This collection of essays focuses on a subject largely neglected in Nabokovian criticism—the importance and significance of the five senses in Vladimir Nabokov’s work, poetics, politics and aesthetics. This text analyzes the crucial role of the author’s synesthesia and multilingualism in relation to the five senses, as well as the sensual and erotic dimensions of sensoriality in his works. Each chapter provides a highly focused and sometimes provocative approach to the unique role that sensory perceptions play in the shaping and narrating of Nabokov’s memories and in his creative process.

This critical text examines the ways in which Vladimir Nabokov, one of the twentieth century's great writers, structured his works to encapsulate his metaphysical beliefs. It draws examples from Nabokov's novels, stories and nonfiction, revealing a startling consistency in his beliefs over the course of his career, even as the structure of his novels increased in complexity. At the heart of his work is a profound respect for what's missing, for unsolvable riddles, for questions even at the expense of answers. Nabokov's techniques--from wordplay to plotlines--reveal an enduring reverence for permanent mystery.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, modernist writers developed new techniques for depicting characters' thoughts, feelings, and desires that revolutionized the novel form--a revolution novelists and critics are still reckoning with today. Troubling Late Modernism tracks how those techniques have been perversely reinvented by some of the most influential and innovative writers of the postwar period. Chapters on Vladimir Nabokov, Samuel Beckett, Toni Morrison, John Banville, J. M. Coetzee, and Eimear McBride reveal how these writers at once exploit and extend modernist forms of narration to cultivate disquieting affective attachments to protagonists compelled by violent or exploitative sexual desires. By interrogating the expressive power and ethical liabilities of modes of writing that give us intimate access to characters' inner lives, late modernism poses fundamental philosophical questions about emotion and its inseparability from knowledge and ethical deliberation. Whilst other historians of the novel have characterized late modernism's formal innovations as ethically and politically edifying, Troubling Late Modernism highlights their more disquieting potential for lending sympathy and profundity to sentiments deemed inadmissible in our everyday lives. Charting late modernism's characteristic fusion of aesthetic difficulty with emotional and ethical provocation demands an approach attuned to the experience of reading these disturbingly erotic narratives. In dialogue with recent debates about critical method, Troubling Late Modernism presents a new way of closely reading prose fiction that brings together the lessons of formalism and affect theory.

Special Focus: "Omission", edited by Patrick Gill Throughout literary history and in many cultures, we encounter an astute use of conspicuous absences to conjure an imagined reality into a recipient’s mind. The term ‘omission’ as used in the present study, then, demarcates a common artistic phenomenon: a silence, blank, or absence, introduced against the recipient’s generic or experiential expectations, but which nonetheless frequently encapsulates the tenor of the work as a whole. Such omissions can be employed for their affective potential, when emotions represented or evoked by the text are deemed to be beyond words. They can be employed to raise epistemological questions, as when an omission marks the limits of what can be known. Ethical questions can also be approached by means of omissions, as when a character’s voice is omitted, for instance. Finally, omission always carries within it the potential to reflect on the media and genres on which it is brought to bear: as its efficacy depends on the recipient’s generic expectations, omission is frequently characterized by a high degree of meta-discursiveness. This volume investigates the various strategies with which the phenomenon of omission is employed across a range of textual forms and in different cultures to conclusively argue for its status as a highly effective and near-universal form of artistic signification.

The eleven contributors to this volume investigate the connections between Nabokov's output and the fields of painting, music, and ballet.

The Dictionary of Hallucinations, second edition, is an alphabetical listing of issues pertaining to hallucinations and other misperceptions. They can be roughly divided into four categories: 1. Definitions of individual hallucinatory symptoms 2. Medical conditions and substances associated with the mediation of hallucinations 3. Historical figures who are known to have experienced hallucinations 4. Miscellaneous issues Each of the definitions of individual hallucinatory symptoms includes: a definition of the term its etymological origin the year of introduction (if known) a reference to the author or authors who introduced the term (if known) a description of the current use a brief explanation of the etiology and pathophysiology of the symptom at hand (if known) references to related terms references to the literature The second edition of A Dictionary of Hallucinations serves as a reference manual for neuroscientists, psychiatrists, psychiatric residents, psychologists, neurologists, historians of psychiatry, general practitioners, and academics dealing professionally with concepts of hallucinations and other sensory deceptions. This new edition provides updated information and references, and includes newly discovered hallucinations, bringing together contributions by other authorities within the field, with all the entries edited by Prof. Blom.

In Connections and Influence in the Russian and American Short Story, editors Robert C. Hauhart and Jeff Birkenstein have assembled a collection of eighteen original essays written by literary critics from around the globe. Collectively, these critics argue that the reciprocal influence between Russian and American writers is integral to the development of the short story in each country as well as vital to the global status the contemporary short story has attained. This collection provides original analyses of both well-known Russian and American stories as well as some that might be more unfamiliar. Each essay is purposely crafted to display an appreciation of the techniques, subject matter, themes, and approaches that both Russian and American short story writers explored across borders and time. Stories by Gogol, Dostoevsky, Turgenev, Chekhov, and Krzhizhanovsky as well as short stories by Washington Irving, Faulkner, Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, Ursula Le Guin, Raymond Carver, and Joyce Carol Oates populate this essential, multivalent collection. Perhaps more important now than at any time since the end of the Cold War, these essays will remind readers how much Russian and American culture share, as well as the extent to which their respective literatures are deeply intertwined.

What goes on in creative writers’ heads when they write? What can cognitive psychology, neuroscience, literary studies and previous research in creative writing studies tell creative writers about the processes of their writing mind? Creative writers have for centuries undertaken cognitive research. Some described cognition in vivid exegetical essays, but most investigated the mind in creative writing itself, in descriptions of the thinking of characters in fiction, poetry and plays. The inner voicings and inner visualising revealed in Greek choruses, in soliloquies, in stream-of-consciousness narratives are creative writers’ ‘research results’ from studying their own cognition, and the thinking of others. The Creative Writer’s Mind is a book for creative writers: it sets out to cross the gap between creative writing and science, between the creative arts and cognitive research.

The story takes place in the beautiful city of Paris. Stalin, a writer and traveler, uses his stay to explore the city and make use of his visit by connecting with friends while working on his writing project. Stalin uses his 3 month stay in Paris to enjoy the festivities and nightlife with 2 great friends, Alex and Frederick, with whom he spends time with consistently during his stay. Alex, Frederick and Stalin all portray to have very similar qualities in one another. Each has their own professions as teachers, artist and writers. They are all young adults in their late 20’s and early 30’s. However, it is a special bond that they make as friends that help them enjoy and make the most out of life whenever they are in each others company. In spite of their professions, they all relate well to one another. They can all cook well; have great taste in art, nice homes and value friendships. Alex and Frederick show Stalin a great time in Paris. These individuals both have their own places in Paris and they find pleasure in spending time with Stalin who is an African American from the United States. These 3 people constantly go out to drink on a daily basis. All of them use their time to enjoy the lavish restaurants and festivities around the city. They also visit each others Pub in the city and gear themselves for a fun and adventurous trip. Conflict starts to arise in the story as Stalin figures out that the world and life he is living is too good to be true. Stalin finds out that Alex and Frederick may perhaps be gay and probes them for information regarding their lifestyle. Oddly enough, Alex and Frederick were gay but it did not interfere with Stalin enjoying their company. Stalin meets a beautiful woman named Isabelle who happens to be Alex’s good friend. Stalin finds her extremely attractive and feels she could be the person that he would want to marry. Alex aggressively told Stalin that it is okay for you and Isabelle to be friends but nothing should ever go beyond your friendship with her. Regardless of the comments hurled at Stalin, he still pursued her throughout his stay. When Stalin would go out with his two buddies, he would request to always see Isabelle. Alex and Isabelle have a great friendship. As a matter of fact, Alex cherishes the friendship he has with Isabelle to the point where no one else should interfere, including Stalin. Alex used different alternatives and excuses through his plans to not invite Isabelle around Stalin. Alex felt the need to protect the friendship he has with Stalin as well as Isabelle, even if it meant absolute separation between the both of them. There is always something to do for Stalin each day in the city but he ends up spending too much money throughout his stay and realizes that he may not afford to pay the rest of the rent for his Pub. Stalin asks Alex if he can stay with him until it is time for him to go home. Alex grants Stalin’s request. Stalin’s personality engages him into the drinking habits of Alex and Frederick. They go out everyday to drink, socialize and enjoy the city. Even though Stalin spends most of his time with Alex and Frederick, it did not deter him from working on his writing project. Stalin also finds time to break away from his friends to explore parts of the city. He uses parts of his journey to find places that would propel him further to completing his project. Stalin has high expectations that he will become a famous writer someday. The tireless efforts that are placed into his writing will one day make him become a huge success. Each time Stalin visits Paris, he is marveled by the people of this great city. He likes the fact that interracial couples can be together without any signs of hatred or jealousy by someone else. Stalin also sees how men can greet each other with a kiss on the cheek and it is regarded as acceptable to other people. Life in the city of Paris seems too good to be true. Stalin feels that many people’s culture and lifest

"How should we read Lolita? The beginning of an answer is that we should read it the way all great works deserve to be read: with attention and intelligence. But what sort of attention should we pay and what sort of intelligence should we apply to a work of art that recounts so much love, so much loss, so much thoughtlessness--and across which flashes something we might be tempted to call evil? To begin with, we should read with the attention and intelligence we call empathy. A point on which all readers can agree is that great literature offers us a lesson in empathy: it encourages us to feel with the strange and the familiar, the strong and the weak, the vulgar and the cultivated, the young and the old, the lover and the beloved. It urges us to see our own fates as connected to those of others, to link the starry sky we see above us with whatever moral laws we might sense within."--from Style is Matter"Some of my characters are, no doubt, pretty beastly, but I really don't care, they are outside my inner self like the mournful monsters of a cathedral facade--demons placed there merely to show that they have been booted out."--Vladimir Nabokov, Strong OpinionsWith this quote Leland de la Durantaye launches his elegant and incisive exploration of the ethics of art in the fiction of Vladimir Nabokov. Focusing on Lolita but also addressing other major works (especially Speak, Memory and Pale Fire), the author asks whether the work of this writer whom many find cruel contains a moral message and, if so, why that message is so artfully concealed. Style is Matter places Nabokov's work once and for all into dialogue with some of the most basic issues concerning the ethics of writing and of reading itself.De la Durantaye argues that Humbert's narrative confession artfully seduces the reader into complicity with his dark fantasies and even darker acts until the very end, where he expresses his bitter regret for what he has done. In this sense, Lolita becomes a study in the danger of art, the artist's responsibility to the real world, and the perils and pitfalls of reading itself. In addition to Nabokov's fictions, de la Durantaye also draws on his nonfiction writings to explore Nabokov's belief that all genuine art is deceptive--as is nature itself. Through de la Durantaye's deft and compelling writing, we see that Nabokov learned valuable lessons in mimicry and camouflage from the intricate patterns of the butterflies he adored.