Summary and analysis of V. Nabokov's novel Camera Obscura

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Camera obscura translated from Latin - "dark room". The nature of an amazing optical phenomenon is the basis of this ancient prototype of the camera. It is a completely light-proof box with a tiny hole in one of the walls through which an inverted image of what is outside is projected onto the opposite wall.

The camera obscura… Nabokov used it as a central metaphor in the 1933 novel of the same name.

The action of the work takes place in Berlin in the late twenties. A banal story happened to a successful specialist in the field of art, and in particular painting, Bruno Kretschmar - he was consumed by a passion for sixteen-year-old Magda, a girl from a dysfunctional family with a dark past. The feeling so captured him that he leaves the family, leaving his wife and daughter.

After wife Anneliese gives in to her young husbandmistress, the couple moves to live in the Krechmars' house. In addition, Bruno invests in a dubious film project in which Magda gets a minor role.

Soon, Magda accidentally meets her first lover, who once left her, the young caricaturist Gorn, to whom she is still not indifferent. She begins to secretly meet with Gorn, cheating, but still using Kretschmar's money, especially since the thirty-year-old Gorn has no money, but a lot of debts.

Krechmar and Magda are going on a car trip around Europe, Gorn is also driving with them. They continue to cynically deceive Bruno, lulling his jealousy with the cartoonist's false homosexuality.

Soon Krechmar accidentally learns about Magda's betrayal and in a fit of jealous rage tries to kill her. The girl reassures him, but Bruno insists on leaving immediately, without waiting for Gorn. On the road, Kretschmar loses control, which causes an accident in which Bruno goes blind.

Gorn wrote Bruno an offended letter in which he reaffirmed his homosexuality and said that he was going to America, although in fact he continued the journey with Magda and Kretschmar. After being discharged from the hospital, the blind Bruno is ordered to rest by the doctors, which is what the criminal duet uses. They rent a mansion in Switzerland, in a mountainous remote area, and the three of them live in it, and the presence of Gorn is a mystery to blind Bruno.

As all the senses become more acute, includingrumor, Kretschmar has painful suspicions, but Magda and Gorn cynically mock him. Exhausted and going crazy with jealousy, Bruno is saved by Max, the brother-in-law. He returns him to Berlin to his first wife, Anneliese, who still loves him.

But after learning that Magda is coming to Berlin for things, Kretschmar, offended by her betrayal, tries to kill her. Magda takes the gun away from him, during a short struggle, a shot sounds, and Bruno falls dead.

Vladimir Nabokov ("Camera Obscura"), inspired by an artistic experiment, tried to create a work devoid of edification and moralizing, which is not characteristic of literary works of Russian literature. The author coldly and impartially portrays the distorted perception of the hero, seized with passion.

The first meeting of the heroes took place in the velvet twilight of the cinema hall. The light of the flashlight fragmentarily snatched out either the sparkle of the eye, or the softly outlined cheek of the girl, which reminded him of the painting of the old masters. Do not forget that Krechmar is an art critic.

The dark hall of the cinema is the hero's camera obscura. Being in the wrong world, turned upside down, he is forced to submit to its distorted logic. The blindness of the senses lasts so long that it eventually turns into physical blindness. Remaining literally blind, Kretschmar, whom the camera obscura let go just before his death, finally "saw" the world as it is.