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Ian "Marvin" Graye's Reviews > The Gift
The Gift
by
by
CRITIQUE ["WORKIN' ON MYSTERIES WITHOUT ANY CLUES"]:
Random Collection Of Consonants
As soon as I started "The Gift", I realised that it was so long since I'd read any serious Russian literature (my reading life started with Gogol and Turgenev, followed shortly after by Laurence Sterne), that I was no longer used to the random collection of consonants that constituted most Russian surnames.
The two principal surnames in "The Gift" are Cherdyntsev and Chernyshevski. Once you look closely at their structure and verbalise them, they're quite different, and easily differentiated.
The second feature that facilitated my reading of the novel was the fact that there were five chapters of almost identical length.
Soon the end of each chapter became a signpost and a measure of distance travelled, that gave me a sense of progress as I made my way through the novel.
1.1 Russian Émigrés in Berlin
The first chapter (like most of the novel, apart from chapter 4) is set in the Russian émigré community in Berlin in the 1920's. It's not always clear whether the characters are exiles from late Tsarist Russia, or refugees from revolutionary Russia.
However, the ones we meet (authors, poets, critics, and journalists) all belong to political and literary circles, who meet in halls and salons to discuss, critique and bicker over books,pamphlets and periodicals that they've written or read. They all have strong opinions (not always positive) about works that come to their attention, even if they've been written by a friend. Friends' books seem to garner the most unrestrained criticism.
That said, literature is not just a rest or break from real life, it's a vital part of life in its own right. You are nothing if you aren't reading or writing. Literature is a measure of your engagement in life.
1.2 Some Bizarre Love Triangle
The centre of attention in the first chapter is Yasha Chernyshevski, a poet who is supposedly the great-grandson of the famous 1860's writer, philosopher and author of the novel, "What is to Be Done?", Yasha commits suicide when caught in a bizarre love triangle (“a triangle inscribed in a circle�). It's hinted that he is the only one who honoured his promise in a triangular suicide pact:
The narrator is another poet, Fyodor Godunov-Cherdyntsev, who has just published his first volume of poems, to little critical attention or appreciation.
It seems that poetry, for Fyodor, is just a first step in his writing career, one day to be followed by a biography and/or a novel (potentially, a fictionalisation of the "events" we are reading about in Nabokov's novel).
Many in the circle are keen to give Fyodor advice on his next step.
Another poet suggests: "Look, you ought to write a little book in the form of a biographie romancée about our great man of the sixties…Nikolay Chernyshevski was indeed a heroic soul."
Yasha's grief-stricken mother wants Fyodor to write a novel about her son (whom he resembles physically). Fyodor is reluctant, never having been that close to Yasha when they were at university:
2. The Expeditions of Fyodor's Father
In chapter 2, assuming Fyodor is the writer/narrator (he leaps between first and third person throughout), Fyodor's first writing focuses on his father's life story, including his interest in butterflies:
It's this sort of detail that has given rise to speculation that the novel is partly autobiographical. However, it's probably more correct to say that Nabokov consistently farmed his (and his family's) life for literary detail:
3. Zina Mertz - "Girl Made to Measure"
The autobiographical detail seems to continue into chapter 3, which, in addition to containing a love interest by the name of Zina Mertz (possibly based on Vera?), refers several times to the game of chess and knight moves.
Fyodor and Zina are very close:
Zina is also extremely supportive of Fyodor's writing career (having been one of the few people to purchase a copy of his first book of poems):
Zina believes Fyodor has a gift.
4. "The Life of Chernyshevski"
Despite Fyodor's apparent reservations, chapter 4 contains a biographical essay about the life and works of Nikolay Chernyshevski, which is presumably the work that Fyodor is supposed to have written. We can also assume that chapter 1 is his story about Yasha.
This juxtaposition of fiction and non-fiction is a precursor to the poem and fictional criticism in "Pale Fire".
Fyodor is as devoted to the world of fiction as he is patriotic to his homeland and its literature:
5. Love and "Wars of Words"
In chapter 5, Fyodor describes his writing goals in terms of the infinite:
Like "Finnegans Wake", the end of "The Gift" circles back to the beginning of the novel.
In this chapter, we also see the reviews of Fyodor's essay. It was not sufficiently laudatory of Chernyshevski to gain positive reviews, and some of them are positively damning. Those who did not go to war engaged in "wars of words".
Nevertheless, Zina remains loyal to Fyodor:
To which, Fyodor responds:
Zina pleads for more:
"On the Whole It Does Not Matter"
Nabokov's exemplary, quinary, "kind of" novel belongs firmly in the modernist tradition, though he was averse to using the term himself, and many post-modernists would soon borrow his methods (including imitation, juxtaposition, and mockery).
VERSE:
Farewell Owed to Pushkin
[by Vladimir Nabokov]
"Good-bye, my book! Like mortal eyes,
imagined ones must close some day.
Onegin from his knees will rise
� but his creator strolls away.
And yet the ear cannot right now
part with the music and allow
the tale to fade; the chords of fate
itself continue to vibrate;
and no obstruction for the sage
exists where I have to put The End:
the shadows of my world extend
beyond the skyline of the page,
blue as tomorrow’s morning haze
� nor does this terminate the phrase."
HOMAGE:
Some Bizarre Triangular Suicide Pact
As Quentin Tarantino intuited in it must be more difficult than you think to stage a triangular suicide pact or shoot out.
Imagine, to start with, that X (a male)) is in love with Y (a female), Y is in love with Z (a male), and Z is in love with X. But none of the couples is happy (if two people are happy, then the third must be unhappy), and the three, who are all good friends, resolve to end their lives by suicide. It must happen all the time. If not here, then in Russia.
Assuming they only had one revolver between them, it's unlikely that, even with the ultimate goal of happiness (or absence of unhappiness) in mind, all three lovers could or would commit suicide simultaneously.
It's more likely that there would be at least one murder required. Thus, one plausible outcome is a suicide, a murder, and a suicide. Another might be a murder, a murder and a suicide. A suicide seems to be necessary for the survivor of the first two deaths.
One more conjecture: all three lovers decide to wear gloves, so that no fingerprints are left on the single revolver they plan to use.
So, let's start with Z shooting himself. This leaves X and Y alive. So, imagine that Y works up the courage to shoot X. Now, X and Z are dead, and Y must commit suicide, to fulfill their pact.
What if Y reneges on their vow to commit suicide? Especially while they are surrounded by the bloody mess of the two dead lovers. Wouldn't this experience have quenched their appetite for death?
Y is more fragile than ever, and in need of sympathetic and understanding love.
Imagine, further, that you are F, and that unbeknown to any of the other three (X, Y or Z), you were in love with Y. This would, finally, leave you, F, to pursue your love of Y, without a rival. Even though, Y is a murderer, having been responsible for (and technically guilty of) the death by murder of X.
Fortunately, each death has involved the same revolver, and it's not possible to prosecute Y for any of the deaths, because everybody has worn gloves. So there is no criminal judicial obstacle in the way of F and Y establishing a relationship, and living happily ever after.
What could possibly go wrong?
I wonder whether the Coen Brothers might have any ideas.
SOUNDTRACK:
(view spoiler)
Random Collection Of Consonants
As soon as I started "The Gift", I realised that it was so long since I'd read any serious Russian literature (my reading life started with Gogol and Turgenev, followed shortly after by Laurence Sterne), that I was no longer used to the random collection of consonants that constituted most Russian surnames.
The two principal surnames in "The Gift" are Cherdyntsev and Chernyshevski. Once you look closely at their structure and verbalise them, they're quite different, and easily differentiated.
The second feature that facilitated my reading of the novel was the fact that there were five chapters of almost identical length.
Soon the end of each chapter became a signpost and a measure of distance travelled, that gave me a sense of progress as I made my way through the novel.
1.1 Russian Émigrés in Berlin
The first chapter (like most of the novel, apart from chapter 4) is set in the Russian émigré community in Berlin in the 1920's. It's not always clear whether the characters are exiles from late Tsarist Russia, or refugees from revolutionary Russia.
However, the ones we meet (authors, poets, critics, and journalists) all belong to political and literary circles, who meet in halls and salons to discuss, critique and bicker over books,pamphlets and periodicals that they've written or read. They all have strong opinions (not always positive) about works that come to their attention, even if they've been written by a friend. Friends' books seem to garner the most unrestrained criticism.
That said, literature is not just a rest or break from real life, it's a vital part of life in its own right. You are nothing if you aren't reading or writing. Literature is a measure of your engagement in life.
1.2 Some Bizarre Love Triangle
The centre of attention in the first chapter is Yasha Chernyshevski, a poet who is supposedly the great-grandson of the famous 1860's writer, philosopher and author of the novel, "What is to Be Done?", Yasha commits suicide when caught in a bizarre love triangle (“a triangle inscribed in a circle�). It's hinted that he is the only one who honoured his promise in a triangular suicide pact:
"He said he would shoot himself by right of seniority…and this simple remark rendered unnecessary the stroke of drawn lots�"
The narrator is another poet, Fyodor Godunov-Cherdyntsev, who has just published his first volume of poems, to little critical attention or appreciation.
It seems that poetry, for Fyodor, is just a first step in his writing career, one day to be followed by a biography and/or a novel (potentially, a fictionalisation of the "events" we are reading about in Nabokov's novel).
Many in the circle are keen to give Fyodor advice on his next step.
Another poet suggests: "Look, you ought to write a little book in the form of a biographie romancée about our great man of the sixties…Nikolay Chernyshevski was indeed a heroic soul."
Yasha's grief-stricken mother wants Fyodor to write a novel about her son (whom he resembles physically). Fyodor is reluctant, never having been that close to Yasha when they were at university:
"Everything that to his mother was filled with enchantment only repelled me. As a poet he was, in my opinion, very feeble: he did not create, he merely dabbled in poetry, just as thousands of intelligent youths of his type did; but if they did not meet with some kind of more or less heroic death�, they subsequently abandoned literature altogether�"
"I had no desire at all to write about the great man of the sixties and even less to write about Yasha, as his mother persistently counselled for her part (so that, taken together, here was an order for a complete history of their family)."
"…I was both amused and irritated by these efforts of theirs to channel my muse�"
2. The Expeditions of Fyodor's Father
In chapter 2, assuming Fyodor is the writer/narrator (he leaps between first and third person throughout), Fyodor's first writing focuses on his father's life story, including his interest in butterflies:
"A love of lepidoptera was inculcated into him by his German tutor. By the way: what has happened to those originals who used to teach natural history to Russian children - green net, tin box on a sling, hat stuck with pinned butterflies, long, learned nose, candid eyes behind spectacles...?"
It's this sort of detail that has given rise to speculation that the novel is partly autobiographical. However, it's probably more correct to say that Nabokov consistently farmed his (and his family's) life for literary detail:
"...he might go off on his journeys not so much to seek something as to flee something, and...on returning, he would realise that it was still with him, inside him, unriddable, inexhaustible."
3. Zina Mertz - "Girl Made to Measure"
The autobiographical detail seems to continue into chapter 3, which, in addition to containing a love interest by the name of Zina Mertz (possibly based on Vera?), refers several times to the game of chess and knight moves.
Fyodor and Zina are very close:
"…not only was Zina cleverly and elegantly made to measure for him by a very painstaking fate, but both of them, forming a single shadow, were made to the measure of something not quite comprehensible, but wonderful and benevolent and continuously surrounding them."
"Despite the complexity of her mind, a most convincing simplicity was natural to her, so that she could permit herself much that others would be unable to get away with, and the very speed of their coming together seemed to Fyodor completely natural in the sharp light of her directness."
Zina is also extremely supportive of Fyodor's writing career (having been one of the few people to purchase a copy of his first book of poems):
"Oh, I have a thousand plans for you. I have such a clear feeling that one day you’ll really lash out. Write something huge to make everyone gasp."
Zina believes Fyodor has a gift.
4. "The Life of Chernyshevski"
Despite Fyodor's apparent reservations, chapter 4 contains a biographical essay about the life and works of Nikolay Chernyshevski, which is presumably the work that Fyodor is supposed to have written. We can also assume that chapter 1 is his story about Yasha.
This juxtaposition of fiction and non-fiction is a precursor to the poem and fictional criticism in "Pale Fire".
Fyodor is as devoted to the world of fiction as he is patriotic to his homeland and its literature:
"Love only what is fanciful and rare;
What from the distance of a dream steals through;
What knaves condemn to death and fools can’t bear.
To fiction be as to your country true."
5. Love and "Wars of Words"
In chapter 5, Fyodor describes his writing goals in terms of the infinite:
"Definition is always finite, but I keep straining for the faraway. I search beyond the barricades (of words, of senses, of the world) for infinity, where all, all the lines meet."
Like "Finnegans Wake", the end of "The Gift" circles back to the beginning of the novel.
In this chapter, we also see the reviews of Fyodor's essay. It was not sufficiently laudatory of Chernyshevski to gain positive reviews, and some of them are positively damning. Those who did not go to war engaged in "wars of words".
Nevertheless, Zina remains loyal to Fyodor:
"I like it all immensely. I think you'll be such a writer as has never been before and Russia will simply pine for you - when she comes to her senses too late...But do you love me?"
To which, Fyodor responds:
"What I am saying is in fact a kind of declaration of love."
Zina pleads for more:
"A 'kind of' is not enough. You know at times I shall probably be wildly unhappy with you. But on the whole it does not matter, I'm ready to face it."
"On the Whole It Does Not Matter"
Nabokov's exemplary, quinary, "kind of" novel belongs firmly in the modernist tradition, though he was averse to using the term himself, and many post-modernists would soon borrow his methods (including imitation, juxtaposition, and mockery).
VERSE:
Farewell Owed to Pushkin
[by Vladimir Nabokov]
"Good-bye, my book! Like mortal eyes,
imagined ones must close some day.
Onegin from his knees will rise
� but his creator strolls away.
And yet the ear cannot right now
part with the music and allow
the tale to fade; the chords of fate
itself continue to vibrate;
and no obstruction for the sage
exists where I have to put The End:
the shadows of my world extend
beyond the skyline of the page,
blue as tomorrow’s morning haze
� nor does this terminate the phrase."
HOMAGE:
Some Bizarre Triangular Suicide Pact
As Quentin Tarantino intuited in it must be more difficult than you think to stage a triangular suicide pact or shoot out.
Imagine, to start with, that X (a male)) is in love with Y (a female), Y is in love with Z (a male), and Z is in love with X. But none of the couples is happy (if two people are happy, then the third must be unhappy), and the three, who are all good friends, resolve to end their lives by suicide. It must happen all the time. If not here, then in Russia.
Assuming they only had one revolver between them, it's unlikely that, even with the ultimate goal of happiness (or absence of unhappiness) in mind, all three lovers could or would commit suicide simultaneously.
It's more likely that there would be at least one murder required. Thus, one plausible outcome is a suicide, a murder, and a suicide. Another might be a murder, a murder and a suicide. A suicide seems to be necessary for the survivor of the first two deaths.
One more conjecture: all three lovers decide to wear gloves, so that no fingerprints are left on the single revolver they plan to use.
So, let's start with Z shooting himself. This leaves X and Y alive. So, imagine that Y works up the courage to shoot X. Now, X and Z are dead, and Y must commit suicide, to fulfill their pact.
What if Y reneges on their vow to commit suicide? Especially while they are surrounded by the bloody mess of the two dead lovers. Wouldn't this experience have quenched their appetite for death?
Y is more fragile than ever, and in need of sympathetic and understanding love.
Imagine, further, that you are F, and that unbeknown to any of the other three (X, Y or Z), you were in love with Y. This would, finally, leave you, F, to pursue your love of Y, without a rival. Even though, Y is a murderer, having been responsible for (and technically guilty of) the death by murder of X.
Fortunately, each death has involved the same revolver, and it's not possible to prosecute Y for any of the deaths, because everybody has worn gloves. So there is no criminal judicial obstacle in the way of F and Y establishing a relationship, and living happily ever after.
What could possibly go wrong?
I wonder whether the Coen Brothers might have any ideas.
SOUNDTRACK:
(view spoiler)
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The Gift.
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Reading Progress
June 25, 2011
– Shelved
October 25, 2012
– Shelved as:
nabokov
October 12, 2021
– Shelved as:
to-read
December 14, 2021
–
Started Reading
December 17, 2021
–
12.8%
"Look, you ought to write a little book in the form of a biographie romancee about our great man of the sixties..."
page
43
December 18, 2021
–
29.17%
"What has happened to those [German tutors] who used to teach natural history to Russian children - green net, tin box on a sling, hat stuck with pinned butterflies, long, learned nose, candid eyes behind spectacles...?"
page
98
December 18, 2021
–
32.44%
"...he might go off on his journeys not so much to seek something as to flee something, and...on returning, he would realise that it was still with him, inside him, unriddable, inexhaustible."
page
109
December 20, 2021
–
48.81%
"...not only was Zina cleverly and elegantly made to measure for him by a very painstaking fate, but both of them, forming a single shadow, were made to the measure of something not quite comprehensible, but wonderful and benevolent and continuously surrounding them."
page
164
December 23, 2021
– Shelved as:
read-2021
December 23, 2021
– Shelved as:
reviews
December 23, 2021
– Shelved as:
reviews-5-stars
December 23, 2021
–
Finished Reading
Comments Showing 1-21 of 21 (21 new)
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David
(new)
Dec 23, 2021 05:18PM
New Order was great!
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David wrote: "New Order was great!"I really enjoyed listening to them again, too.
It was terrible listening to and reviewing Joy Division's "Closer" within two months of Ian Curtis' death.
There’s a pile Nabokovs I’ve not even tried to read yetThis is among them
Maybe it’s time
Thank you Ian
Nick wrote: "There’s a pile Nabokovs I’ve not even tried to read yetThis is among them
Maybe it’s time
Thank you Ian"
I'm in the same boat. Though I haven't acquired a pile yet. I'll probably seek them out next year.
Years of checking bookshops for bargains that I 'will' read one day.
Nick wrote: "Years of checking bookshops for bargains that I 'will' read one day."Likewise, but I've held off on Nabokov, in case there were new introductions or afterwords.
My copy of "The Gift" was a 1963 paperback I bought at a bookshop in Curtin, ACT (Beyond Q) in 2011 (since closed in 2020).
I read mostly later ones, Pale Fire, Lolita, Sebastian Knight, Pnin.
Chernyshevski is a derivative of черныш � a common nickname for a black mongrel dog.Cherdyntsev tells that the man’s ancestors came from the ancient Russian town Чердынь (Cherdyn) in Ural region.
Vit wrote: "Chernyshevski is a derivative of черныш � a common nickname for a black mongrel dog.Cherdyntsev tells that the man’s ancestors came from the ancient Russian town Чердынь (Cherdyn) in Ural region."
Thanks, Vit.
Nick wrote: "Years of checking bookshops for bargains that I 'will' read one day."Nick, do you have a favourite (second-hand) bookstore in Melbourne?
Ian wrote: "Nick wrote: "Years of checking bookshops for bargains that I 'will' read one day."Nick, do you have a favourite (second-hand) bookstore in Melbourne?"
It's a good question, Ian. There are fewer and fewer these days. Depending where you are staying, there is one in Camberwell called Sainsbury's which is excellent on art subjects. And there are two in Northcote/Thornbury.
The best of them is Howard's weekend bookshop. It is excellent on literature. But it's only open when the sign "bookshop" is placed next to the door in vertical black letters. It is on the corner of Clarke Street and Park Street Northcote, opposite Merri Station. Open usually after 12pm until around 5pm, open holidays. You won't easily find a web reference or a phone number. It is as though Howard is known through verbal communication. You will understand how good it is only when you actually see the stock.
And there's another one on High Street Thornbury called Fully Booked.
Nick wrote: "There are fewer and fewer these days. Depending where you are staying, there is one in Camberwell called Sainsbury's which is excellent on art subjects. And there are two in Northcote/Thornbury.The best of them is Howard's weekend bookshop.."
Thanks, Nick.
I've been to Sainsbury's in Camberwell many times, but I don't know the others in Thornbury. I must have passed them without knowing.
I've been to Brown and Bunting in Northcote, as well as a smaller but packed bookshop up the road run by an older bloke from Queensland.
I often visit City Basement Books in Flinders Street.
Coincidentally, we drove out to my mother's (on the north side of Brisbane) yesterday, and I was mentally noting where all of the old bookshops, cinemas and squash courts used to be.
Ian wrote: "Nick wrote: "There are fewer and fewer these days. Depending where you are staying, there is one in Camberwell called Sainsbury's which is excellent on art subjects. And there are two in Northcote/..."Those two on High Street have disappeared since your last visit. Howard's place is not too far from there. but not on a main road.
I know basement books, but I rarely get down that way. I heard it was still there a couple of years ago.
There is a curious little shop in Fitzroy run out of what looks like a garage off Gertrude Street but I can't remember which street. Near the Builder's Arms Hotel. Another on Scotchmer Street down the road from Piedemonte's Italian supermarket in North Fitzroy. But small and not well stocked. More a pastime.
None will compare with Howards on literature.
I have often reminisced with Howard about how you could spend a Sunday devoted to Melbourne's eastern suburbs second hand bookshops. But that time has past.
Nick wrote: "Ian wrote: "Nick wrote: "There are fewer and fewer these days. Depending where you are staying, there is one in Camberwell called Sainsbury's which is excellent on art subjects. And there are two i..."I'm pretty sure I've been to that garage bookshop. Bought a couple of books by Sartre.
I've also been to Already Read in North Fitzroy, but only discovered it on one of my last pre-COVID trips.
I used to spend a lot of time walking up and down Brunswick Street, especially to go to Dixon's.
Ian wrote: "Nick wrote: "Ian wrote: "Nick wrote: "There are fewer and fewer these days. Depending where you are staying, there is one in Camberwell called Sainsbury's which is excellent on art subjects. And th..."Well, you'll be pleased to know that Dixon's is now on High Street Northcote in the old Brown and Buntings shop.
Grubb Street disappeared from Brunswick St a while ago too. As did another place nearby...
The other place that may pique your interest is the backyard revisioning of Collected Works bookshop. It used to be in the Nicholas Building on Swanston St, City. It was a unique book shop in that it catered for small press from around the world, poetry and little known writers from everywhere. It is now in a backyard in Northcote. But it's still to open post covid, and is a little secret squirrels. I keep bumping into the owner around the place but haven't been told when he'll take people again.
Nick wrote: "Grubb Street disappeared from Brunswick St a while ago too. As did another place nearby......"This is shocking news, but not surprising.
Good news about Dixons though.
Didn't know about Collected Works bookshop. Thanks.
Speaking of vinyl and record stores like Dixons, I noticed on my walk the other day that High Street which runs up from Northcote through Thornbury in the inner north of Melbourne (and is my regular walking route), has TWO MORE record stores .Thornbury Records at 374 High street Northcote
Lulu's at 905 High Street Thornbury
There is another bookshop there called Perimeter Books which do very nice and small press books that would appeal to stylish people, architects and the like. They have a wider range than that, thought. But they are moving soon, so their address is down the road on High Street.
Nick wrote: "Speaking of vinyl and record stores like Dixons, I noticed on my walk the other day that High Street which runs up from Northcote through Thornbury in the inner north of Melbourne (and is my regula..."Surprised to see new shops opening during the pandemic. I've sold all of my vinyl.
Ian wrote: "Nick wrote: "Speaking of vinyl and record stores like Dixons, I noticed on my walk the other day that High Street which runs up from Northcote through Thornbury in the inner north of Melbourne (and..."Not for you, then.
But not surprised, people stuck at home, locked down, cashed up, need a hobby.
