Robert Alpert

Wednesdays, January 25 - March 28 3:30 - 5:30 10 sessions 0-5:30 p.m.
King's Chapel Parish House, 64 Beacon Street

Vladimir Nabokov is most famous for his success de scandale, Lolita. At first it was largely ignored – indeed, Nabokov could find only one publishing house, which specialized in the erotic, to print it. It became famous, or notorious, however, after Graham Greene pronounced it one of the great novels of 1953. Even so it did not reach America until some years later, when, despite unfavorable reviews in the New York Times and elsewhere it became a best seller. Despite earnest articles written by critics such as Lionel Trilling, readers often skimmed it, looking for the “good parts.”

Nabokov remained supremely indifferent. The book, he maintained, was “only words,” albeit finely crafted. He remarked somewhat provocatively “that it could have been about bicycles.” It is an astonishing work of art, but not a “story” as we think of it, though it looks like one. To make this notion of novel as pure artifice clearer, the writer proceeded in 1962 to publish Pale Fire, a work equally brilliant and more blatantly perplexing. When asked to characterize his project, Nabokov generally replied “parody” and famously said, “Satire is a lesson; parody is a game.”

In the time we have, I would like to read both Lolita and Pale Fire and endeavor to discover what game Nabokov is up to. In addition I want very much to read his own interviews and remarks collected in Strong Opinions, which may clarify or splendidly complicate our sense of his work. Is he serious or is he joking? He is a puzzle – a word that would have pleased him, for he delighted in them. Perhaps his real joke is his invitation to discover his intentions. I guarantee laughter, pathos, and bewilderment.
Suggested additional reading: Speak Memory, Nabokov’s autobiography.

Robert Alpert

Bob Alpert is a graduate of Harvard College. After receiving his MA in English literature at the University of California, Berkeley, he taught at York School in Monterey, California. He returned to Boston and taught at Harvard College and Boston College, where he received his PhD. He has written on various authors ranging from Dryden to Nabokov, and has translated The Odyssey, The Iliad and more recently Oedipus Turranos – the world’s first detective story – and The Frogs by Aristophanes. He is currently working on translating Oedipus at Colonous.