The Humour of Vladimir Nabokov by Grant, Paul Benedict;

Rövid leírás:

The first in-depth study of Vladimir Nabokov’s humour, investigating its physical aspects such as farce, slapstick, sexual and scatological humour

Hosszú leírás:

Many critics classify Vladimir Nabokov as a highbrow humourist, a refined wordsmith overly fond of playful puzzles and private in-jokes whose art appeals primarily to an intellectually-sophisticated readership. This study presents a more balanced portrait, placing equal emphasis on the broader, earthier humour that is such a marked feature of Nabokov’s writing, which draws on the human body and all things physical for its laughs: sex and scatology, farce and slapstick. Moving between the metaphysical and the physical, the cosmic and the comic, mind and matter, it presents Nabokov as a writer at home in both high and low forms of humour, a comedian who is capable of producing as many belly laughs as brainteasers, and of appealing to a much wider readership than is commonly supposed.

Tartalomjegyzék:

Acknowledgments

Terminology, Spelling, Transliteration, Abbreviations

Introduction

1. Life and Art

2. Highs and Lows

3. Belly and Brain, Mind and Matter

4. Comedies of the Flesh

5. Tyrants Annoyed

6. Last Laughs

Bibliography

Index