Nabokov, ou le vrai et l'invraisemblable
by Jeff Edmunds
page two of twelve

Sartre, Jean-Paul. “Vladimir Nabokov: La Méprise,” Europe, June 15, 1939, pp. 240-49; rpt. in Situations I (Paris: Gallimard, 1947), pp. 58-61.

The laconic title of this brief review is apt, for méprise in French signifies “mistake” in the sense of “misapprehension.” Sartre faults Nabokov for pointlessly parodying the narrative techniques of his predecessors (principally Dostoevsky) without offering his readers anything better in their stead. Whereas Dostoevsky believes in his characters, “Nabokov ne croit pas aux siens, ni d’ailleurs à l’art romanesque” [Nabokov doesn’t believe in his, nor, moreover, in the art of the novel]—a comment which demonstrates how inastute a reader of fiction the 33-year old Sartre could be. He allows that “cet auteur a beaucoup de talent” [this author has a good deal of talent], but begrudges him his déracinement: because he belongs to no society, Nabokov is constrained “à traiter, en langue anglaise, des sujets gratuits” [to tackling, in English, gratuitous subjects].3 As Christine Raguet-Bouvart notes in her introduction to the 1995 issue of Europe devoted to Nabokov, Sartre manages, despite his “aveuglement critique” [critical blindness] to note a significant aspect of Nabokov’s technique: “Il en résulte un curieux ouvrage, roman de l’autocritique et autocritique du roman” [It results in a curious work, novel of autocriticism and autocritique of the novel].

The Nabokov-Sartre controversy is examined in detail by D. Barton Johnson in the first issue of Nabokov Studies. See also the article by Isabelle Poulin, “La nausée de Vladimir Nabokov et la méprise de Jean-Paul Sartre” in Vladimir Nabokov et l’émigration, edited by Nora Buhks (Cahiers de l’émigration russe 2 [Paris: Institut d’études slaves, 1993]).

Rougemont, Denis de: “Nouvelles métamorphoses de Tristan.” Preuves (Paris), 96, février 1959, pp. 14-27. [Also in: Denis de Rougemont. Love Declared: Essays on the Myths of Love. New York: Pantheon Books, 1963, pp. 48-54, 55-57].

In this article Rougemont discusses three contemporaries novels (Nabokov’s Lolita, Musil’s Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften, and Pasternak’s Doktor Zhivago) with respect to the Tristan and Isolde myth and passion, “cette forme de l’amour qui refuse l’immédiat, fuit le prochain, veut la distance et l’invente au besoin, pour mieux se resentir et s’exalter” [that form of love which refuses the immediate, flees the proximate, wants distance and invents it as needed in order better to experience itself and exult]. Passion best exists in the presence of insurmountable, or seemingly insurmountable, obstacles, which in literature often take the form of societal prohibitions. In Lolita the taboo is, of course, pedophilia tinged with incest. Rougemont cites a series of parallels between Lolita and Béroul’s 12th century Tristan and wonders (rhetorically?) whether Nabokov was aware of them, writing that “il est curieux de noter qu’à chaque fois un point d’ironie frappe l’allusion” [it is curious to note that each time a point of irony smites the allusion]. Rougemont argues that what distinguishes Lolita from Tristan is that Humbert’s passion for his love is never reciprocated. He concludes that “l’absence, ici très frappante, non seulement de toute espèce d’impureté sentimentale mias aussi de tout horizon spirituel réduit le roman aux dimensions d’un tableau de mœurs à la Hogarth” [the absence, here very striking, not only of any kind of sentimental impurity but also of any spiritual outlook reduces the novel to the dimensions of a picture of morals à la Hogarth].

(Portions of this article have been excerpted in the “Anthologie” of Christine Raguet-Bouvart’s 1996 book on Lolita.)

“Tandis que Lolita fait le tour du monde, l’entomologiste Nabokov, l’agronome Robbe-Grillet échangent leurs pions sur l’échiquier littéraire.” Arts, lettres, spectacles, musique, no. 746, octobre 28-novembre 3, 1959, p. 4.

The interest of this article is threefold. First, it dates from a time when Nabokov had not yet begun insisting that all interviews be conducted in written, rather than oral, form. The tone of his responses to the questions is conversational and totally devoid of the playfully haughty pedantism of Strong Opinions. Second, the interviewers were joined for the occasion by Alain Robbe-Grillet, who had just published Dans le labyrinthe, a book which Nabokov had read and esteemed highly. (During the exchange Nabokov makes no secret of his admiration for Robbe-Grillet’s work, saying of La jalousie, for example, “C’est le plus beau roman d’amour depuis Proust” [It’s the finest novel of love since Proust].) Third, the article is accompanied by a large photograph of an amused-looking VN flanked by a smiling Véra, Robbe-Grillet, the other interviewers, and the profile, hands, and stenograph of the secretary recording the event.

The principal topic of discussion is Lolita.

Bergery, J.-F. “Nabokov: Je n’ai plus besoin de gagner ma vie.” Arts, lettres, spectacles, musique, no. 746, octobre 28-novembre 3, 1959, p. 4.

A brief article, appearing on the same page as the interview cited above, which includes some biographical details and describes the genesis of Lolita and the novel’s reception in the United States and abroad.

(For two other brief articles on Nabokov by Mathieu Galey and François-Régis Bastide that appeared in Arts in 1959, see Christine Raguet-Bouvart’s 1996 book on Lolita.)

3. Damning criticism, no doubt, to a champion of engagement, but, as Alain Robbe-Grillet writes: “Tout d’abord, il faut se méfier de ceux qui utilisent le mot 'gratuit' come une injure.” (Le Miroir qui revient [Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1984], p. 42.)