Each work of Vladimir Nabokov is both a revelation and a riddle for the reader. He always sought to encrypt his plans, plans, and did not even leave an exact date of birth. His masterly prose recalls the need to prevent cliches and formulas in phrases. Its essence is to create magical patterns and inconceivable images, and to do this with arrogant virtuosity and grace. Vladimir Nabokov lived far from his homeland and nurtured his worldview in a close emigrant circle, but he always remembered his fatherland, this topic became central to his work, as well as in the story “Circle”, which will be discussed in this article.
History of creation
The “Circle” of Nabokov is a kind of satellite of the novel “Gift”, on which the writer began to work in 1932. At the beginning of 1934, he created a fragment, which later turned into an independent work - the story “Circle”, which will repeat the ring structure of the fourth chapter of “Gift”. This story, published in Paris in 1934, will be the last work written in Russian.
"A circle"
The image of the circle in the story of Nabokov is a sign that symbolizes infinity, reflecting the continuity of time and life, their unity. The title of the story formulates the main topic and paragraph by paragraph, and all of them in the work 17, introduces the essence of the problem, explicitly or implicitly, but correlates with the course of the story. Many works by this author require re-reading, because the first is only a cursory acquaintance with the characters, while the second reading, everything is painted in completely different tones, this is the mystery of Nabokov's prose.
In the story “Circle” there are many images of a circle: a falling flyer, circles on the water, a portrait of a father and a manor — also a kind of circle — a circle of memory. The hero’s ideas about the world (hatred of nobility), his experiences (love for Tanya, shame for his father) - his whole life is a circle. A brief summary of Nabokov’s “Circle” will make it possible to see that the story is connected with this concept, not only on the ideological, but also on the compositional level.
Meet the heroes
The protagonist of the story “Circle” is Innocent, an emigrant living in Paris. He lived in Russia, “with sadness” he recalls his native places, father Ilya Ilyich, a village teacher: “bald head”, “red nose”. The author complements such an unsightly description with his father’s attitude to his son: “with horror and tenderness” he saw himself in his son.
Further, the reader sees the image of the rural aristocrat Cherdyntsev. Next to him Innocent, "a timid, impressionable young man," felt like a plebeian, because he "acutely felt the social side of things." When laying a new school Cherdyntsev throws a coin, which "sticks an edge into the clay." Here you can see the main character’s hatred for everything that is lordly: the “nasty” car, the “chubby chauffeur”, and the “woman day laborers”.
In the story of Nabokov's “Circle”, another image appears - the girls of Tanya. She bursts into his memories like a whirlwind. Next to her swift manner, the main character turns into a "dissimilar" three-year-old, who studied "hard, with an overrun." And almost immediately he turns into a young man who brilliantly graduated from high school and entered the medical faculty. With such an unusual turn in the life of Innocent, the author probably wanted to emphasize the unpredictability of life.
Short retelling
Innocent was gripped by a strong longing for Russia, and the soul was restless. He felt sorry for his then youth, and he sadly recalled the past. So begins the story of Nabokov's "Circle". The summary does not convey the feelings that gripped the hero, so we continue to retell his memories of childhood.
The late father was a village teacher in Leshino, near the estate of the famous scientist Godunov-Cherdyntsev. Innocent lived with his aunt on Okhta and grew up an unsociable and gloomy boy. He studied without desire, but unexpectedly for many he graduated from high school with honors and entered the medical faculty. In Leshino, he went to his father on vacation and remembered how they demolished the old building and began the construction of a new school. He looked beyond the river, at the reserved estate of master Cherdyntsev, and hatred strangled him. When the owner of the estate helped his father get out of some kind of political history, that’s why Ilya Ilyich obsequiously loved the master for intercession.
Acquaintance with Tanya
We continue the brief retelling of Nabokov's “Circle”. Innocent was impressionable and touchy, which is why he felt very lonely and sharply reacted to the social side of life. Everything related to his summer vacation, the estate of Cherdyntsev, seemed disgusting to him. He was a gray-haired footman, a fat chauffeur, an English tutor - the whole nobleman seemed to him the same.
Once Cherdyntsev invited them with his father to a family celebration in honor of the sixteenth birthday of Tatyana's daughter. Soon Innocent received a note from her: the girl did not invite him to a date. Her coming and their proximity seemed to the young man a miracle. But Tatyana cried and said that she was leaving tomorrow, it was all over.
Twenty years later
We continue the “circle” of Nabokov with a meeting of heroes in twenty years. Innocent became an assistant to Professor Baer and from a young geologist learned about the death of Cherdynsky. On a business trip in Paris, he accidentally met his widow, who invited him to visit. Innocent met Tatyana's family: she has a wonderful husband and ten-year-old daughter. Tanya, without any hesitation, recalled her distant past. Shocked Innocent thought only that Tanya was as attractive and invulnerable as twenty years ago.
Analysis of the work
Nabokov's “Circle” is a rather unusual work, both in terms of its construction and meaning. The ring composition and reveals the meaning of the title of the story and embodies the main idea of ​​the frequency of human life. The story is a series of memoirs of the protagonist, they not only replace each other, but also interrupt. The story has a large number of dots, by which the author separates one story from another.
The novel begins with the words “secondly,” which causes bewilderment of readers, as if it were an excerpt from some work. Of course, the question arises: what is “first”? Such a riddle, of course, causes excitement and prompts you to read the story to the end.
The reader from the first lines invades the memories of the protagonist. Innocent sits in a cafe in Paris, recalls his past “with sadness” and “with constraint of heart,” and with it the reader is carried away at the beginning of the 20th century, in the youth of the hero, where “green mornings” were, it was possible to “deafen from the ologologist”, when life was bright and you take from it everything that it gives. With age, the world fades and becomes more boring.
Godunov-Cherdyntsev
Continuing the analysis of Nabokov’s “Circle”, we see a lonely hero, but the author gives the dynamics an interesting trick, emphasizing how excited the hero’s memories are: the “past” in his soul rose with the “rising chest”. He recalls the years when he was a high school student. Pictures of past years succeed one another and sweep rapidly. Asindetone gives speed to the action: “Prayer”, “Cherdyntsev, coin”.
The story mentions the hero of the novel "Gift" - Cherdyntsev. But the points of view on his personality in these works are diametrically opposed. In Dara, Cherdyntsev’s son recalls his father as an outstanding person; in Krug, the reader looks at the master with the eyes of the son of a village teacher.
The point, of course, is not Cherdyntsev, deeper feelings aroused memories of his daughter - Tanya. Innocent met her several times, she was different from ordinary people - “walked with a governess,” like an aristocrat. They went “like a whirlwind,” he recalls. But these words do not refer so much to meetings with her on the embankment, as to the fact that she quickly appeared in his life and disappeared just as quickly, leaving a deep mark on her soul.
Probably, the life between these meetings was not so interesting, since the hero remembers everything else only with a couple of sentences. For example, about study, admission to the medical faculty. Cherdyntsev probably provided some help here, too, because "the reverence of his father" "mysteriously increased" in front of this man.
Leshino
With the return to Leshino, Innocent's life comes to life. It is no accident that the narrative is interrupted by retardation - a memory of the son of the blacksmith Vasily, with whom Innocent fished. He enjoyed these simple pleasures - he bathed "under this warm chintz." His life was different from the life of Tanya. It is no accident that his father’s office appears in his memoirs, in which Ilya Ilyich even made a table himself. Their lifestyle was very different from the life of the Cherdyntsevs.
The hero recalls how he first saw Tanya with his brother and father. But he does not stop at fleeting meetings and proceeds to the hot days “in the middle of June”. This phrase does not accidentally break off and connects two paragraphs. Thus, Vladimir Nabokov emphasizes the significance of what happened for Innocent, as if that day was endlessly played and repeated in his memory.
Lunch with the master
At a dinner with the Cherdyntsevs, Innocent appeared with his father. Their way of life is opposed to the whole Russian, and at the same time, the writer shows how the aristocratic and purely folk, English and Russian coexisted nearby - mowers “moved” along the road, and played “lone tennis” on the estate; the protagonist "peeled seeds", and the Cherdyntsevs poured "chocolate".
Of course, despite the “civil contempt” that the hero experienced, he was confused. And the point was not so much that he was in the society for the first time, but in the behavior of the Cherdyntsevs: the owner was playing with a fox terrier, his wife Elizaveta Pavlovna “was telling something vividly”. People who seemed contemptible to him turned out to be sincere and simple. The memories of those days blended into a "motley haze", from which Innocent clearly saw only "Tanya's face."
The hero in Nabokov’s “Circle” does not know how to behave in this society. The author conveys his condition by saying that Innocent began talking with his neighbor “only because” because he “was afraid to be silent,” the conversation “was exhausting,” but he desperately “held on to her”. Then the manager’s brother will become a “memory of shame,” and the hero of the story will avoid it. But such is the nature of man - to use people when communication with them serves the fulfillment of goals; a person seeks to forget about them when they bring any inconvenience.
Tatyana
Cherdyntsev’s daughter and her father behave at ease: he says “across the table with the old woman” and holds his daughter by the waist, who throws a “ball in the palm of his hand”. Innocent's father "smiled in vain," and when he was asked to pass on the cookies, "burst into a happy laugh." The hero himself clearly has difficulties at the table, the author focuses on this - he “fought” with a piece of the pie. Suddenly Tatyana suggested going with her. “Suddenly” - there was so much surprise and excitement: he was “hotly embarrassed”, could not immediately get his foot out from under the “common bench”.
All his prejudices about corvée disappeared at once, he renounced his past occupations, and the "fishing of minnows with Basil" ceased. But in Innocent, old convictions are still alive, internally he shuddered, “feeling treason” to the people. But he could not resist youthful passions. The author does not give a full portrait of Tanya, indicating only those features that remained in Innocent’s heart: eyes, “hair over a sponge”. After all, only a loving person can remember barely inconspicuous details. But he was not allowed to the center of the girl’s life and “hated everyone” who could enjoy her company: girlfriends, cousins ​​and dogs.
The denouement came unexpectedly: everything "silently mixed up, disappeared." Tanya said that she was leaving, and when the young man “prayed”, trying to stop her, “a strong wind rose”. Here the hero’s words are immediately remembered that Tanya passed “like a whirlwind” with a governess. Here again, Nabokov’s idea of ​​a circle is seen: the first repeat in the story with Tatyana is one of those circles that a person walks around.
Meeting in Paris
After their parting, the road along which he goes seems to him to “move” - a war with the Germans, a career. Both Tanya and her father were forgotten. The news of the death of Cherdyntsev did not become an event for him, and in his memoirs it will appear only in Paris, at a meeting with Elizaveta Pavlovna. But this road, time has changed both. Innocent became an elegant young man, assistant professor, Elizaveta Pavlovna turned into a "stooped lady" and at first was numb from their meeting, and said "somehow over her shoulder", and Innocent could not remember how "and when her husband died" .
What they talked about, Vladimir Nabokov does not tell the reader. Immediately takes us to the arrival of Tanya - she changed externally, but internally remained the same laid-back, recalling "that distant summer." Innocent cannot understand why the memories of Cherdyntsev do not make them cry, and thinks that Elizaveta Pavlovna and Tanya “kept the style”. But most likely the years did their job, the pain subsided, and they reconciled with grief.
When Tanya’s husband arrives, Innocent is introduced to him as “the son of a school teacher,” and he again feels condescension, a difference in social status and thinks “gloatingly” that they now have “nothing to teach” foreign children. Perhaps some jealousy for Tanya’s husband also played a role, since “the conversation did not work out.” When Elizabeth Pavlovna talks about her son, there is a reference to the novel “Gift”. Probably, the author wanted to say this, when one story ends, another begins. The writer ends the work with the words "first." All the same circle.
Reviews
Many reviews of Nabokov’s “Circle” indicate that the composition of the story itself is interesting: it begins with an epilogue, followed by an exposition - the childhood of the protagonist. The plot is an acquaintance with Tanya, the climax is their farewell. The denouement is a meeting in Paris and the epilogue is reflections in a cafe. The whole story is enclosed in a circle. This image goes through the whole story. "Circle" is the headline, Innocent looks at water circles in childhood, the composition of the story is the circle and essence of our being.
At first glance, it might seem that you can’t escape from this circle, but this is not so. The protagonist concludes that “nothing will be lost”, treasures accumulate “in memory”. Readers in their reviews of Nabokov’s “Circle” write that the author is trying to convey an important thought in this story: life is beautiful in every moment, every episode. Sometimes it seems that we walk in a circle, but you need to appreciate everything that happens in life.