- The Gift (Nabokov novel)
infobox Book |
name = The Gift
title_orig = Дар
translator = Dmitri Nabokov, Michael Scammell, Vladimir Nabokov
image_caption =
author =Vladimir Nabokov
illustrator =
cover_artist =
country =
language = Russian
series =
genre =
publisher = G. P. Putnam's Sons (1963)
release_date = 1938 (serially, except Chapter Four), 1952 complete
english_release_date =1963
media_type =
pages =
isbn = 0-679-72725-6
preceded_by =
followed_by ="The Gift" (Russian: Дар, "Dar"; ISBN 0-679-72725-6) is
Vladimir Nabokov 's final Russian novel, and is considered to be his farewell to the world he was leaving behind. Nabokov wrote it between 1935 and 1937 while living inBerlin , and it was published in serial form under hisnom de plume , Vladimir Sirin."The Gift's" fourth chapter, a pseudo-biography of the Russian writer Nikolai Chernyshevski, was censored from publication in the Russian émigré journal that published the book's four other chapters.
The story's apparent protagonist is Fyodor Godunov-Cherdyntsev, a Russian writer living in Berlin after his family fled the
Bolshevik Revolution . Fyodor's literary ambitions and his development as a writer shape the book. In the fifth and final chapter, Fyodor states his ambition to write a book that in description is very similar to "The Gift."It is possible to interpret the book as
metafiction , and imagine that the book was actually written by Fyodor later in his life, though this is not the only possible interpretation.Nabokov's son, Dmitri, translated the book's first chapter into English;
Michael Scammell completed the rest. Nabokov then revised the translations of all five chapters in 1961.Plot
Chapter One
Fyodor Konstantinovitch Cherdyntsev is a Russian émigré living in Berlin in the 1920s, and the chapter starts with him moving to a boardinghouse on Nine Tannenberg Street. He has recently published a book of poems, and receives a call from Alexander Yakovlevich Chernyshevski congratulating him on the poems and inviting him to come over to a party to read the favorable critique in the newspaper. The poems reach back to Feodor’s childhood that was spent with his sister Tanya in the pre-revolutionary St. Petersburg and the Leshino manor, the country estate of the Godunov-Cherdyntsevs. Fyodor arrives at the party only to learn that he fell victim to a crude April fool’s joke; his book had not received any attention in the literary circle. The Chernyshevskis had a son, Yasha, who "looked like Fyodor" who had loved poetry. Yasha died by suicide when caught in a tragic love triangle. His mother wanted Fyodor to use his story for his writing, but he declined. As a result of Yasha’s death, his father had episodes of insanity. When Fyodor returns to his “new hole” he notices that he had taken the wrong keys, fortunately, after a while a visitor is leaving and he can get back in.Fyodor “dawled away the summer”. In the fall he attends a literary meeting of Russian émigrés where he meets Koncheyev whom he considers a rival. A reading of a new play bores the audience. Upon leaving Fyodor has a lengthy and animated discussion about Russian literature with Koncheyev, a discussion that turns out to be largely fictitious.
Chapter Two
Fyodor is dreaming about his native Russia as he rides in the tramcar to his language student , but “could not stand it no longer “and returns to his place. His mother, Elizaveta Pavlovna, comes from Paris to visit him and the shadow of his lost father hangs over their encounter, his mother believing that he is still alive. Before her departure they attend a local Russian literary event, and Fyodor is the last almost unnoticed reader to recite one of his poems. Inspired by her visit and his study of Pushkin he seeks her support for his new project, a book about his father Konstantin Kirillovich. He collects material, stumbles over Sushoshchokov’s account of his grand father, Kirill Ilyich ( a gambler who made and lost a fortune in America before returning to Russia), and starts to focus on the activities of his father, an explorer, lepidopterist, and scientific writer whose journeys between 1885 and 1918 led him to Siberia and Central Asia. Fyodor who only had come along on local trips and is imbued with the love of butterflies, imagines being a participant on his explorations to the East. In 1916 his father departed for his last journey and remains missing. Fyodor’s difficulty to proceed with his project gets complicated by the need to look for a new lodging. With the help of Mrs. Chernyshevski he finds a place with the Shchyogolevs. As it turns out later, the presence of short pale blue dress in the adjacent room that belongs to their daughter makes him take the apartment.
Chapter Three
This chapters starts by describing a day in the life of the protagonist. In the morning Fyodor hears the Shchyogolevs get up and begins the day with thinking about poetry. He reflects on his development as a poet. Later he joins the family for lunch, Shchyogolev is talking about politics, his wife, Marianna Nikolavna, cooks, and the daughter behaves in an antagonistic way. Fyodor then gives his tutorial lessons, goes to a bookstore where among others he finds Koncheyev’s book of poems "Communication" and an articles that review that failed to understand it. He reads an article about "Chernyshevski and Chess" in the Soviet chess magazine "8x8", and visits his editor Vasiliev. After returning home and having supper in his room, Fyodor leaves the place to meet secretly Zina. Waiting for her he composes a poem embedded in the narrative. Zina Mertz has appeared in the narrative before on occasion,,- she had bought one of the few copies of Fyodor’s poems, and she is the daughter of Marianna Nikolavna, and Shchyogolev’s stepdaughter, living next door to the protagonist). The story of their encounters is recalled and it is learned that Zina knew of Fyodor the poet when he lived at his previous place. Their meetings are in secret and hidden from her parents. Shchyogolev implies that he may have married her mother to get to her which may explain the strained between him and Zina and why she hates him. Zina works for a law firm, Traum, Baum, and Kaesebier. Fyodor gets more involved with Chernyshevski’s work and declares that he wants to write a about him for “firing practice”. He reads all by and about him, and passes from “accumulation to creation”. Zina is his muse and reader. The finished manuscript is handed to his publisher who rejects it as a “reckless, antisocial, mischievous improvisation.” However, Fyodor has more luck with another publisher.
Chapter Four
This chapter is a critical
biography within the novel, a book within a book, about the Russian 19th century writerChernyshevsky -Lenin 's favorite author -titled "The Life of Chernyshevski" written by the protagonist. Fyodor ridicules Chernyshevsky's aesthetics and understanding of literature.Chapter Five
The book about Chernyshevski finds itself in a “good, thundery atmosphere of scandal which helped sales”. Most reviews in the literary world of the émigrés are critical as the book debunks its subject as a writer and thinker, Koncheyev ’s review, however, is quite positive. Fyodor is unable to show the book to Alexander Yakovlevich Chernyshevski who had recently died. His death and funeral are described. On his way home, Fyodor walks with the writer Shirin, “a deaf and blind man with blocked nostrils”. Shirin tries to engage Fyodor in the activities of the Committee of the Society of Russian Writers in Germany. Fyodor declines but attends some meetings observing the infighting for control of the society. Shchyogolev is offered a job in Copenhagen, and plans to leave Zina in the Berlin apartment. Fyodor is elated and takes a walk in the Grunewald forest, where he imagines to have a talk with Koncheyev. His clothes including the key to the apartment get stolen, and he has to return in his bathing trunks. At night he dreams that his father has come back. Next morning the Shchyogolevs leave for Copenhagen, and Zina stays behind. Fyodor who is planning to write a "classical novel" ("The Gift") and Zina can now live together. They are without money, both at the moment have lost the key to their apartment, but they are happy, they feel that fate brought them together, and Zina declares that he will be “a writer as has never been before“.
Foreword 1962
The Gift is the last novel written by Nabokov in his native language. In the 1962 foreword he indicates that it was written 1935-37 in Berlin and the last chapter completed on the French Riviera in 1937. The novel was first published serially in the Parisian émigré magazine "Sovremennye Zapiski"; however Chapter Four was rejected:” a pretty example of life finding itself obliged to imitate the very art it condemns.” The complete novel was not published until 1952. Despite the many parallels Nabokov tells the reader not to confuse “the designer with the design” insisting he is not Fyodor, his father not an explorer of Asia, and he “never wooed Zina Mertz“. Fyodor’s disdain for Germany may have been influenced by the “nauseous dictatorship” Nabokov experienced when writing. The novel evokes the close-knit and short-lived world of Russian émigré writers in post WWI Europe, notably Berlin, a “phantasm” when Nabokov wrote his foreword where he indicates
("The Gift's") heroine is not Zina, but
::::— Vladimir Nabokov, from the ForewordRussian literature . The plot of Chapter One centres in Fyodor's poems. Chapter Two is a surge towardPushkin in Fyodor's literary progress and contains his attempt to describe his father's zoological explorations. Chapter Three shifts toGogol , but its real hub is the love poem dedicated to Zina. Fyodor's book onChernyshevski , a spiral within a sonnet, takes care of Chapter Four. The last chapter combines all the preceding themes and adumbrates the book Fyodor dreams of writing someday: The Gift."Father's Butterflies"
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