Cinematography in V. Nabokov’s novellas from The Return of Chorb [Vozvrashchenie Chorba] cycle

Abstract

The image of a motion picture emerges in Nabokov’s early works collected under the title The Return of Chorb [Vozvrashchenie Chorba], years before his major ‘cinematographic’ novels. The article considers cinematography as a theme of three novellas in the collection and explores its functions. It argues that, as well as integrating the image of a film in his characteristic system of reflections and refractions, Nabokov employs it to create metatextual self-reflection: in Nabokov’s view, literature has cinematographic potential for conjuring up optical illusions and plunging the reader into a hallucination or a dream, and in doing so denies its own realistic or mimetic qualities. Just like a motion picture, Nabokov’s novellas are first and foremost interplays of colour and light and their movement — features that distinguish a cinematographic image from a photographic one. Nabokov also speaks of audial imagination as another common element between films (silent at that time) and literature: according to the novelist, a verbal image, silent and visual by nature, allows for the inaudible to be heard and challenges the veracity of the visible.