Alexander Kopylov, and History of Russian State and Law, Konstantin Karpenko. It's also worth noting that the staff of the faculty are also very helpful.

The classes were also generally quite interesting. Roman Law was extremely interesting,  as well as History of State and Law of Russa, covering the whole of Russian history from Kievan Rus' to the Soviet Union --  learning old Russian legal terms was fun in a bookish sort of way. I also got a lot out of my term paper -- a 30-pager in Russian -- on Russian Federalism, which is a fascinating, truly complex and challenging topic. I hope to rewrite it in English, as the Russian version is of admittedly of poor quality, given the time constraint and language barrier, and subsequently submit it to a few academic journals.

Lastly, a bit about the exams, a very nerve-wracking experience for me, as the format was entirely new to me. Exams in Russia involve a list of questions, in our case anywhere from 50-80, distributed to students a month or so before the exam. On exam day, which Russians call "session", students gather nervously around the auditorium and enter five or so at a time. Students subsequently draw "tickets", on which are written two questions. Students have about 30min to prepare answers, after which they are dictated ORALLY to the professor. After this, the professor asks additional questions, in many cases, questions completely unrelated to those written on the ticket. The oral part of the exam lasts about 5-10 minutes.

A test, not an exam; "don't copy" written on the board

I was surprised to discover that some Russian students invariably  copy their answers from their mobile devices during the preparation part of the exam, and in many cases, right in front of the professors! Moreover, this is often apparent to the professors, who as a result, ask more difficult questions and in some cases relate very rudely to the student. Nevertheless, this type of behavior is more or less accepted, by students and professors, alike. For example, a student who is passively detected copying by the professor, but answers the additional questions correctly (after dictating their copied ones) can expect a high score. On the other hand, a student who is assumed by the professor as not copying -- either out of laziness or in very rare cases, a sense of honesty, fairness and respect for themselves and their professor (tongue in cheek) -- can, at least in the latter case, expect a high score even without answering their prepared questions fully. The professor's overall impression of the student from classes and seminars also plays a role in this. In other words, it's all very subjective (but when isn't it?), and a few students invariably leave sessions with a profound sense of injustice and disillusionment (but when don't they?). This, fortunately, was not the case for me -- I more or less "deserved" every score I received from the professors. It's also worth noting that students have a right to one retake of their exam in cases of perceived "injustice" or failing to pass.

Second Semester Classes (Feb-May): Philosophy of Law, History of the Methodology of Legal Sciences, History of Political Studies, Civil Law, Administrative Law, Constitutional Law of Russia

From exile in Riga: a review of Part I of Gogol's Dead Souls

It has been claimed that among 19th-Century Russia's many major and minor literary accomplishments, three stand out above all: Pushkin's Evgeny Onegin ('25), Gogol's Dead Souls ('42) and Tolstoy's Anna Karenina ('73). Gogol's is the only one of the troika I have not read to date.

I have come across an older English translation of Dead Souls by a Bostonian academic, Isabel F. Hapgood (1851-1928), though unfortunately not the latest Donald Rayfield version. To her credit, Hapgood wrote numerously and expansively on Russian lit and even took a trip to the country where she met Tolstoy, depicted in her otherwise rather trivial Russian Ramblings.

But what of Gogol (1809-1852) himself? Born and raised in Ukraine of the minor gentry, he moved to Saint Petersburg at the age of 19 in search of literary fame, achieving it shortly after, writing a collection of short stories on his homeland. There he met Pushkin, who gave him the premise for Dead Souls and was written about in the major literary journals before he left for Europe in 1836, where he lived in between short, cumbersome stays in Russia until 1848. During this period, Gogol published his most important works -- The Govt. Inspector ('36), Dead Souls and The Overcoat ('42) -- which cemented his status as champion of Russian prose and satirist of unmistakable insight and wit. And, like Pushkin before him, he died in a duel.

Some, perhaps mistakenly, have viewed Gogol's work generally and Dead Souls in particular, through the prism of the author's critique of the poshlost' (a kind of vulgar banalism) of Russian officialdom; and his artform as an important precursor to that giant Russian mid 19th-Century literary movement that occupies the title Realism. While this may be the case, these are not the most interesting things going on in Gogol land; instead they are his demonic yet enchanting portrait of Russia and the absurd cast of caricatures and situations he employs to convey which.


The plot is simple enough: a middling chinovnik (civil servant) and aspiring pomeshchik (landowner), Chichikov, travels to a Russian town seeking to purchase dead serfs from its inhabitants, so that he can take out a mortgage against them (as they are, according to Russian custom, not removed from the census postmortem and therefore still "legal" subjects). Through this, Chichikov, the very embodiment of poshlost', is confronted by a host of deranged landowners, as he goes about his business.


There is much in this alone for even the most superficial reader to gnaw on: from the Russian provincialisms -- aloof landlords and lazy serfs, traditional Russian cuisine detailed painstakingly, extravagant balls, self-assured bureaucrats -- to the author's own musings on Russianness as well as humanity itself. And this is not done without a sense of irony, either. Indeed, it is not for nothing Dead Souls has been described as the funniest Russian novel of the Century: "a large three-storey building of stone [that is, the provincial courthouse], and all white as chalk, in allusion, probably, to the purity of soul of the public offices which were lodged within it" [Hapgood translation].


Yet Gogol doesn't just present an indictment of Russia in Dead Souls, but also a skewed sort of celebration of it, elevated to poetic heights by the beauty and lyricism of his prose:

As he [Chichikov] drove up to the porch [of the Sobakavich Estate] he noticed two faces that appeared at the window almost at the same time: a woman's in a cap, thin, long, like a cucumber, and a man's, round, broad, like Moldavian pumpkins, called 'gorlyankami', from which they make Russian balalaikas, two-stringed, light balalaikas, the adornment and delight of a twenty year-old country fellow, playfully winking and whistling at white-chested white-necked gals, gathered round to hear the delicate twang of his string [my translation].

Out of nowhere, Gogol releases rather ecstatically this running metaphor, depicting not only the the obscene Sobakaviches, but also a glorious Russian provincial scene. This, moreover, is an example of what Nabokov described as, "the remarkable phenomenon [in Gogol] of mere forms of speech directly giving rise to live creatures". Such 'lyrical outbursts', as Nabokov called them, as well as the 'creatures' that punctuate them, give the text an eerie, otherworldly quality, which mirrors that of thоsе dead souls, whose presence is felt throughout, either through Chichikov's business dealings or in his contemplations on what kinds of lives they may have once led (which take up some of the most interesting moments of the novel).

But let's not spend too much time on Chichikov's dead souls, themselves, however fantastic a device through which they allow the author to develop his protagonist they may be. Because Gogol has also touched on one of those eternal aspects of the "Russian condition". That is, the repulsion, yet at the same time edification, that Russia seems to produce within her subjects. Of course, Chichikov, at least in Part I of Dead Souls, is an extreme example of the former.

Chichikov is not only a repulsive character himself, 'a hole in humanity', as Gogol put it, but also repulsed by his surroundings. Indeed, his Russia is drab, drunken and run-down, full of corruption and injustice. And he blames this, despite the hopelessness of his plan and the half-assed manor in which he carries it out, for his failures. Yet Chichikov seems also to be drawn, even enlivened, by his perverse existence:

Rus! Rus! I see you from my lovely enchanted remoteness I see you: a country of dinginess and bleakness and dispersal... nothing in you can charm and seduce the eye. So what is the incomprehensible secret force driving me towards you? Why do I constantly hear the echo of your mournful song as it is carried from sea to sea throughout your entire expanse? Tell me the secret of your song. What is this, calling and sobbing and plucking at my heart? What are these sounds that are both a stab and a kiss, why do they come rushing into my soul and fluttering about my heart? Rus! Tell me what you want of me! What is the strange bond secretly uniting us? Why do you look at me thus, and why has everything you contain turned upon me eyes full of expectancy [Nabokov translation]?

This, anyways, was where Gogol planned to take his protagonist in Part II of Dead Souls. That is, to redeem him according to peculiarly Russian notions of humanity, things we see only glimpses of in Part I. Gogol was plagued into his later years by this very question: how to produce revelation and ultimately redemption within a character where such things in the reality in which he lives are always fleeting, if not wholly illusory, confined and abstracted to those 'lyrical outbursts', Nabokov spoke of. And for this reason, Gogol was never able to meaningfully, much less artistically, reconcile his protagonist along these lines.

As it stands, however, the uncompromising and poetic Part I of Dead Souls, with its biting social satire and wit, colorful descriptions of Russian provincial life and аn abundance of Gogolian absurdities and quirks, is a monumental literary statement.

Summer Reading: Figes' Crimea

The Crimea has a facinating history dating back hundreds of years. Italian city-states sprinkled its shores in the 14th and 15th Centuries and before that the Greeks. The Mongols and Turks followed the Italians, until the Russians claimed it for themselves in the 18th and 19th Centuries. Today, it is the center of Ukraine's tourist industry, from which travellers return with tales of its high concentration of beautiful, long-legged blondes (more on that later in another post, I hope).

Sevastopol, sitting on the southernmost tip of the Crimea, is a "strategically important naval point", according to Wiki, and currently home to Russia's Black Sea Fleet (an area of current friction between Russia and Ukraine). It was also famously the site of the truly epic Siege of Sevastopol, in which Franco-Brit forces shelled the hell out of the city over the course of a year, beginning in Sept. 1854, resulting in hundreds of thousands of casualties and precipitating Russia's rather resounding defeat in the Crimean War, reshaping Europe (and Russia) for years to come -- the centerpiece of Englishman Orlando Figes' Crimea, published in 2010.

Figes, I might add, is a real peice of work; upon the release of Crimea he was caught anonomously bashing the work of his collegues on Amazon while praising his own.There's more  -- something about Figes having his wife take the blame for it, at least initially -- but let's stop there.

Pushing fifty years old, Figes is a first-rate historian of Russia, having written on numerous topics and employing a range of historical genres. He's versatile, respected within his field (at least his work), a decent writer (something rare in academia), and more or less well-known, at least by those with a passive interest in all things Russian -- in short, a popular historian of real pedigree. With Crimea, he builds on this reputation.

The most interesting thing to Figes about the Crimean war seems to be the influence mass media had on the conflict in especially Britain, but also France. He makes the point very convincingly that the media pressured Britain into taking more agressive action against the 'Russian menace' in support of the helpless, reform-minded Turks.

This being in stark contrast to Tsarist Russia, which was driven into the conflict, according to Figes, in support of its Orthodox subjects within the Turkish Empire, the author's other area of interest, and for which one can blame the somewhat midleading second part of the title: The Last Crusade.

For the Crimean War was not primarily a religious war but a strategic one. The Western powers both had interests in weakening the power of Russia in order to remove a barrier to progress in building reliable commercial and political ties in the East -- part of the greater politics of the Great Game. They also had an interest in undermining Russian influence in Europe, which coincided with (failed) plans to destroy its position in Poland and the Baltic Sea.

Russia on the other hand, would have greatly benefited from consolidating its position in the Black Sea and the Caucasus while crushing Turkey (a historical enemy) in the process. Figes is smart in avoiding the complicated politics of the Great Game however, and painting the war as a religious conflict, as to do otherwise would have bogged down the narrative.

And the vast bulk of the narrative deals with the campaign itself, starting with Russia's failed invasion of Turkish-controlled Romania, which was supported by British and French troops and flanked to the west by hostile Austrian troops in Serbia, in the Fall of 1853. After Russia's retreat in the Summer of 1854, it deals with the devestating allied offensive against Sevestopol later that Fall, in which hundreds of thousands were killed in battle and from disease over the course of a year.

While not a fan of military history myself, Figes paints a colorful picture of the various battles and especially the blunders in a relatively balanced manner. Though I much enjoyed McCullogh's tactical and logistical approach in describing the first year of America's campaign against Britain in 1776, Figes' focus on the experience of regulars in the British, French and Russian armies gives an interesting glimpse into the everyday life of the soldier. Social history is after all in fashion in history departments as well as bookstores across the English-speaking world and Figes' Crimea is no exception. 

I can't think of any serious criticism for Figes here. Sure, I would've preferred greater focus on the diplomatic aspects of the conflict. Perhaps more on the reaction to the war in Russian civil society as well. But on the whole, it is a well-rounded, informative, positioned and even facinating account, especially given the rather oblique subject-matter.

More Nabokov: a review of Pale Fire

Nabokov's Pale Fire was published in 1962, the same year Kubrick-directed Lolita hit theaters -- a big year for the controversial author: a follow up to Lolita (1955) and a film, which he helped adapt from book form, directed by an important American director.

Though garnering national attention, neither the book nor the film faired particularly well commercially or critically upon their initial release. By now, some 50 years later, they have comfortably reached classic status.

Moreover, Pale Fire has not only been hailed Nabokov's best, but also a 20th-Century masterpiece.

The book is centered around a 999-line poem, Pale Fire, written by an imagined American poet, whose forward, commentary, and index, composed by a demented exiled King from a made-up land, form the narrative. The crux: this King is obsessed with the Poet and seeks through his bizarre, self-serving commentary to imbue his own life on a poem that is clearly about the dead author's.

The structure is pretentious, but it works on many levels, allowing Nabokov a new and interesting medium to explore his themes. It's also sparked an ongoing debate among scholars/Nabokaphiles over authorship -- the obviously crazy King, who may or may not actually be a king, does not present a reliable narrative, leading to claims that the entire text was written by one person: either the King or the Poet. (Suffice it to say there is evidence for both interpretations.)

For the bookish then, the novel's post-modernist structure, which is infinitely layered, open to any number of interpretations; its multi-lingual wordplay (which I didn't spend too much time delving into this go around); and its various allusions to the poetics of Romance-era Europe, is where Pale Fire's beauty and mystery lie.

For the first timer, the novel offers a suspenseful murder mystery -- much of the narrative is dedicated to the murder of the Poet, coinciding with the completion (or near completion rather) of what was to be his last poem at the hands of an assassin from the King's homeland (who evidently mistakes the Poet for the King himself). A dazzling portrait of said homeland, Novaya Zembla, a kind of Russo-Scandinavian monarchy, and the King's daring escape from it during a revolution. As well as a touching glimpse at the life of an endearing poet from a small college town in Appalachia.

In short, the novel comes highly recommended. Sure it takes skipping back and forth between the poem and the commentary, which takes a bit of time to get used to, but offers enough suspense and romance to keep the (passive) reader involved.

There has been debate whether the poem, which is a kind of autobiography of the Poet and his life-long struggle at understanding the meaning of life and death, stands on its own as a significant work of art. It certainly has its moments and definitely deserves a reread, but to my mind it's the surrounding narrative which brings it to life, serving as its counterpoint, and at times to absolutely wonderful affect. Indeed where the King is decadent and disdainful, antisocial and egocentric, qualities which bleed through his magnificent prose; the Poet is heartfelt, whose lines are imbued with a sense of both hope and despair, love and loss.

At 300 pages the novel is also short, compared to say Ada, which it over twice that. And manages to do a lot in relatively little space, though unfortunately doesn't offer as much sex as Ada or Lolita, a theme Nabokov does so well with. The King's homosexuality is played with, even poked fun at, and his not infrequent allusions to the sexuality of 'Zemblan mountain women' are hilarious, but compared to the aforementioned, Pale Fire is rather dry in this regard. My only complaint.

Summer Reading: Pt. 3-5 of Ada or Ardor: a Family Chronicle

What might be considered the climax of Ada or Ardor is not the discovery of Van and Ada's affair by their father Demon (and their subsequent separation) at the end of Pt. II, but the tragic suicide of the former's younger half-sister Lucette on a cruise ship headed for America at the end of Pt. III, in which her last hours were spent with Van, whom she unsuccessfully tried to seduce. This is the most emotionally testing scene in an otherwise rather emotionless Novel.

Lucette's death is tragic for two reasons: (I) because her unstable psychological state is directly the result of Van and Ada's affair, in which Lucette was entangled at a very young age; and (II) because in one of the very few instances in the novel when Van shows something bordering on self-restraint, it immediately backfires. Though, I suppose the latter point is less tragic than it is ironic, Nabokov's views on morality in a nutshell:

In other more deeply moral worlds than this pellet of muck, there might exist restraints, principles, transcendental consolations, and even a certain pride in making happy someone one does not not really love; but on this planet Lucettes are doomed. 

Pt. IV consists of a drawn-out though at times compelling ramble on Van's ideas about time and space, their relation, and so on, in light of his drafting of The Texture of Time (1922), which was to become his greatest literary success. Again, Nabokov expert Brian Boyd in his book Nabokov's Ada (2003) believes Van's ideas about time and space inform the narrative structure of the entire novel, which is, as I noted earlier, an act of remembrance, a kind of piecing-together of the past. Boyd gives plenty of evidence to support this claim, and I think he's partly right, but the link between the two is far from absolute. Nevertheless, it is a good counter to claims that the theme of time, remembrance, whatever you want to call it, is mere fluff -- beautifully constructed sentences and nothing more.

The last part of Ada or Ardor is also rather touching. Here we see Ada and Van in old age, together, happy, or least settled and still very much in love. It certainly doesn't tie together, nor does it attempt to, Ada or Ardor's various themes, which are many, leaving it very much open to interpretation. The last page of the memoir, written by Ada after her life-long partner's death, is especially beautiful, perhaps even telling:

Ardis Hall -- the Ardors and Arbors of Ardis -- this [Ada and Van's childhood romance at their father's country estate] is the leitmotiv rippling through Ada, an ample and delightful chronicle whose principal part is staged in dream-bright America… Nothing in World literature, save maybe Count Tolstoy's reminiscences, can vie in pure joyousness and Arcadian innocence with the 'Ardis' part of the book...

I also like the reference to Tolstoy, who is present in one way or another throughout the entire novel, as many, including Boyd, have also noted. After all, the opening lines of Ada and Ardor are taken right out of those of Anna Karenina (1877), which Nabokov revered. Of course, the two are similar only in form, not content.

In the Spring of 1967, Alfred Appel, Jr. interviewed Nabokov, who was by then almost 'half-way' finished with Ada, at the latter's estate in Switzerland. In it Nabokov described the project, which had merged with another he had had in mind called The Texture of Time, as "about passionate, hopeless, rapturous sunset love, with swallows darting beyond the stained window and the radiant shiver." Take from that what you will. Nabokov always described his work in a non-chalant, even esoteric, manner. Perhaps he really did believe that the primary objective of the novelist was to take the reader into another realm of existence where the human passions weren't subdued by the reality of day-to-day life. At the very least, Nabokov accomplishes this with Ada.

Summer Reading: Part II of Ada or Ardor: a Family Chronicle

Alfred Appel, Jr. titled his review of Ada or Ardor, writing for The New York Times, "An Erotic [emphasis added] Masterpiece That Explores the Nature of Time (1969)." A sizable bulk of Part I describes in play-by-play detail, often very compellingly, Ada and Van's various 'fondlings,' 'thrusts' and 'convulsions' (a few other favorites of Nabokov's) as well as the various ways in which they managed to elude, cunningly as well as cruelly, especially in the case of their younger sister Lucette, unwanted company. At certain points such meanderings might certainly be described as 'erotic,' to use Appel's adjective, perhaps even (pedo-)pornographic, depending on your outlook: "Her breasts were pretty, pale and plump [speaking on Ada's maturation], but somehow he [Van] preferred the little soft swellings of the earlier girl with their formless dull buds."

I don't find anything morally reprehensible about this per se, neither because it involves frank sexual discussion of a one's sister nor because it shows preference for her prepubescent or 'nymphetic,' to use a typically Nabokovian expression, composition. But if such discussion, even if detached from reality, for Antiterra is far from our own reality (though not too far), offends or seems to compromise the artistic integrity of an otherwise brilliant work, than the reader should be forewarned, because Part II presents even more such moral dilemmas and in an even more decadent manner. There is for instance the very detailed description of the rise and fall of a global chain of gentlemen's brothels, of which Van was a frequenter in his youthful years, that may or may not have inspired Stanley Kubrick's own kind of sexual fantasyland in Eyes Wide Shut (1999). And there is also the love triangle that is illuminated between Ada, Van and their (half-)sister Lucette only hinted at in Part I.

But we should not fixate on the rather tired and (con)tested role of what I clumsily referred to as 'forbidden love' in my commentary on the first section of the writer of Lolita's later works. Not because I don't think it plays a central role, either as a literary device or a larger commentary on sex in modern (American) society (or both), in Lolita (1955) and here again in Ada, because I have a hunch that it does. But because it takes away from the many other interesting though less controversial things Nabokov does (or tries to do) as an author here. What exactly are these? Well there are quite a few.

We have already briefly touched on the instability of the narrative in relation to time, which we remember is in the form of a memoir, and how this relates to the author's own ideas about the nature of time and the act of piecing together the past. Nabokov expert Brian Boyd's study Nabokov's Ada (2001) into the matter even goes so far as to say that the act of remembrance is embedded into the narrative itself; that we as readers are invited to experience this act along with narrator. We will stop here. Suffice it to say, that the form of the novel is every bit as important as its content and that this is just one of many alluring aspects of the novel.

So I suppose Appel's description of Ada or Ardor quoted above is more or less spot on (I've heard the term 'ADULT fairytale' thrown around the blogosphere as well, which I also kind of like) -- what more, after all, could it possibly be than exactly this? I guess we'll have to wait and see.