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Razor
A short story written by Vladimir Nabakov tells the story of an exiled Russian that comes into contact with their former torturer. It was written in 1926.
Paragraph one (Ivanov analysis)
Ivanov, an exiled Russian, and former Berlin-based military officer took up a job as a barber; a fitting role, Nabokov says, as Ivanov’s sharp facial appearance gained him the nickname ‘Razor’ in his earlier life.
An unnamed character, largely dressed in black, enters the barber’s on a hot day, deserted save for Ivanov, and asks for a shave. Ivanov quickly realizes that a client is a Russian fellow who, according to the reader, tortured Ivanov during the period of revolutionary upheaval in Russia.
Ivanov reminds him of their last encounter with the unnamed character sitting in the chair, his face slathered with shaving cream. Instead, Ivanov begins shaving him, recounting their previous meeting while also strongly suggesting the impact one razor slip might have.
Half the reader wants Ivanov’s vengeance to be exact. But Ivanov relents and the terrified and clean-shaven Soviet flees from the barber’s after telling his story.
Paragraph two (conflict analysis)
While Nabokov’s Collected Stories ‘ Penguin paperback edition (1997) is only four pages long, the story touches on many of the issues woven into the longer works of Nabokov the importance, for example, of the freedom of action and thought of an individual or the value of observing the specific details of life.
Through the prism of an even more important theme for Nabokov, the destruction of his Russian homeland by the Soviet Revolution, these questions are merged and illuminated. Countless numbers of his output reveal a lively bitterness not only toward the revolution but toward the Communist empire’s successor ideology its police control, its suppression of personal liberties, and its attempts to rein in individual thinking.
Any character who dares to support or favor Communism receives short shrift in the work of Nabokov, and while not being a Communist could never be sufficient to guarantee a holy status to a character, it will save him or her from his fading disdain.
This comparison forms the whole portrayal of Nabokov in ‘Razor.’ Ivanov, who had made an ‘epic escape’ from the revolution, was a positive figure, while the unidentified Communist was utterly scorned.
This contrast is most apparent in the story itself. His (past) actions strongly suggest the Soviet’s one-time violence. Ivanov, on the other hand, refuses to go back to his alleged torturers ‘ practices.
After briefly raising the possibility of torture, Ivanov stops there, enough to scare the Soviets without causing lasting damage. The razor doesn’t open the throbbing carotid of the Communist. Cruelty does not give rise to any more cruelty.
Ivanov’s melancholic truth is that the pain of the past loss (not only the emotional pain inflicted on him, but the fact that ‘the buffoon ruined his vast, majestic, magnificent homeland’) will not be eradicated by revenge Ivanov may not gain his physical salvation, but he is assured of his moral superiority.
To emphasize the distinction, Nabokov uses a variety of other strategies and themes. For example, the appearances of the characters. The face of Ivanov is angular, almost harsh in his perspective: ‘nose sharp as a draftsman’s triangle; chin sturdy as an elbow’. While Nabokov stresses the roundness of the Soviet: ‘A puffy face … with a plump mole by the right lobe of the nose.’
Ivanov applies lather to ‘the man’s cheeks, rounded chin, and upper lip.’ His eyes are ‘glittering little wheels’. Later the Soviet’s visage descends to being described as an ‘eyeless, fat face’.
More on the conflict
Perhaps the fundamental aspect of Nabokov’s delineation of his characters is that while Ivanov, spiritually free, flees from the viewpoint of others, the Soviet is already caught under the gaze of others.
A defining characteristic of their personalities becomes how their faces and appearances are revealed to others. At the very beginning, the reader is told that Razor lacks a façade, and when friends tried to remember his appearance, they ‘could only imagine him in profile.’
Whereas as soon as the Soviet entered the barber, ‘the reflection of the newcomer appeared simultaneously in all the mirrors, in profile, three-quarters-face, showing the bald spot in the back.’
Nonetheless, the argument is more subtle yet significant-the free man avoids the sight of others while the man who rejects liberty is always caught in other people’s eyes.
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