Border-Crossing Imagination In Nabokov's Writings

Border-crossing has always been one of Nabokov's major themes, most of his protagonists have been portrayed to cross a border between different worlds or different dimensions, and a recurrent image in his work is that of a leap, which transports the hero to and fro between different worlds or dimensions. The paper explores Nabokov's imagination in various border-crossings, which entails my following 5 chapters of detailed analysis. They are border-crossings between the earthly world and the otherworld, between spatial and temporal dimensions, between his real and imagined space in the recreated Petersburg and even in his obsession among diverse disciplines, ranging so diversely as from literature, chess to lepidopterology.Chapter 1 is an analysis of how Nabokov relates writers' creating with some otherworldly existence. To Nabokov, the writings of earthly writers on the one hand are governed by the otherworldly spirits, on the other hand, earthly writers and otherworldly spirits are alike in that both of them are artistically creative, technically imaginative and their products are logically real in their respective realms. This border-crossing between the earthly and otherworldly creation occupies a central position in understanding Nabokov's poetic world.Chapter 2 examines border-crossing between spatial and temporal dimensions by presenting Nabokov's ideas of spatialized time. In his writings, Nabokov substitutes the spatialized narrative for the linear narrative, turning the flowing time stream into a still picture. While on the part of readers, a spatialized re-reading is a necessity to summon up a big static picture of Nabokov's works. This concept of spatialized time not only carries weight in creative literature, but also in the understanding of personal life and even of the entire human history.Chapter 3 studies a blend of various disciplines in Nabokov's writing, arguing that Nabokov not only blends chess and butterflies as subject matters into his works, but also adopts inter-disciplinary concepts and writing styles influenced by chess, lepidopterology and even physics.Chapter 4 focuses on Nabokov's memory and presents his border-crossing between the real life and the imagined life in his recreating Petersburg throughout his oeuvre. Nabokov's memory, is not a sort of rigid reproduction of the past, but a...