POST due 1/29 9 PM (for Mon's class)

Before our next class: write your cut-up composition, using ten of the phrases, one per line of poetry. Or write it as a prose piece - one per sentence. We'll hopefully look at some in class. Don't labor over this; it's an exercise.

Also read "Natasha" and "Bakhtin on the Novel." (Remember that you must read the first 4 chapters of Crash for Wednesday - start now!)

Suggestions for your post: always try to be specific about VN's LANGUAGE.
1. Discuss the story in light of this idea: the art of Nabokov, like the art of Flaubert and Joyce, became in many ways an art of the distance between the author and the reader, between the personal experiences and trials of the hero, and between generally accepted ideas and personal opinions.
2. Also: discuss the themes of an uncertain sense of reality and imagination or art in the story.
3. Required: relate the Bakhtinian ideas of polyphony or dialogic writing to Burroughs and Nabokov.

Please include a couple questions on the reading about Bakhtin - things that need clarification.