| In fiction that responds to the rise of the Soviet Union, the development of the Nazi regime, and the emergence of capitalism, Nabokov advocates the power of individual imagination in response to large-scale state efforts to produce social and physical space. From this conflict, sites of resistance emerge as individuals struggle to produce memory and therefore identity. Like many authors in the twentieth century, Nabokov is concerned in his works with the nature of subjectivity in a world that jeopardizes any sense of a coherent self. The work of this dissertation builds on the theoretical efforts of Henri Lefebvre, Pierre Nora, Michel de Certeau, Edward Soja, and others to argue that space exists as a site of struggle that facilitates the production of memory and identity. Chapters focus on “A Guide to Berlin,” “Perfection,” The Defense, Bend Sinister, and Lolita. Topics include the Soviet state and chess, totalitarianism and memory, commodity culture and national monuments in the United States. |
