WHAT ARE THE BRACKETS IN GOMBROWICZ S AND NABOKOV S WORKS USED FOR? Katherina KOKINOVA

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1 WHAT ARE THE BRACKETS IN GOMBROWICZ S AND NABOKOV S WORKS USED FOR? Katherina KOKINOVA Abstract: This paper deals with the role of the text within brackets in Witold Gombrowicz s and Vladimir Nabokov s work. What does the wedged in and set off by brackets serve for beyond its ordinary use (for clarification, additional expression, additional meaning and evaluation)? The enclosed within brackets could serve as an accompanying story, as an initiation to a secret, as well as foreseeing, self-reflexive, justifying, negotiating, or recertifying word. The reader also occurs to be within brackets simultaneously present (in brackets) and absent from the text. Key words: brackets, play, reader, self-reflection. Gianni Rodari The Case of a Bracket 1 One student, Just for a moment, Turned to his mate chatting, And as he had opened a bracket, Forgot all about its shutting. Draught came from the entrance And one full sentence, With a subject, object, and verb, Started sneezing to disturb, And then a whole topic told Suffered from severe cold. That s why when the sniffling ended A sign was put up, that really matters, And two writers made it splendid, With big capital letters: BRACKETS PLAY A MAJOR ROLE, SO, PLEASE, CLOSE THEM ALL! The (non-)critic tempted by the works of Witold Gombrowicz 2 and Vladimir Nabokov will surely notice and take out another commonality, which is an essential part of playing literature: the text in brackets. The two authors demonstrate a curious attitude to the use of these separating marks that at the same time implant and extract the parenthetical expression from the main text. Brackets can be found in their traditional function (of clarifying, specifying, and evaluation), but they also perform some other unusual roles, which seem to be part of the set of literary devices for play. It turns out that the space between two brackets could host additional stories, parallel plots, whole sentences, and even the reader. As words are the very facts of his 3 1 Translated into English from Bulgarian (translator s note). 2 See Michał Okłot and his original studies on Gombrowicz s Pornografia and writing in brackets in Phantasms of Matter, pp Nabokov s but Gombrowicz s, too. 1

2 fiction 4, the brackets appear to be proof for the author s simultaneous exclusion and inclusion of meanings, and a test for the reader s concentration. That is the reason why this art is difficult but the rewards are great for readers ready to extend the effort they [the fictions] require 5. These punctuation marks could adopt another role by enabling the introducing of both extra information and a parallel (second) voice, which contests and analyses the main text: I find the falseness that is hosted at the heart of my diary timid and I am sorry, oh, I am sorry... (and maybe the last words are unnecessary or even pretentious?). 6 Between the brackets is where the dialoguing, distant voice is confined, simultaneously present (rejecting, questioning or justifying what has been said outside the brackets) and absent (outer, peripheral): Perhaps, in this very second, it seemed to him that hatred complemented love, who knew (this was my personal guess)... 7 ; Still, this dazzling, though evanescent, discovery (at least this is my interpretation) 8 As if locked in an adjacent room, the self-reflective behaviour is just waiting to be called out of the brackets and to open the door to the dining-room, to turn (its) other face (of the same thing). Brackets could also be a symbol of the literariness of the text an example for this can be found in the first pages of the Russian version of Lolita : In a princedom by the sea (almost like in Poe). 9 They could also host a parallel (second) plot, an additional story: Why he had joined in that ludicrous show and what in fact had led him to pal with that grotesque couple remained a complete mystery (my Mother thought that perhaps he had been ensnared by Larissa but the woman was perfectly plain, elderly, and violently in love with her freak of a husband). 10 A separate, independent text coexisting with and within the main one (commenting it, yet completed in itself) can be traced in Ferdydurke : However (oh, what strange mischances life holds in store for us!) a certain colonel ; In his excitement the colonel (oh, how careful one must be in life!) 12 ; For the man [ ] (oh, how fallible are our calculations and how unpredictable our destinies!) happened to be 13 ; but for the fact (which only goes to show that in this world one should always be ready for anything and never take anything for granted) 14. In this key chapter of the novel, there are sentences repeatedly cut by brackets, as well as whole sentences isolated in a similar manner: and he flung into the faces of the crowd a handful of visiting cards on which were inscribed the words Philippe de Philimor. (Oh, how difficult and dangerous life is, how careful we must be!) 15. There are even whole paragraphs isolated in brackets in Nabokov s work (here even the names serve as second brackets): (Van, I trust your taste and your talent but are we quite sure we should keep reverting so zestfully to that wicked world which after all may have existed only oneirologically, Van? Marginal jotting in 4 Parker 1987: Parker 1987: Gombrowich 1997: 56 (translated in English from Bulgarian). 7 Gombrowicz 1986: 58 (translated in English from Bulgarian). 8 Ibid. (translated in English from Bulgarian). 9 The expression in brackets, translated in English here, was taken from the Russian version of the book (also created by Nabokov). It is not present in its original in English (translator s note). 10 Nabokov 2008a: Gombrowicz 1968: Ibid. 13 Ibid.: Ibid. 15 Ibid.:

3 Ada s 1965 hand; crossed out lightly in her latest wavering one.) 16 Disguised as a commentary on the events in Philimor Honeycombed with Childishness, a parallel and partially independent conception of life and its unpredictability is introduced. Thus two voices are heard simultaneously and the message of the chapter is reaffirmed at another level. What was said in the brackets cannot be skipped because without it the meaning is somehow incomplete. This (12 th ) part (of the body) of the book is interpreted by Ognyan Kovachev as the quintessence of the novel. Whole sentences in brackets representing an additional (hidden, second) storyline are found in the works of Nabokov as well: Hugh treasured his stroke mentally for years, long after the chances to use it dwindled to one or two shots in a desultory game. (In fact, the last time he executed it was that day at Witt with Armande, whereupon she walked off the court and could not be coaxed back.) 17 Probably the Russian criticism s definition of Sirin s texts as selfreflective novels is reasonable (besides, this is the term used for Gombrowicz s novels too). Viktor Erofeyev observes the presence of contemptuous brackets 18 as another way of expressing the attitude to the character and narration. While introducing his family Gombrowicz does not pass without giving in brackets a (selfironic) remark about their descent ( well ; excellent ; not at all bad 19 ). This classical usage of brackets is present in Nabokov s works, too: as she considered her Mondstein Sexy (their incredible trade name) In that dream which the psychiatrist (a weirdie, son of an unknown soldier and a Gypsy mother) dismissed In the works of Nabokov the expression in brackets could also play the role of a childishly enthusiastic addressing to a non-animate object: the sofa would be moved slightly away from the wall (hello, little socket holes)... 22, which as if makes the reader empathize with the characters and become their accomplice. However, far more interesting are the unusual uses of this type of prearranging the text. Brackets could let into a secret: wife, a meek old woman wearing a bonnet (and to those who were privy, a man, his elderly cohabitant, a Math teacher, who had died seven years earlier) 23. Thus the reader happens to be one of those who are let into the secret that is to become a play of his imagination. He is initiated into the play and invited to take part in it instinctively agreeing to obey its rules/laws 24. The parenthetical space could turn out to be the space of the future: the valise (which he will send by mail coach ahead) and transfer to the knapsack (which he will carry himself across the mountains to the Italian frontier) ; what turned out to be (according to Kim, the kitchen boy, as will be understood later) a tremendous stretch of microfilm ; her first name is too closely interwound with the inmost fiber of the book to allow one to alter it; nor (as the reader 16 Nabokov 1990: Nabokov 1989b: Erofeyev 1998: 83 (translated in English from Bulgarian). 19 Gombrowicz 2002: 8-9 (translated in English from Bulgarian). 20 Nabokov 1989b: Ibid.: Nabokov 1989a: 310 (translated in English from Bulgarian, not present in Speak, Memory). 23 Nabokov 2008: 200 (translated in English from Bulgarian). 24 More on the rules of the play or the Author s orders in: Self-reflective Discourse a Mission (Im)possible. 25 Nabokov 1989b: 19 (bold by me). 26 Nabokov 1990: 6. 3

4 will perceive for himself) is there any practical necessity to do so Here even the reader ends up within the brackets simultaneously present, involved, invited to a conversation, surrounded by (parts of) the text, and absent, separated from it at the same time. In this manner the reader is literally placed into the text, as if involved in the play, yet visually surrounded, limited by rules, obliged to sign the contract if he desires to be admitted to the text. What has been put into (brackets) oscillates between the presence and the attempt at absence. The difference between enclosing something into commas and into brackets lays mainly in perception and inseparability, the integrity of the text. It looks as though the brackets are a consciously chosen punctuation mark that stands out visually and at the same time what is within may be omitted and the text could be read, played without it. On the other hand, graphically outstanding, they are more likely to take a leading position, the text in brackets can be the first/only text read. Thus the reading instructions given in brackets could (not) be read and coexist together with the main text. This allows, somehow on the way, and by the way, to evaluate the whole book using the guidelines in the preface: scenes that a certain type of mind might call aphrodisiac (see in this respect the monumental decision rendered [ ] in regard to another, considerably more outspoken, book)... 28, to make footnotes to the introductory selfreading ( this whole literary school (the word school is entirely motivated here) 29 ) or pay special attention ( that kind of small nose which English lady novelists call retroussée (note the second e added for safety) 30. Here the reader, who has already recognized the space in brackets as his own, could find there the direct imperative or instruction. The brackets in Gombrowicz s and Nabokov s works could introduce a parallel story, they could let into a secret, address, but they could also function as a predicting, self-reflective, persuasive or reaffirming text. Both the reader and the reading instruction could be enclosed in the brackets present (in brackets in) and absent from the text at the same time. LITERATURE Gombrowicz 1968: Gombrowicz, W. Ferdydurke. NY, Gombrowicz 1986: Gombrowicz, W. Zbrodnia z premedytacją. W: Bakakaj (Dzieła, t. 1). Kraków, Gombrowicz 1997: Gombrowicz, W. Dziennik ( ), t. 1., Kraków, Gombrowicz 2002: Gombrowicz, W. Autobiografia pośmiertna. Kraków, Erofeyev 1998: Erofeev, V. Ruskiat metaroman na V. Nabokov, ili tursene na izgubenia rai. In: Ruska literaturna klasika. Profili i tvorbi (P. Troev), vol. 4, S., Nabokov 1989a: Nabokov, V. Pokana za ekzekutzia (Drugi bregove). S., Nabokov 1989b: Nabokov, V. Transparent Things. NY, Nabokov 1990: Nabokov, V. Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle. NY, Nabokov 1997: Nabokov,V. Lolita, NY, Nabokov 2008a: Nabokov, V. The Real Life of Sebastian Knight. NY, Nabokov 2008b: Nabokov, V. Pop, dama, vale. S., Nabokov 2006: Nabokov, V. Laughter in the Dark. NY, Nabokov 1997: 4 (bold and Italic by me). 28 Ibid Gombrowicz 1988: 16 (translated in English from Bulgarian; preface to the Spanish edition). 30 Nabokov 2006: 16. 4

5 Okłot 2009: Phantasms of Matter in Gogol (and Gombrowicz). Champaign and London, Parker 1987: Parker, St. Understanding Vladimir Nabokov. Columbia, South Carolina, Published in Linguistic World (Orbis Linguarum), issue: 1 / 2013, pages: Original translator unknown, retranslated with additions by the author. 5