The Models of Space, Time and Vision in Vladimir Nabokov's Fiction: Narrative Strategies and Cultural Frames

Because of his rejection of socio-political engagement, Vladimir Nabokov is often regarded as a virtuouso artist of the ivory-tower variety, aloof from the contemporary march of the minds. Marina Grishakova's book, however, points to the relationship between his narrative techniques and some of the scientific, metaphysical, and ethical ideas on the inner agenda of the twentieth century. It connects Nabokov's handling of time, space, and perspective in his fiction with the philosophical models constructed by his contemporaries, also showing in what ways he may have been ahead of his time.

Tartu semiotics, as adapted and updated by Marina Grishakova, proves to be a compatible match with Nabokov's unique "semiotic sensibility".
Brian McHale, The Ohio State University (USA)

This book is essential reading not only for Nabokov specialists, but also for anyone interested in cultural semiotics, narratology, and the processes by which emerging cultural forms become transformed into individual artistic meanings.
Stephen H. Blackwell, University of Tennessee (USA)

In order to analyze the cognitive models constructed in fiction and cinema, the book thoughtfully and confidently combines ideas of Russian Formalism and the Tartu-school literary theory with those of French and Anglophone classical and postclassical narratology.
Leona Toker, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements 9
Introduction 11
Models and metaphors 19
Possible worlds and modeling systems 28
Time, space, and point of view as constitutive elements
of the textual world 40
Nabokov as a writer and a scientist: "natural" and "artificial"
patterns 51
I. The Models of Time 72
The specious present: time as a "hollow" 76
The spiral or the circle: Mary 80
1. Involution and metamorphosis 96
2. The triple dream 99
3. Nietzsche's circle of the eternal return 101
4. Time and double vision in Proust and Nabokov 105
5. Bergson's spiral of memory 108
Tempus reversus 112
Time and eternity: aevum 127
II. The Model of the Observer 134
The observer and the point of view 141
Vision and word: the seat of a semiotic conflict 156
1. H. James: The Turn of the Screw 163
2. V. Nabokov: The Eye 169
3. A. Hitchcock: Rear Window 173
Frame, motion and the observer 177
III. The Models of Vision 187
Automatism and disturbed vision 187
Inhibition and artistic failure 198
Camera obscura 204
Nabokov's visual devices 209
IV. The Doubles and Mirrors 219
V. Multidimensional Worlds 231
The outside and the inside 231
Bend Sinister as a multilayer dream 250
The worlds of seduction: Lolita 273
Conclusion 282
Bibliography 287
Index