Subject
Re: VN and Freud--reply to Aisenberg and Mello
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Jim Twiggs: ..." Such obvious things as learning language, growing up, being trained in various practical activities of life, falling in and out of love, watching loved ones be born and die, growing old--all these represent vast expansions in self-awareness and consciousness. But considering only the arts, my own consciousness has been formed and expanded far more by (for example) Mark Twain and Nathanael West, Walker Evans and Diane Arbus, Rembrandt and Warhol, Charlie Parker and Billie Holiday, Errol Morris and David Lynch, Aristotle and Wittgenstein, than by VN... [...] one of the most vexing problems in understanding VN (and, in this case, Shade)... how to speak about something that by definition lies outside language. In his book on Ada, Boyd answers the question in this way: ". . . Whereas the relentless pursuit of rectilinear logic eventually leads us, on this small planet, around in circles, a work of genuinely inspired art may draw on all that is best in human thought and at the same time be penetrated “by the beyond’s fresh breath.” (SO 227)..The declaration Van (or anyone) makes from within this world that the beyond remains philosophically unknowable could prove (for those able to look from the without) to be the very confirmation that where they are is a beyond...That conclusion, surely, lies at the heart of Nabokov’s thinking. The problem here, as Boyd himself shows with numerous quotations, is that VN is forever spelling out his private theology...The Otherworld theme--far from being a breath of fresh air from the beyond, is the stalest thing in VN’s writing. Thank goodness...he can give skepticism its due in a fine work of pitch-black comedy, which is perhaps best seen as a furious argument within himself...As for me, I’ll stick with the old hymn “Farther Along”--provided, of course, that one adds “or not” in all the right places."
JM: There's no disagreement between my experience and the arguments presented by Jim Twiggs qua the role of Nabokov's writings in relation to an "expansion of consciousness," set in comparison to a host of other poets and novelists. And I think that Nabokov used writing as a resource to expand his own awareness of people and society, not the reader's (he was explicit about the latter).
I have a problem with how Jim refers to the term "beyond". Does he use it to imply a location in space or a "thereafter" life for those who died? It is a very wide acception. If there's no "beyond" us, humans, trifling specks in the universe (unlike the Renaissance vision of man as the "measure of all things"), one would be condemned to solipsism or to a life with no surprises.
Nabokov expressed hopes that there'd be a "big surprise" lying beyond his individual existence but, for me, my present life is surprising enough to keep me off wishing for more. A similar mood is present in a sonnet by Vinicius de Morais, from which I quote its last lines:
"E assim, quando mais tarde me procure/ Quem sabe a morte, angústia de quem vive/ Quem sabe a solidão, fim de quem ama/ Eu possa me dizer do amor ( que tive ) :/Que não seja imortal, posto que é chama/ Mas que seja infinito enquanto dure." *
Who knows if Van Veen (a self-described "epicure of duration") is not a teeny bit greedy? Nabokov, himself, seemed content when he wrote, in SM: "It is certainly not then — not in dreams — but when one is wide awake, at moments of robust joy and achievement, on the highest terrace of consciousness, that mortality has a chance to peer beyond its own limits, from the mast, from the past and its castle-tower. And although nothing much can be seen through the mist, there is somehow the blissful feeling that one is looking in the right direction." ( but I have no idea what a "right direction" means).
Jerry Friedman: "I must say I don't think any place on Earth has the sun at any different angles at sunset to the horizon than any other, but maybe Brasilia's climate favors the kind of weather when these phenomena appear, and unquestionably some people observe them better than others. Also, rainwater can certainly reflect a rainbow (it must have been spectacular!) because it can reflect anything, but clouds can't reflect an image of anything."
JM: You are the expert and often my reference for parahelia and sundogs. Instead of sunsets I should have considered the angle from where we follow the course of the sun, its inclination, in Summer and Winter. The fact is that we are unable, at times, to register in one single shot a striking phenomenon. A verbal rendering of it provides by any amateur remains an insufficient proof. Like when the sun sinks in the West, like a giant disk of fire and, at the same time, we can see the moon, as big and red like the sun, rising in the East. Diagrams and mathematical talent to cope with this regular 180-degree distance bt sun and moon may demonstrate or illustrate this phenomenon, not I.
But, Jerry... clouds (not only mist) sometimes reflect spectral images, such as the moving silhouette of one's airplane, and YES... I see your point concerning Shade's "reflected rainbow." Thanks.
...............................................................................................................................................................................................
* "And thus, when later comes looking for me/Who knows, the death, anxiety of the living,/Who knows, the loneliness, end of all lovers/I'll be able to say to myself of the love (I had):/Be not immortal, since it is flame/ But be infinite while it lasts." http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/119640-Vin-cius-de-Moraes-Sonnet-of-Fidelity ( not the best translation, but one I could find available in the internet)
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JM: There's no disagreement between my experience and the arguments presented by Jim Twiggs qua the role of Nabokov's writings in relation to an "expansion of consciousness," set in comparison to a host of other poets and novelists. And I think that Nabokov used writing as a resource to expand his own awareness of people and society, not the reader's (he was explicit about the latter).
I have a problem with how Jim refers to the term "beyond". Does he use it to imply a location in space or a "thereafter" life for those who died? It is a very wide acception. If there's no "beyond" us, humans, trifling specks in the universe (unlike the Renaissance vision of man as the "measure of all things"), one would be condemned to solipsism or to a life with no surprises.
Nabokov expressed hopes that there'd be a "big surprise" lying beyond his individual existence but, for me, my present life is surprising enough to keep me off wishing for more. A similar mood is present in a sonnet by Vinicius de Morais, from which I quote its last lines:
"E assim, quando mais tarde me procure/ Quem sabe a morte, angústia de quem vive/ Quem sabe a solidão, fim de quem ama/ Eu possa me dizer do amor ( que tive ) :/Que não seja imortal, posto que é chama/ Mas que seja infinito enquanto dure." *
Who knows if Van Veen (a self-described "epicure of duration") is not a teeny bit greedy? Nabokov, himself, seemed content when he wrote, in SM: "It is certainly not then — not in dreams — but when one is wide awake, at moments of robust joy and achievement, on the highest terrace of consciousness, that mortality has a chance to peer beyond its own limits, from the mast, from the past and its castle-tower. And although nothing much can be seen through the mist, there is somehow the blissful feeling that one is looking in the right direction." ( but I have no idea what a "right direction" means).
Jerry Friedman: "I must say I don't think any place on Earth has the sun at any different angles at sunset to the horizon than any other, but maybe Brasilia's climate favors the kind of weather when these phenomena appear, and unquestionably some people observe them better than others. Also, rainwater can certainly reflect a rainbow (it must have been spectacular!) because it can reflect anything, but clouds can't reflect an image of anything."
JM: You are the expert and often my reference for parahelia and sundogs. Instead of sunsets I should have considered the angle from where we follow the course of the sun, its inclination, in Summer and Winter. The fact is that we are unable, at times, to register in one single shot a striking phenomenon. A verbal rendering of it provides by any amateur remains an insufficient proof. Like when the sun sinks in the West, like a giant disk of fire and, at the same time, we can see the moon, as big and red like the sun, rising in the East. Diagrams and mathematical talent to cope with this regular 180-degree distance bt sun and moon may demonstrate or illustrate this phenomenon, not I.
But, Jerry... clouds (not only mist) sometimes reflect spectral images, such as the moving silhouette of one's airplane, and YES... I see your point concerning Shade's "reflected rainbow." Thanks.
...............................................................................................................................................................................................
* "And thus, when later comes looking for me/Who knows, the death, anxiety of the living,/Who knows, the loneliness, end of all lovers/I'll be able to say to myself of the love (I had):/Be not immortal, since it is flame/ But be infinite while it lasts." http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/119640-Vin-cius-de-Moraes-Sonnet-of-Fidelity ( not the best translation, but one I could find available in the internet)
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/