my presentation

This is not entirely necessary, because you have all already heard it, but i will post my script for the presentation, because -though i could never reach the true from- i had tried to impersonate Dr. Sexson in manner, and in summarizing my paper, which may be a better explanation, or a distillation of what i said in long winded form. anyway here it is.

This is the spring of 2011, I am already far underway teaching my capstone class for the semester. Some of you I see are in that class as well. Hands please? In which we are reading such books as Joyce’s Ullysess, we have just fnished the bahgvadgita! And we are primarily dealing with text that relate to this notion of the epiphany. That is to say Light bulbs!

Anyway I came here today to talk to you about a class I taught last year on the author Vladimir Nabokov. And this one student of mine Jon Orsi, not a particularly bright student but I granted him an A for the course Non the less. In fact I believe everyone in the class was awarded an A. You can hold me to that.

Well Jon wrote his final paper, and he was unfortunately unable to be here to present it. So I will fill in to summarize. His paper was entitled Master of Puppets, it dealt primarily with the idea of Nabokov as a sort of puppeteer. Creating the illusion of these fictitious authors all while tending the strings. Putting on a production to which we are witness. Which is essentially to say a discussion of authorial voice. He never got quite down to saying this but think I can safely say this is what he was getting at.

He likeness this to the notion of Plato’s allegory of the cave, that we the audience never see Nabokov himself clearly, instead as a shadow cast upon the wall. Shadow however, he claims is a dreary analogy, rather the gauze that separates the author and audience, is a rich and intricate tapestry. And it is the beauty and delicacy of this gauze that elevates Nabokov to such great heights. In fact I have always said that Nabokov offers more pleaser per square inch than any other writer.

Jon also likens Nabokov to Shakespeare’s Prospero. A character in his final play the Tempest. Prospero uses his powers (which are books) to sort of conduct and orchestrate a series of events, using other characters a sort of his actors or. Puppets? And this has widely been taken as a metaphor for Shakespeare himself.

Jon then argues maybe a better comparison would be Nabokov to Shakespeare, and characters such as Humbert Humbert to be his Prospero, because as we know ‘Lolita’ is Humberts diary. And we never can fully trust if Humerts characters are…what? Real! Or made up! Or if he is using them, manipulating them for his own means.

Anyway a very interesting paper, calling to question the productions that are Nabokov’s novels, what we are reading is sort of a puppet show put on with careful detail and extraordinary style. These fictitious Narrators perform as literary ventriloquism that add many layers of depth and complexity to what is extraordinarily beautiful writing.