Narrative strategies in the stories by Vladimir Nabokov in the 1920s

Abstract

The author argues that the features of the narrative structure in the stories by Vladimir Nabokov have repeatedly become the subject of researchers’ attention, both literary critics and linguists. Scholars have highlighted some features specific to the modernist narrative in the analyzes of particular Nabokov works and in the scholarly articles devoted to Nabokov in general. One of the most prominent feature is the uncertainty of the “deictic modus of the text” (Mikhail Dymarsky). However, in the early Nabokov works, when his individual style was just being formed, one can find examples of a consistently sustained traditional narrative. The material for this study was Nabokovʼs stories of the 1920s: this period accounts for almost half of the short stories he created; in addition, the instability of the authorʼs preferences when choosing narrative strategies attracts researcher’s attention. The fundamental differences between these strategies, their incompatibility, and their orientation toward solving mutually exclusive problems become more noticeable when comparing early Nabokov prose and the works by Anton Chekhov, a writer whose creative method evolved within the framework of the traditional narrative. So, along with all sorts of ways to violate the usual conditions of communication with the reader, Nabokov also uses the types of narration explored by Alexandre Chudakov on Chekhovʼs material. In other words, in the early stories, Nabokov actively masters the experience of his recent predecessors and looks for ways to overcome traditional narrative forms; in this sense, the arsenal of his artistic devices is more diverse than that of his predecessors. The results of the study allow to formulate a question about the plot conditionality of certain narrative devices in Nabokovʼs stories and, more broadly, in his prose.

Keywords:

Vladimir Nabokov, stories written in the 1920s, narrative, artistic devices, Anton Chekhov, creative evolution