Cleaning Nabokov's House

            I have to admit that I was drawn to this book because of the title: Cleaning Nabokov's House.   The book jacket tells me that the author, Leslie Daniels is an accomplished writer and editor with an MFA degree.  So I knew that I could expect polished writing and a good narrative structure, unless she tended more towards the metafictional side of things.  Thankfully she doesn’t. 

            Instead, Daniels crafts a compelling and ultimately optimistic novel about literature, fame, motherhood, and the costs of divorce.  Barb Barnett is the protagonist who leaves her husband, only to find that trying to get a fair shake in divorce proceedings in her ex’s hometown is nearly impossible.  So, she not only loses her marriage, but she loses her children too.  She rebounds and finds work that affords her a fair amount of freedom during the day.  She learns that the house she is staying in had once been occupied by the famous Russian emigre novelist, Vladimir Nabokov.  When she finally begins to decorate her house, mostly for her children’s sake, she finds a set of notecards that may or may not be the foundation for a manuscript from Nabokov. 

            The potential novel is about love and baseball, one of which is not unfamiliar territory for Nabokov.  With her newfound fame, Barnett finds herself deciding whether or not to sell the manuscript or try to publish it.  She also is invited to a Nabokov convention where she finds herself surrounded by skeptical and condescending professional scholars.  She holds her own and Daniels allows her to deliver one of the best short descriptions of what Nabokov’s writing, and I would argue by extension, what great literature does to you.

“’I know about his sentences. His sentences are impossible to imitate, but I  know what they do.’” I told them what I had discovered about Nabokov’s sentences: "Because the word string and the thoughts behind the words are so original, the reader’s brain can’t jump ahead. There is no opportunity to make assumptions, no mental leapfrogging to the end of the sentence. So the reader is suspended in the perfect moment of now. You can only experience now. The sentneces celebrate the absolute instant of creation.  ‘It takes your breath away, ‘ I said.”

Barb Barnett continues to rebuild her life and I do love the plot twist that Daniels employs as Barnett fights for her children.  Some of the strongest passages and chapters are those that deal with the pain of divorce and the hurt created by not being able to spend time with your children.  For anyone who has been through a separation or divorce, Daniels’ prose rings true. This is a well-written, clever, and doggedly optimistic book that earns its optimism through mostly plausible circumstances and situations. 

Czar