On Exploring Craft by Bridglall Beatrice L.;

Author:Bridglall, Beatrice L.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: UPA
Published: 2012-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 7

Tension, Compression and Pacing

in Vladimir Nabokov’s

Lolita and Pnin

Nabokov (1980) ends his introductory essay to his Lectures on Literature with the following thoughts: “It seems to me that a good formula to test the quality of a novel is, in the long run, a merging of the precision of poetry and the intuition of science. In order to bask in that magic a wise reader reads the book of genius not with his heart, not so much with his brain, but with his spine. [ . . . ] Then with a pleasure which is both sensual and intellectual we shall watch the artist build his castle of cards and watch the castle of cards become a castle of beautiful steel and glass.”

Nabokov’s novels Lolita (1956) and Pnin (1957), have become castles in the literary landscape. While there is much to explore vis-à-vis other foundational aspects of architecture, such as texture, balance, scale and proportion in these two novels, I focus on investigating how architects construe tension, compression and pacing in constructing physical spaces and likewise, how Nabokov handles these defining aspects of craft. Architects are concerned with two basic types of physical stress: compressive stress and tensile stress. Let us consider a length of material, a stone slab or piece of lumber. If we were to hold each end of the material and squeeze, we would be exerting compressive force (see Figure 7.1).

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