The Humour of Vladimir Nabokov: Mind and Matter

The first in-depth study of Vladimir Nabokov’s humour, investigating its physical aspects such as farce, slapstick, sexual and scatological humourOffers the first in-depth study of Nabokov’s humourPresents a revisionist reading of NabokovExamines the metaphysical aspects of Nabokov’s humourExamines the sexual and scatological aspects of Nabokov’s humourApplies humour theory (e.g. those of Hobbes, Bergson, Freud) to Nabokov’s textsCompares Nabokov’s humour to that of his Russian predecessors (e.g. Pushkin, Gogol, Chekhov) and to literary humourists such as Rabelais, Swift, JoyceMany critics classify Vladimir Nabokov as a highbrow humourist, a refined wordsmith overly fond of playful puzzles and private in-jokes whose art appeals primarily to an intellectually-sophisticated readership. This study presents a more balanced portrait, placing equal emphasis on the broader, earthier humour that is such a marked feature of Nabokov’s writing, which draws on the human body and all things physical for its laughs: sex and scatology, farce and slapstick. Moving between the metaphysical and the physical, the cosmic and the comic, mind and matter, it presents Nabokov as a writer at home in both high and low forms of humour, a comedian who is capable of producing as many belly laughs as brainteasers, and of appealing to a much wider readership than is commonly supposed. Read more