Vladimir Nabokov and the Ideological Aesthetic

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Acknowledgements

This book derives from my doctoral research into Vladimir Nabokov, completed at the University of Glasgow. Thus, it is incumbent on me to first express my gratitude to my academic mentors John Coyle, Andrei Rogatchevski, and above all to Laurence Davies – who not only imparted to me his boundless wealth of knowledge and expertise on literary and philosophical matters, but with whom I shared so many infinitely stimulating and engaging conversations. Without his patience, encouragement, and guidance this book would have been impossible. I would also like to thank the many people I have encountered during my years in academia who have, in their various ways, contributed to my intellectual development. First among them is Elwira Grossman, who so readily gave me encouragement and support in too many ways to count.

To my dear parents, Harry and Manel Dematagoda, and my brothers Susith and Supitha, I owe an immense debt of love and gratitude. During the course of writing this study, my work and research has taken me to St Petersburg, London, Paris, Nice, New York, Strasbourg and Vienna. I am grateful to the vibrant community of international scholars within Nabokov studies who I met at various points in time, and who responded to my work with so much enthusiasm and critical curiosity. Among them are Will Norman, Thomas Karshan, David Rampton, Marijeta Bozovic, Michael Rogers, Leland de la Durantaye, Michael Wood, Eric Naiman, Brian Boyd, Maurice Couturier, whose splendid anecdote about Roland Barthes I shall be recounting for a long time, Jacqueline Hamritt, Sophie Bernard-Leger, Lara Delage-Toriel, Elsa Court, Agnès Edel-Roy, Michael Federspiel, Nathalia Saliba, Julie Loison-Charles, the director of the Nabokov Museum Tatiana Ponomareva, Stephen Blackwell and Roy Groen with whom I experienced the cuisine of St Petersburg for the first time. Special thanks must go to James Bottriell and Genevieve Chevalier who made my time teaching at the University of Nice so enjoyable. I would also like to thank all of the staff at The Berg Collection of English and American ← vii | viii → Literature at the New York Public Library and the Bakhmeteff Collection at Columbia University for assisting me in my archival research, the late Catherine Nepomnyashchy for her correspondence and support, and all of my friends in New York who made me so welcome in their wonderful city.

Throughout these years, my sanity has often been maintained by my close friends who have supported and encouraged my intellectual efforts in countless ways, and with excellent humour. My enduring gratitude goes to Stewart McCarthy, Adam Campbell, Joseph Harris, Andrew Grimes, Jamie Sunderland, Euan McCaulay and Christos Asomatos for all of the laughter they have provided through the years, and for the countless good times which are still forthcoming; and also to Augustin Cambau, whose friendship and intellectual stimulation kept me in high spirits during two years of a sometimes tedious self-imposed exile on the French Riviera.

To paraphrase Nabokov, the course of one’s life is rarely pre-determined in a world which is often a too rapid succession of funerals and fireworks, and just as the ink was beginning to dry on this work, as the dark clouds of uncertainty were beginning to form – a beam of luminous sunlight could be glimpsed on the horizon. For my darling Sarah Bildstein, whose pictures and stones have given me so much hope for the future.

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Note on Transliteration and Translation

For translations of Russian texts, I have adhered mostly to the Library of Congress system without diacritical remarks. To aid readability, I have reverted to the common anglicized spellings of certain Russian names: for example, Dostoevsky and Stanislavsky (instead of Dostoevskii and Stanislavskii) and Meyerhold (instead of Meierkhol’d). In places, the text is given in the original Cyrillic.

For English translations of Nabokov’s own works, I have followed the Standard English translations which the author made or authorized himself. All translations from the Russian and from the French which are my own are indicated as such. ← ix | x →

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Abbreviations

Works by Vladimir Nabokov

Works by Other Authors

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INTRODUCTION