The Art of Compromise: The Life and Work of Leonid Leonov by Boris s> Thomson Leonid Leonov (review)

334 SEER, 82, 2, 2004 the novel, specifically the scenes at the Enchanted Hunters and Hourglass Lake,with Humbert Humbert playing the role of Prince Charming. The finalpart of the book focuses on the versionsof America that the novel presents.John Haegart argues that Humbert Humbert uses his relationship with Lolita to develop a sense of identity in an alien land, but through a combination of his 'mediating'vision andhis solipsizingofLolitahe ultimately denies himselfaccess.Rachel Bowlby'sessaycontinuesthistheme of alienation in her exploration of Humbert Humbert's responses to America's consumer culture, epitomized by Lolita, and her significance as a representativeof the advertisingindustry'scynicalmanipulationof universalaspirationsand desires to create an alternative aesthetic dimension which is nothing more than an empty parody of all that it attempts to emulate. Michael Wood's review of Adrian Lyne's film concludes this section with some discussion of Stanley Kubrick's I962 version. Pifer's selection of the interview that completes this volume perfectly complements the issues it has raised. In it, Nabokov talks about being an American, about writershe likes and dislikes,books he has and has not read, about Kubrick's Lolita,extensively about poshlost,and briefly, yet incisively, about the novel's morality. The interview provides a wonderfully succinct answerto so much of what has been discussedin the preceding chapters,and leaves Nabokov, appropriately,with the lastword: Lolitais famous, not I. I am an obscure,doubly obscure,novelistwith an unpronounceable name (p. 206). Schoolof SlavonicandEast EuropeanStudies BARBARA WYLLIE University College London Thomson, Boris. TheArt of Compromise. 7The Life and Workof LeonidLeonov. University of Toronto Press, Toronto, Buffalo, NY, and London, 200I. xiii + 407 pp. Appendix. Notes. Bibliography.Index. $75.00; ?55.00. IN the Preface to this first English-language monograph on Leonov, Boris Thomson poses what is undoubtedly a pertinent question: 'Given the circumstancesof his times Leonov's artis an artof compromise. [... .] How far was he himself compromised in the process?' (p. xi). The process by which Leonov moved from the openly interrogativestance of his firsttwo novels to 'apparentlymore conformist works' (p. 79), and ultimately to the sprawling Piramida,published just weeks before his death in 1994, is exhaustively documented in the light of the view that 'He seems to have internalized the need for compromise and contrived to exploit it for artistic ends' (p. xi). Thomson's chronologically structuredaccount of Leonov's oeuvre is nothing if not exhaustive. Of particular value are his treatment of the differences between the journal and subsequent book publications of numerous works, and of the extensive revisions that the author undertook in the I950S and I960s, as well as his astuteand revealingelucidation of Leonov's referencesto other writersand works. His deep knowledge of and admirationfor Leonov's work, the subjectof his I965 doctoral thesis,is clear;and TheArtofCompromise is in a line of successionfrom ThePremature Revolution (London, I972) and Lot's REVIEWS 335 WifeandtheVenus ofMilo (Cambridge, I978), in which Leonov served as an importantpoint of reference. On occasions the book's syntax seems to betray its origins in an earlier period, as when we are told that 'Since the death of Stalin [Doroga na Okean] has regained official favour, and Soviet critics have treated it with growing respect' (p. I7 I). Methodologically, too, the book is very much of a piece with Thomson's earlierwork. This is evident, firstand foremost, in its predominant biographism, which can produce interesting insights, such as the identification of references to Leonov's own politically suspect past in the biography of one of the characters in Dorogana Okean (p. I6o), or the suggestions of parallelsbetween Leonov's literarycareer and those of both the positive and negative heroes, Vikhrov and Gratsianskii,in Russkiiles(pp. 222, 235-36). Just as often, however, this approach is likely to produce a banal comment about how Leonov's 'notably happy marriage' is surprisingly not reflected in his characters' family relationships (p. 89), or resolutely old-fashioned assertions such as 'Leonov's true beliefs are also present in the text, and can be shown to be consistent within it' (p. I 23) (on another occasion [p. 28] the word 'text' is bounded in scare quotes that accentuate a hostility or indifference to less traditional approaches that...

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