Nabokov in Motion

Yuri Leving is University Research Professor at Dalhousie University, Canada. He is the author of nine books and editor of six volumes, including Shades of Laura: Vladimir Nabokov’s Last Novel The Original of Laura (2013); Anatomy of a Short Story: Nabokov’s Puzzles, Codes, “Signs and Symbols” (Bloomsbury, 2012), and Lolita: The Story of a Cover Girl – Vladimir Nabokov’s Novel in Art and Design (2013). Leving is the founding editor of the Nabokov Online Journal and served as a commentator on the first authorized Russian edition of The Collected Works of Vladimir Nabokov in five volumes.

Leving has ‘broken the mould’ of Nabokov scholarship. He gives us a dynamic Nabokov who embraced modernity rather than hid from it. The visual richness of this book is stunning; it is both the highest form of scholarship and a kind of pedagogic aid to the experience of travel in Russian modernity.

• 1. Chaos and OrderOn the Poetics of UrbanismBodies and TextsFrom Chaos to OrderThe Urban Infrastructure, or “What Lies Beneath the Asphalt of the Text?”The Resurrection of Electricity Buildings, Stairs, ElevatorsThe Life of ThingsThe Telephone: A Conduit to the Other WorldThe Street AdvertisementThe Shop Window of Metatexts2. The Train as a New Locus of Myth Creation in LiteratureThe Topos of the BeginningThe Railroad as a Metaliterary DeviceThe Railroad MetaphorChildhood and the Locomotive: A Model of the WorldToys and Reasons The Station/Depot The Hierarchy of ClassesThe Existential Nature of the Journey by RailThe Killing Power of the Train and EngineThe Train WreckConductor to Immortality The Mythology of the TrainThe Esoteric Language of Trains Train. Love. FateThe Boredom of the RoadAn Erotic EncounterViolence and the RailroadThe Poetics of DescriptionPersonification and AnimationCliches: Russians and the RailroadOn the Road and Longing for RussiaNabokov and Tsvetaeva: Synoptic Chart of a DialogThe Beckoning DistanceTelegraph PolesThe View from the Train WindowThe Underground 3. The Automobile in the Works of Nabokov: The Semantics of Driving and the Metaliterary ProcessAuto vs. TrainThe Ride to School The Nabokovs’ American CarsDriving Experience The Model Car controls (a Novel on Wheels) “Crossroads of Life”: The Symbolism of Driving Worlds Unknown to Each OtherMetaphysics of the GarageThe Route Through the Text The Automobile in the LandscapeVehicular Mimicry Sex in a CarAn Incident on the StreetForewarnings The Car Accident Death of the HeroThe Furniture Truck 4. Symbolism of the Airplane: Breakthrough to Another Dimension The Airplane Schematic Flight in the Russian Periodical Press in the 1910s “And the Steel Bird Will Fly”: The Airplane in Russian Poetry in the Early Twentieth CenturyThe Magic of NamesInsects, Birds, and FishOn the Genesis and Context of Nabokov’s Poem, “The Airplane”The Music of FlightFlight and PerformanceThe Aesthetics of Public DeathDeath of the PilotWar in the AirThe Futurist ThesaurusOvercoming Gravity: Hymn to the AirplaneFlights, Dreaming, and WakingThe Last StationBibliographyIndex