Goethe/Nabokov

GOETHE: The Sorrows of Young Werther
and
VALDIMIR NABOKOV: Laughter in the Dark

Werther was published in 1774 when Goethe was twenty-five; Laughter was published in 1932 when Nabokov was thirty-two and living temporarily in Berlin. They are, on the surface, quite dissimilar books. Werther caused a sensation and produced,

"...a veritable cult of misery among disaffected youth, giving rise to the word Werthersfieber ("Werther's fever") to describe the lovesick sadness and forlorn disaffection that gripped so many who modeled themselves on the work's eponymous hero." Darrin McMahon: Happiness, A History

It became a fad to imitate Werther's blue frock coat and yellow waistcoat as the uniform of a man of feeling. The book reflected the Zeitgeist of the "age of sentiment", and as a fictional case history,

"...of a highly endowed and appealing individual who allows himself to drift into disaster under the spell of a passion the danger of which he fails to sense until his will to live has been sapped and his sanity undermined, the story has a powerful appeal for the psychologically oriented reader who follows the stages of the hero's mental disintegration..." Foreword from the Signet Classics Version

And this, succinctly summarizes the trajectory of the life of Nabakov's protagonist, Albinus, who throws over his life, wife, child and reputation for what he thinks is the love of a mistress who is only 16-17 years old. (Yes, shades of Lolita here.)

Laughter opens with this arresting paragraph:

"Once upon a time there lived in Berlin, Germany, a man called Albinus. He was rich, respected, happy; one day he abandoned his wife for the sake of a youthful mistress; he loved, was not loved; and his life ended in disaster".

Again, except for the part about abandoning a wife for a mistress, this could be a description of the lifeline of Werther himself. Both men die at the end of the novels, Werther willingly as suicide is the only way to relieve the intolerable angst of his unrequited love for Lotte; Albinus less willingly—he is shot by his mistress, Margot, after a he fails to kill her for her faithlessness—but even for Albinus it is a release. This is Albinus just after he has been shot:

"So that's all. I must keep quiet for a little space than walk very slowly along that bright sand of pain, toward that blue, blue wave. What bliss there is in blueness. I never knew how blue blueness could be. What a mess life has been. Now I know everything. Coming, coming, coming to drown me. There it is. How it hurts. I can't breathe...."

What connects these two novels, so different in tone and time and structure, is a search for happiness that focuses on the ultimately unattainable; in Werther's case the passionate love of a woman who loves and respects him as a friend but who is happily married to another man, and for Albinus, a future with a much younger woman whom he does not see, until the very end, for the scheming, manipulating, unfaithful person that she is. Both protagonists are so blinded by their passions that they lose touch with the real world and their ultimate destructions come as no surprise. Neither can really see the folly of his ways, and although opportunities present themselves, neither can find the fortitude to build on inner strengths they do possess to overcome their fates.

Lotte summarizes it well when she tries to dissuade Wherther from the dark course that she sees his passion leading him:

"Wherther...you may—you must come to see us again, only be more moderate. Oh, why did you have to be born with so much vehemence, with this fixed, uncontrollable passion for everything you touch? I implore you, practice moderation! Your mind—all your knowledge and talents...think of the happiness they can give you! Be more manly! Divert this tragic devotion from a human creature who can only pity you. ... Think calmly, Werther for just one moment. Don't you see that you are deceiving and ruining yourself on purpose? Why me, Werther? Why me of all people, who belongs to another? Why? I fear...I feat that is just the impossibility of possessing me that makes your desire for me so fascinating."

For Albinus, the crisis arrives after his young daughter has died of pneumonia: "He remembered how, in the mirror, he had had a fleeting glimpse of his wife's eyes, in which there had been a heart-rendering expression–pitiful–hunted–but still akin to a smile. He pondered over all this with deep emotion. Yes–if he were to go to his little girl's funeral, he would stay with his wife forever." But Albinus does not go to the funeral because, again, he is seduced by the moment and by his own delusions: "...as he stood by the bed and feasted his eyes on that childish face, with the soft pink lips and flushed cheeks, Albinus remembered their first night together and thought with horror of his future by the side of his pale, faded wife. This future seemed to him like one of those long, dim, dusty passages where one finds a nailed-up box–or an empty perambulator." (What a very nice touch by Nabokov that the glimpse was "in the mirror", i.e. real but not direct, only seen as a reflection, not unlike the way Albinus approaches his whole life.)

Neither Whether, nor Albinus, can get beyond themselves or the moment to see in what future their true happiness lies, just as neither can see, until the end, the destructive path that each has embarked upon. Both think that happiness can be found in the senses, in the here and now, and both give in to their passions without considering what they really mean. Werther's love is formally unrequited (try though he does to convince himself otherwise at certain points), as is the "love" that Albinus feels for Margot (though he would be hard pressed to define the word in that context), even though he fools himself, and is fooled, for a period of time.

There is another, common feature in the appeal of both books: the universality of the stories they tell. As Alain de Botton The Consolations of Philosophy describes it:

"Goethe's readers not only recognized themselves in The Sorrows of Young Werther, they also understood themselves better as a result, for Goether had clarified a range of the awkward, evanescent moments of love, moments that his readers would previously have lived through, though would not necessarily have fathomed. He laid bare certain laws of love...He had, for example, perfectly captured the apparently kind—yet infinitely cruel—manner with which the person who does not love deals with someone who does."

Schopenhauer said that, "The essence of art is that its one case applies to thousands." They are very different stories, but this is as true for Werther as it is for Laughter.

Fascinating. Did Nabokov write Laughter in the Dark before or after he wrote Lolita?

Nabokov wrote Laughter in the Dark (1930s) well before Lolita (mid 50s). John Banville wrote the introduction in the edition that I have of Laughter and had this to say about the two books:

"...Laughter in the Dark is no mere pale anticipation of the great teeming canvas which is Lolita. The earlier book displays a sinister deftness that would be quite swamped in the sumptuous impasto of its successor. From the start Nabokov had a masterly way in portraying girls of a certin lightness and looseness of character. Margot Peters is one with the numerous vamps and flappers who flit through his early work and out of whose pale revenants he fashioned the elven child-woman who was to be his most famous creation. Margot is as corrupt as Loltia but less cheeful and far more destructive, in her carlessly wanton way."

Had to look up "impasto": laying on of paint thickly.

I thought that The Enchanter was more of a precursor to Lolita, but it is true that Margot in Laughter in the Dark is very reminicent of Lo.
Lolita wasn't, I don't think, really mean by nature, but because of circumstances was easily able to slip into the role. Which in the end may amount to the same thing.

I would love to read Banville's intro! I'm reading The Sea right now.

The edition of Laughter in the Dark that I have with the intro by John Banville is "New Directions"; paperback. I haven't read The Enchanter, but will put it on the list!

What first drew me to Banville was a quote I found from The Sunday Telegraph...."John Banville is the heir to Nabokov." So I'll have to get another copy of Laughter in the Dark to have that intro. :)

If I was only able to choose one author to read it'd have to be Nabokov.

Fascinating stuff! Great idea for a group.

#6 - wasn't the line after comparing Banville to Nabokov, by Tibor Fischer, "There's a lot of lovely language but not much novel."

jargoneer,
the quote was not credited beyond "The Sunday Telegraph", so I don't know -- it was on the front cover of the book and in the Amazon review.

I'm only halfway through, but I'd have to disagree with the second half of the remark....the language is lovely, but there is a definite story/novel there. Subtle and beautifully told.

"The Sea" was beautiful, I have to percolate a review, but for now let it suffice it to say it is well worth the read.

I've been reading The Untouchable by Banville but have been interrupted somewhat.

But to keep this on topic, I really would only compare Banville's use of language to Nabokov, not layering.