"The wide range of sensory experience that this volume considers, alongside its extensive coverage of Nabokov's work from the early stories to the last unfinished novel, makes it a valuable resource and provocative basis for further investigation." (Barbara Wyllie, Slavonic and East European Review SEER, Vol. 100 (3), July, 2022)
Chapter 1 “‘Do the Senses Make Sense?’: An Introduction”, Marie Bouchet, Julie Loison-Charles, Isabelle Poulin
PART I The Role of the Senses in Nabokov’s Aesthetics and Metaphysics
Chapter 2 “Do the Senses Make Sense?”, Brian Boyd, University of Auckland, New Zealand
Chapter 3 “‘To breathe the dust of this painted life’. Modes of Engaging the Senses in Vladimir Nabokov’s Invitation to a Beheading”, Lilla Farmasi, University of Szeged, Hungary
Chapter 4 “Nabokov’s Visceral, Cerebral and Aesthetic Senses”, Michael Rodgers, West College, Scotland
Chapter 5 “Developing Transnational Style: Particularities of Nabokov’s Lexicon and Cognitive Frames in The Gift in Relation to the Five Senses”, Lyudmila Razumova, King’s College, London, UK
PART II Crossing Sensations and Languages: Multilingualism, Memory and Intermediality
Chapter 6 “An Eden of Sensations: The Five Senses in Speak, Memory”, Damien Mollaret, University of Bordeaux Montaigne, France
Chapter 7 “A Look at the Spectropoetics of Photography in Nabokov’s fiction”, Yannicke Chupin, University of Cergy Pontoise, France
Chapter 8 “Visual Agnosia in Nabokov: When One of the Senses Can’t Make Sense”, Susan Elizabeth Sweeney, College of the Holy Cross, USA
Chapter 9 “Translating Taste and Switching Tongues”, Julie Loison-Charles, University of Lille, France
Chapter 10 “Translation as Craft and Heroic Deed: On the Political Stakes of a Multilingual Sensoriality”, Isabelle Poulin, University of Bordeaux-Montaigne, France
PART III Senses and the Body: from Pleasure to Displeasure
Chapter 11 “Sensuality and the Senses in Nabokov”, Maurice Couturier, University of Nice, France
Chapter 12 “The ‘Eyes’ Have It: The Pleasures and Problems of Scopophilia in Nabokov’s Work”, Julian Connolly, University of Virginia, USA
Chapter 13 “The carmen in Nabokov’s Lolita”, Suzanne Fraysse, University of Aix-Marseille, France
Chapter 14 “‘I’d Like to Taste the Inside of Your Mouth’: The Mouth as Locus of Disgust in Nabokov’s Fiction”, Anastasia Tolstoy, University of Oxford, UK
PART IV Synesthesia and Multisensoriality
Chapter 15 “An Introduction to Synesthesia Via Vladimir Nabokov” Jean-Michel Hupé, Neuroscience Researcher, University of Toulouse, France
Chapter 16 “Neurological Synaesthesia vs Literary Synaesthesia: Can Nabokov Help Bridge the Gap?”, Marie Bouchet, University of Toulouse, France
Chapter 17 “Undulations and Vibrations, Tonalities and Harmonies: Nabokov, Acoustics and the Otherworld”, Sabine Metzger, Stuttgart University, Germany
Chapter 18 “Vladimir Nabokov’s Musico-Literary Microcosm: “Music” and Nabokov’s Quartet”, Kiyoko Magome, University of Tsukuba, Japan
Chapter 19 “‘Tactio has come of age’: the Tactile Sense in Nabokov’s Lolita, Pale Fire and Ada”, Léopold Reigner, University of Rouen, France
Chapter 20 “Embodied Memories in Ada, or Ardor and Speak, Memory”, Nathalia Saliba Dias, Humboldt University, Germany
Chapter 21 “‘A Tactile Sensation is a Blind Spot’: Nabokov’s Aesthetics of Touch”, Lara Delage-Toriel, University of Strasbourg, France
Marie Bouchet is Assistant Professor of American Literature at the University of Toulouse, France, and the author of Lolita: A Novel by Vladimir Nabokov, A Film by Stanley Kubrick (2009). She has co-edited two collections of essays on Lolita, and is in charge of the annotations to the novel for The Nabokovian.
Julie Loison-Charles is Assistant Professor of Translation Studies at Lille University, France, and has published a book on Nabokov’s use of foreign words (Vladimir Nabokov, ou l’écriture du multilinguisme: mots étrangers et jeux de mots, 2016). She has organized several conferences on Nabokov.
Isabelle Poulin is Professor of Comparative Literature at Bordeaux Montaigne University, France, and author of several books on Nabokov. Her latest are Poétiques du récit d’enfance: Benjamin, Sarraute et Nabokov (2012) and Le Transport romanesque. Le Roman comme espace de la traduction, de Nabokov à Rabelais (2017).
This collection of essaysfocuses 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.