Thread: Nabokov

Hi there. Ladies and Gentlemen, please help. For a year I kept knocking at all library doors, all Internet sites, but in vain. I am looking for an English version of Nabokov's "Защита Лужина" (Luzhin Defense or whatever). If only somebody has seen it... In fact, i'm a postgraduate working on my theses and what i need is a short passage from the book to compare with the Russian original.

Is that really you in your icon? Anyhow, please post in only one part of the section. Someone will find it. Tschuess!

It's not really me, it's my name-mate Sharikoff from "Собачье сердце" movie (based on Bulgakov's novel).

Can't help you with "Защита Лужина", I'm afraid (if it were Pnin you were after, you'd be in luck...), but I'd be interested in anything you could tell me about the film version of "Собачье сердце".

When was it released (post-1991, I would imagine)? Is it any good? It must have constituted - above all else - a real technical feat to adapt it successfully, considering the theme.

The movie is not among my favourites, though it is altogether a remarkable one. Here you will find some description:
http://www.dostavka-dvd-video.ru/comment/716/1/
It was shot in 1988, at the dusk of Perestroyka. To my mind, as for the characters, the movie is even better than the book. Unfortunately, I don't have it at home. It is certainly worth seeing.

Nabokov rules!

He certainly rules. As an experimentalist, as a poet, as a translator of Pushkin. But I can hardly refer to his books as "Russian classic literature".

I had a copy of the Luzhin Defence which I bought in Foyle's in London a couple of years back. Since chess is a major hobby of mine, and I love Nabokov (see: my handle ), I had been hankering after the book for some time.

Lost it now. Oops
That's what comes of gallivanting around the world for several years.

They published it in English at that time because there was a film of the book (can't remember who directed, search for it on the net).

I didn't find it comparable to Pale Fire, Lolita .. but there were several remarkably beautiful passages, particularly towards the end of the book, as I remember.

anyhoo sorry

Sharikov,

it was translated as "The Defense", by Michael Scammell in 1964, New York, Putnam Books (with Nabokov's collaboration). If you tell me which passage you need and approximately where in the story it is (and if its reasonably short), I can probably find it for you.

The movie version, based loosely on the story, was directed by Marleen Gorras.

Originally Posted by begemot

Sharikov,

it was translated as "The Defense", by Michael Scammell in 1964, New York, Putnam Books (with Nabokov's collaboration). If you tell me which passage you need and approximately where in the story it is (and if its reasonably short), I can probably find it for you.

The movie version, based loosely on the story, was directed by Marleen Gorras.

Begemot,
I would highly appreciate that! Several of my attempts to find the book ended in nothing. I am only searching for a short abstract, it's Chapter 4 and in Russian it goes as follows:

Он в этот день затосковал. Все партии в старом журнале
были изучены, все задачи решены, и приходилось играть самому с
собой, а это безнадежно кончалось разменом всех фигур и вялой
ничьей. И было невыносимо жарко. От веранды на яркий песок
ложилась черная треугольная тень. Аллея была вся пятнистая от
солнца, и эти пятна принимали, если прищуриться, вид ровных,
светлых и темных, квадратов. Под скамейкой тень распласталась
резкой решеткой. Каменные столбы с урнами, стоявшие на четырех
углах садовой площадки, угрожали друг другу по диагонали. Реяли
ласточки, полетом напоминая движение ножниц, быстро вырезающих
что-то. Не зная, что делать с собой, он побрел по тропинке
вдоль реки, а за рекой был веселый визг, и мелькали голые тела.
Он стал за ствол дерева, украдкой, с бьющимся сердцем,
вглядываясь в это белое мелькание. Птица прошумела в ветвях, и
он испугался, быстро пошел назад, прочь от реки. Завтракал он
один с экономкой, молчаливой, желтолицой старухой, от которой
всегда шел легкий кофейный запах. Затем, валяясь на диване в
гостиной, он сонно слушал всякие легкие звуки, то Крик иволги в
саду, то жужжание шмеля, влетевшего в окно, то звон посуды на
подносе, который несли вниз из спальни матери,-- и эти сквозные
звуки странно преображались в его полусне, принимали вид
каких-то сложных, светлых узоров на темном фоне, и, стараясь
распутать их, он уснул.
If you have a chance to post an English version of this, I'll give my all for that! The matter is that this example reflects what is called somewhat "poetic imagery coherence" in linguistics (not sure about the right term in English). Sounds strange but this is actually what my doctoral thesis is about.
At http://rheme.danshin.ru, there is something of a survey based on this very abstract (see ЛИНГВИСТИЧЕСКИЙ ЭКСПЕРИМЕНТ). Maybe you'll find interesting, however, no one has ever passed it. But you will certainly know what the fuss is about
Thank you!

Shrikoff,

The english version is checked out of the library for another week or so. I should be able to get this for you after that. Hope that won't be to late!!

You are the friend of that ibolit? As soon as I asked him if you two were in cahoots with each other he quieted down.

Originally Posted by begemot

Shrikoff,

The english version is checked out of the library for another week or so. I should be able to get this for you after that. Hope that won't be to late!!

Begemot, I.O.U
this is really really very kind of you. If you have a chance to get access to those sacred pages - whenever,wherever - that would be wonderful!

Originally Posted by Pravit

You are the friend of that ibolit? As soon as I asked him if you two were in cahoots with each other he quieted down.

I do admit I know Ibolit in person , I once asked him for a favour . But what do you mean by "cahoots"? Before you asked me about him, I had never met him on this forum
By the way, Pravit, will you teach me how to move all over the world so fast? A week ago your location was Somali, wasn't it?

Originally Posted by Sharikoff

Originally Posted by Pravit

By the way, Pravit, will you teach me how to move all over the world so fast? A week ago your location was Somali, wasn't it?

I'll teach you. Just change your "Location" every day and you'll be 7 times faster than Pravit.

Originally Posted by Sharikoff

Originally Posted by Pravit

You are the friend of that ibolit? As soon as I asked him if you two were in cahoots with each other he quieted down.

I do admit I know Ibolit in person , I once asked him for a favour . But what do you mean by "cahoots"? Before you asked me about him, I had never met him on this forum
By the way, Pravit, will you teach me how to move all over the world so fast? A week ago your location was Somali, wasn't it?

It has been Somalia for several weeks now, has it? I needed a change of scenery.

I was wondering if you two were working together because he also mentioned something about "poetic imagery coherence" and said he was going to England with some other guy for his graduate thesis. That other guy, I figured, was you.
"to be in cahoots" with someone is a humorous slang term used to mean "to be involved with someone, to be working with someone on something."

You've been in Kyrgyzstan or Uzbekistan as well, haven't you? At first, when you just called yourself 'Принц Сомали' I really thought you lived in Somalia.

Ok, Sharikoff, here is the English version. It's from "The Defense", Vintage International, New York, 1990. Trans. by Michael Scammell "in collaboration with the author."

The text you requested appears on pp.59-60.

That day Luzhin junior was in low spirits. All the games in the old magazine had been studied, all the problems solved, and he was forced to play with himself, but this ended inevitably in an exchange of all the pieces and a dull draw. And it was unbearably hot. The veranda cast a black triangular shadow on the bright sand. The avenue was paved with sunflecks, and these spots, if you slitted your eyes, took on the aspect of regular light and dark squares. An intense latticelike shadow lay flat beneath a garden bench. The urns that stood on stone pedestals at the four corners of the terrace threatened one another accross their diagonals. Swallows soared: their flight recalled the motion of scissors swiftly cutting out some design. Not knowing what to do with himself he wandered down the footpath by the river, and from the opposite bank came ecstatic squeals and glimpses of naked bodies. He stole behind a tree trunk and with beating heart peered at these flashes of white. A bird rustled in the branches, and taking fright he quickly left the river and went back. He had lunch alone with the housekeeper, a taciturn sallow-faced old woman who always gave off a slight smell of coffee. Afterwards, lolling on the drawing room couch, he drowsily listened to all manner of slight sounds, to an oriole's cry in the garden, to the buzzing of a bumble bee that had flown in the window, to the tinkle of dishes on a tray being carried down from his mother's bedroom -- and these limpid sounds were strangely transformed in his reverie and assumed the shape of bright intricate patterns on a dark background; and in trying to unravel them he fell asleep.

That's an exact transcription, punctuation and all, so you can quote it with confidence.

Begemot

begemot, thanks a lot!
I hope that it didn't take much of your time and efforts. Не знаю, как вас и благодарить. Если надумаете приехать из Бруклина в Москву, - помогу, чем смогу. Ещё раз спасибо.

@Sharikoff: if you ever need the whole text, the Anglia bookshop in Moscow has it for less than RR100. It's on Старопименовский переулок, off Tverskaya.