| The dissertation examines the multi-layered image of what Nabokov termed "potustoronnost," the otherworld. Merging with the irridescent realm of the hereafter after death, Nabokov's unattainable woman often becomes the otherworld, charging it with her special presence, in a sense feminizing it, and making her love, personality, talents and habits determine the very essence of the realm she inhabits. Nabokov's otherworldly woman appears to exist not so much between, but within the lines of the novels and stories, where, she often "[runs] down the steps of a chance sentence, without turning her head" ("Spring," 424).; A close reading of the novels Bend Sinister, Pnin, Laughter in the Dark and the story "Spring in Fialta," will demonstrate that the "ona" (she) of Nabokov's otherworld not only survives death, but refuses to be silenced by time's habit to dim certain portraits in "the picture gallery" of one's mind (LD, 256). In the world of missed opportunities, pain, betrayal, the cruelty of indifference and obsession, her main weapons are compassion and love, the "springwater which at the least notice she ever so willingly [gives] anyone to drink" ("Spring," 416).; Positioned so as to be discovered by the protagonists who fail to see them, Nabokov's otherworldly women look to us to be recognized and heard, and wherever they grace the world with their appearance, they stand as gatekeepers to the realm of the unknown and unknowable, sometimes setting ajar the door to the "potustoronnost" that Nabokov "the storyteller, the teacher, the enchanter" shares with the reader (LL, 5). This study, by carefully analyzing the pattern and texture of Nabokov's otherworld, explores the themes through which it manifests its presence and examines the role of the world of "tenderness, brightness and beauty" in the writer's unique universe (BS, 166). |
