Before we Despair, I must express how incredible I found Alias Grace.
....
It was incredible.
So incredible, in fact, that I feel the rest of her titles tugging relentlessly on the hem of my dress - "Read us, read us!" - but can do nothing but gesture helplessly to my growing stack of unread books. Soon.
But now ... it is time to rev this stalled vehicle and breathe life into The Nabokov Project once again. Before which, I must address this point: any future pauses (and I'm sure there will be several) can all be attributed to the fact that I am ... reading. Reading other books, yes, but reading nonetheless. Establishing an exclusive relationship with a single author is difficult in any case. Add to that my inability to resist the mere idea of a new book, and the challenge of staying on the single-author-track is magnified. So yes, this is slow going ... but it is, indeed, going.
Despair. Written directly after Laughter in the Dark, the novel was published in 1935. However, Nabokov extensively revised it in 1965, refining the English translation and adding a previously absent passage. The novel purports to relate the story of a man, Hermann, who attempts to "undertake the perfect crime: his own murder."
I am a little over halfway through the novel, and I haven't quite reached the part where he attempts to undertake this contradictory-sounding project. I regret to say that I'm not enjoying it as much as I have the others that I've read thus far.
Why? Well - I hesitate to attribute my lack of warm, fuzzy feelings for the novel to my lack of warm, fuzzy feelings for Hermann, the narrator/protagonist, because I don't think you're supposed to like him.
Hermann. Hermann is bored. Hermann is "in the chocolate business." Hermann is an educated, hypochondriacal pathological liar with a superiority complex. Not exactly the sort of description that induces warm, fuzzy feelings flowing in the direction of reader to character. However, it is a description which bears interesting parallels to the nature of Nabokov's most notorious narrator. (Ah, adoration of alliteration!)
But despite Humbert's transgressions, I find it easier to sympathize with him. At least H.H. had the cunning to deprecate himself in the reader's eyes, allowing her to labour under the delusion that butter wouldn't melt in his mouth. Also, the man has a way with words. Hermann struggles with them; writing makes his "heart itch."
Nabokov foresaw comparisons between the two. In the foreword to the novel, which was added after the publication of Lolita (Despair came first) he writes: "Hermann and Humbert are alike only in the sense that two dragons painted by the same artist at different periods of his life resemble each other. Both are neurotic scoundrels, yet there is a green lane in Paradise where Humbert is permitted to wander at dusk once a year; but Hell shall never parole Hermann" (Nabokov, xiii).
Good.
So, Humbert 1, Hermann 0. In a war of the words, Humbert's narrative voice could suffocate Hermann's any day.
I'm still trying to keep an open mind about this novel, but as I'm more than halfway through, prognosis isn't looking fantastic. The dislike makes it a challenge to write about, as well. But, as I seem to be complaining the most about Hermann's narrative voice, perhaps I'll close by discussing it, as well as the narrative frame.
Of the Nabokov novels that I have read thus far, it would seem as though Nabokov enjoys playing with frame narratives. In Lolita, Sebastian Knight, and now Despair, each novel contains a story within a story, involving the narrator looking back on the inner tale. Nabokov seems to use this technique in order to be able to commune with the reader, often in direct address.
In Despair, the main purpose of the frame narrative seems to be to put the reader in an inferior position. Hermann repeatedly refers to himself as a liar, often digresses, and continually comments that his relation of an event wasn't how the instance actually occurred. Early on, we are offered this amusing tidbit: "A slight digression: that bit about my mother was a deliberate lie ... I purposely leave it there as a sample of one of my essential traits: my light-hearted, inspired lying" (Nabokov, 4).
To which I, as a reader, think, "Ha! Okay, you're not to be 100% trusted. Interesting ... now onward."
He reiterates, comparing himself to an artist, because all art is a lie: "Not a day passed without my telling some lie. I lied as a nightingale sings, ecstatically, self-obliviously; reveling in the new life-harmony which I was creating" (46).
Okay, still keeping that in my mind as I read on.
Then, he offers a more irritating curveball. Repeatedly. About once every rambling, 'vague' chapter (as the end of one chapter, quite correctly, identifies itself) we get something resembling this: "Did it actually go on like this? Am I faithfully following the lead of my memory, or has perchance my pen mixed the steps and wantonly danced away?" (88).
Yes, it's funny, but only up to a point. As the digressions and lies layer, thicken and become tangled, it becomes fairly frustrating to try and see through. I find that in this tangle of thorns, (why, why does Humbert always creep into my thoughts?) the thread of the narrative becomes increasingly difficult to grasp. Perhaps that's the point ... but I can't say I enjoy it.
And thus, it has just occurred to me - perhaps the reason that I'm not enjoying this novel is because I can't get a foothold. Nabokov wrote that a good reader must be armed with memory, a bit of imagination, and ... something else I can't seem to remember (and I'm not trying to be funny, it has genuinely slipped my mind.) But if I can't figure out what to hone in on, I feel as though I am missing something crucial. I feel like a commuter who has just heard the subway door chime, charged the doors, gotten stuck, had to pull out the wrong way, and ultimately failed. ("Please, wait for the next train.")
Perhaps it is the feeling of inferiority with which I struggle. Not that I don't always feel inferior when I read Nabokov (my goodness, of course I do, which is probably why I couldn't immediately discern why this novel is giving me such trouble), but this time he seems to be making more of an intellectual doormat of me than what has become somewhat usual.
If I am to learn anything from this, it is the degree to which the author can manipulate the reader through the voice of the narrator. From what I have read of the novel thus far, I believe that as a reader of Despair, I am supposed to feel somewhat wrong-footed and doubtful about the events that are being related by Hermann. This, in turn, informs my perception of his character, and (possibly, we will see) shapes the way that I view the rest of the novel.
As I so often find myself saying when it comes to Nabokov - now that's power.
It is a challenge to write well and in detail on a book which I haven't yet completed, so I shall conclude my rambling little discourse here (dear me, I'm beginning to sound like Hermann.) I will do another post on Despair in a few days or so, on the figure of the 'double,' once I finish.
After that, I shall squeeze in a few other novels before delving into my next Nabokov, which I purchased yesterday: Invitation to a Beheading.
Sounds like it should be a nice, light, uplifting read.
Works Cited
Nabokov, Vladimir. Despair. New York: Vintage, 1989.
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