The Enchanter: Nabokov and Happiness Lila Azam Zanganeh/Allen Lane May 2011
I had expected to find enchanters and demons in Nabokov. Shuddering magic. The stuff of fairy tales, ‘noble iridescent creatures with translucent talons and mightily beating wings.’ The rest, in truth, was something akin to falling in love, a haunting feeling of native otherness.
(Lila Azam Zanganeh, foreword to The Enchanter)
I found out about this book a week or so ago. Today I purchased my copy and have just begun reading it. My reading pile grows more unwieldy by the day, but I found The Enchanter was a book I could not ignore. I first read Lolita when I was in my early twenties. It was a book I devoured in a single sitting. I was disturbed, upset, perplexed, thrilled and above all transported by the experience. Lolita was then (and perhaps still is now) what is sometimes referred to as a ‘notorious’ book, and of course I was curious about it. In the event I found that most of what I had already read about it was either completely wrongheaded or beside the point. More than anything I felt I had discovered a unique genius, a writer who spoke to me in ways I had never encountered before and who left me in a state of perpetual nostalgia for the world – both material and creative – that he invented. A genius who spoke uniquely to me.
Of all the writers I came to know during this crucial period of development and learning it is Nabokov who has remained a stalwart, a constant inspiration in my life and whose works seem as relevant and electric to me now as they did then.
So when I read about Lila Zanganeh’s attempt to chronicle her own literary love affair with Nabokov I was instantly both intrigued and on my guard. Intrigued because her feelings about Nabokov seemed to concur so closely with my own, on my guard because, well, she was trying to pull off something that was impossible. No one can compete with the master, or should even try, and yet here Zanganeh was, playing games with his style, having imaginary conversations with him – how was this ever going to work?
This girl clearly had some guts or some nerve. Either that or she was insane.
What unnerved me most of all though was some of the online tittle-tattle surrounding this book. I found numerous instances of hostility at the very idea that The Enchanter had been written, let alone published. Many of these comments were personal insults aimed at the writer. Most of them were written by people who had not, at least to date, read the book. Not exactly what you’d call informed debate.
I found this to be deeply distasteful. It seemed to me that Zanganeh had set out honestly to do something brave and original, and that this, of and for itself, should be applauded. (It’s what good writing is all about, surely?) The idea of fusing biography with memoir with fiction with literary criticism seemed to me beautiful and audacious, an idea I could get fond of myself. Whether or not I end up liking this book I’m glad it has been written.
And if Zanganeh’s work draws new disciples to the feet of the master that goes double.