Nabokov, History and the Texture of Time

Fiction & Literature, Literary Theory & Criticism, American, Nonfiction, History, Americas, United States, 20th Century
Cover of the book Nabokov, History and the Texture of Time by Will Norman, Taylor and Francis
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Will Norman ISBN: 9781136264351
Publisher: Taylor and Francis Publication: October 2, 2012
Imprint: Routledge Language: English
Author: Will Norman
ISBN: 9781136264351
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Publication: October 2, 2012
Imprint: Routledge
Language: English

This book argues that the apparent evasion of history in Vladimir Nabokov’s fiction conceals a profound engagement with social, and therefore political, temporalities. While Nabokov scholarship has long assumed the same position as Nabokov himself — that his works exist in a state of historical exceptionalism — this study restores the content, context, and commentary to Nabokovian time by reading his American work alongside the violent upheavals of twentieth-century ideological conflicts in Europe and the United States. This approach explores how the author’s characteristic temporal manipulations and distortions function as a defensive dialectic against history, an attempt to salvage fiction for autonomous aesthetics. Tracing Nabokov’s understanding of the relationship between history and aesthetics from nineteenth-century Russia through European modernism to the postwar American academy, the book offers detailed contextualized readings of Nabokov’s major writings, exploring the tensions, fissures, and failures in Nabokov’s attempts to assert aesthetic control over historical time. In reading his response to the rise of totalitarianism, the Holocaust, and Cold War, Norman redresses the commonly-expressed admiration for Nabokov’s heroic resistance to history by suggesting the ethical, aesthetic, and political costs of reading and writing in its denial. This book offers a rethinking of Nabokov’s location in literary history, the ideological impulses which inform his fiction, and the importance of temporal aesthetics in negotiating the matrices of modernism.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

This book argues that the apparent evasion of history in Vladimir Nabokov’s fiction conceals a profound engagement with social, and therefore political, temporalities. While Nabokov scholarship has long assumed the same position as Nabokov himself — that his works exist in a state of historical exceptionalism — this study restores the content, context, and commentary to Nabokovian time by reading his American work alongside the violent upheavals of twentieth-century ideological conflicts in Europe and the United States. This approach explores how the author’s characteristic temporal manipulations and distortions function as a defensive dialectic against history, an attempt to salvage fiction for autonomous aesthetics. Tracing Nabokov’s understanding of the relationship between history and aesthetics from nineteenth-century Russia through European modernism to the postwar American academy, the book offers detailed contextualized readings of Nabokov’s major writings, exploring the tensions, fissures, and failures in Nabokov’s attempts to assert aesthetic control over historical time. In reading his response to the rise of totalitarianism, the Holocaust, and Cold War, Norman redresses the commonly-expressed admiration for Nabokov’s heroic resistance to history by suggesting the ethical, aesthetic, and political costs of reading and writing in its denial. This book offers a rethinking of Nabokov’s location in literary history, the ideological impulses which inform his fiction, and the importance of temporal aesthetics in negotiating the matrices of modernism.

More books from Taylor and Francis

Cover of the book Globalization, Marginalization and Development by Will Norman
Cover of the book Ebenezer Hazard, Jeremy Belknap and the American Revolution by Will Norman
Cover of the book The Sociology of Educational Ideas by Will Norman
Cover of the book Gene Editing, Law, and the Environment by Will Norman
Cover of the book The End of Cool Japan by Will Norman
Cover of the book Long-Term Governance for Social-Ecological Change by Will Norman
Cover of the book Russia's Chechen War by Will Norman
Cover of the book Mega-events and Urban Image Construction by Will Norman
Cover of the book Land Reform in Developing Countries by Will Norman
Cover of the book A Survey of Modern English by Will Norman
Cover of the book In Sensible Judgement by Will Norman
Cover of the book Leadersights by Will Norman
Cover of the book Martin Chuzzlewit (RLE Dickens) by Will Norman
Cover of the book Johann Friedrich Blumenbach by Will Norman
Cover of the book IBSS: Political Science: 2002 Vol.51 by Will Norman
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy