Nabokov's "Natasha," and Bakhtin commentary

Nabokov’s Natasha is the story of Natasha, her father Khrenov, and their neighbor Wolfe.  Khrenov is very sick and believes he will die soon.  Natasha is his caretaker.  We first encounter the Khrenov with Wolfe, as he enters the apartment, insisting that Khrenov is not as sick as he claims.  From the outset of the story, Wolfe is drawn to Natasha.  “Leaning over the banister, Wolfe glanced back at her.” This fascination develops into romance when the two – Natasha and Wolfe – take a trip to the countryside and create imaginary worlds together.

The creation of imaginary worlds and fantasy reoccurs throughout the piece.  Wolfe admits that he has never been to India or The Congo or to any of the places about which he boasts.  When hearing this, Natasha does not “despise [Wolfe] very much,” but instead embraces the idea of created fantasies.  She admits that her story of seeing the Virgin Mary as a child was, too, made up; that it became more real to her after the passage of time. 

The piece maintains a nostalgic tone.  The characters are very much invested in the past.  Whether or not these memories are false and created, every character seems to be living both in the moment and in memory.  The piece is also classically romantic.  For example, the weather outside the apartment is a reflection of the characters’ internal struggles and states of mind (dark, misty, blue).  Conversely, when Natasha and Wolfe go to the country, the weather is a reflection of their gaiety: gold, clear, and airy.  

As in Joyce’s work, the reader understands the characters from a certain distance.  But this can’t be described simply with terms like: third person limited narration.  For much of Natasha we do not know what is real or imagined, what is truth or lie.  This becomes particularly apparent when Natasha returns home and sees her father outside the apartment.  Although the reader knows that Natasha is one who creates fantasies, nothing in particular indicates that she was imagining her father.   Bkahtin understood this kind of narration as polyphonic.  Nabokov creates a narrator that “grants the voice of the main characters as much authority as the narrator.”  So when Natasha sees her father outside the apartment, we, and the narrator as a separate functioning entity within the story, truly believe it; although the narrating persona is a separate entity from the characters, it is objective, and has no knowledge beyond that which the reader has.  In other words, there is no “narrative authority beyond that of the character.”