Subject
Re: [Thoughts] Art's higher level
From
Date
Body
Addenda to Frances Assa "..I might add to these observations his ability to do chess problems, and see the world (through Luzhin) as organizeable into 8 by 8 squares. A chess board works no matter how you turn it, and may thus have been particularly pleasing to VN. This brings up something that has always puzzled me. I think it is in Look at the Harlequins that the protagonist, who shares a lot of VN's life, is chagrined because he is unable to visualize a certain path backwards... and to my reply concerning Vadim's inability to "visualize a certain path backwards" in connection to the organizational urge that could inspire some of the chess players."Nabokov's recollections of his past are artistically doctored."
Jansy Mello: While I was going through my old Nabokov files, I came upon a review about "The Gift," in which I found an interesting echo of my observation concerning Nabokov's "organized memoirs."
It was published on The New Republic in July 6, 1963 (http://www.tnr.com), under the title: Nabokov: Old News from Old Prospero by Hilary Corke. The reviewer brings up Nabokov's assertion that ."it has always been my particular concern to show that the distinction between 'novel' and 'life' is a false one. In Speak Memory I was at particular pains to point out the incredible leitmotifs of life, the way that something apparently (but only apparently) irrelevant, like a box of matches, may crop up again and again at the nodal points of a career." and, further on, she adds: "The fascination of Speak Memory is the manner in which the raw material of a lived life has been transformed into something with the exactness and shape of a classical novel. The weakness of The Gift is that what, being a fiction, ought to be a constructed novel, has been deliberately loosened into a pale ghost of a life.."
Hilary Corke also brings up several enchanting examples of pathetic fallacies in The Gift: "Above all he is the conjuror, the literary illusionist. He constructs his novels as though they were chess problems, with unpinning, pawns to knights, and smothered mates. As an example of his deliberate heightening of the air of mystery and mastery, we may consider a single repeated and strongly characteristic trick--the metaphorical animation of the inanimate. Thus, "The rain began coming down faster: someone had suddenly tilted the sky." Or, describing the effect of a hot sun appearing and disappearing behind clouds, "As the light got stronger or died away, all the shadows in the forest breathed and did push-ups." Or, in a Lewis Carrollian vein, "The yawn begun by a woman in the lighted windows of the first car [of a moving train] was completed by another woman--in the last one."
........................................................................................................................
After I read that "the purely fictitious part--the passages about Fyodor's father, which were much the most moving things in The Gift and culminated in perhaps the most memorably hallucinating account of a dream in any literature--have also been extracted recently, and with the addition of some new material been published as a short story. The Lyre, in The New Yorker (April 13)" Here is what I got. http://archives.newyorker.com/?i=1963-04-13#folio=044
:
Vladimir Nabokov and Michael Scammell, (trans.), Fiction, “The Lyre,” The New Yorker, April 13, 1963,
."The author is a Russian, living in Berlin, some years after the revolution. He tells the story of his father, a famous lepidopterist, who spends the major part of his life away from his family, exploring vast areas of the world. Many years ago the father left to continue his researches and had never returned. Stories were circulated of his death, but as they were unverified, his family was left in a state of speculation and were unable to resign themselves to it. The author lives in as state of semi-poverty, supporting himself by teaching English and writing poetry. When his mother comes to visit, through their joint reminiscenses, he decides to gather all available material on his father's career and write a book. His mother encourages him after her return to Paris, but still he hesitates, doubting his ability to do the project justice. The story ends with the miraculous return of the father and the assurance of the son's writing the book".
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/
Jansy Mello: While I was going through my old Nabokov files, I came upon a review about "The Gift," in which I found an interesting echo of my observation concerning Nabokov's "organized memoirs."
It was published on The New Republic in July 6, 1963 (http://www.tnr.com), under the title: Nabokov: Old News from Old Prospero by Hilary Corke. The reviewer brings up Nabokov's assertion that ."it has always been my particular concern to show that the distinction between 'novel' and 'life' is a false one. In Speak Memory I was at particular pains to point out the incredible leitmotifs of life, the way that something apparently (but only apparently) irrelevant, like a box of matches, may crop up again and again at the nodal points of a career." and, further on, she adds: "The fascination of Speak Memory is the manner in which the raw material of a lived life has been transformed into something with the exactness and shape of a classical novel. The weakness of The Gift is that what, being a fiction, ought to be a constructed novel, has been deliberately loosened into a pale ghost of a life.."
Hilary Corke also brings up several enchanting examples of pathetic fallacies in The Gift: "Above all he is the conjuror, the literary illusionist. He constructs his novels as though they were chess problems, with unpinning, pawns to knights, and smothered mates. As an example of his deliberate heightening of the air of mystery and mastery, we may consider a single repeated and strongly characteristic trick--the metaphorical animation of the inanimate. Thus, "The rain began coming down faster: someone had suddenly tilted the sky." Or, describing the effect of a hot sun appearing and disappearing behind clouds, "As the light got stronger or died away, all the shadows in the forest breathed and did push-ups." Or, in a Lewis Carrollian vein, "The yawn begun by a woman in the lighted windows of the first car [of a moving train] was completed by another woman--in the last one."
........................................................................................................................
After I read that "the purely fictitious part--the passages about Fyodor's father, which were much the most moving things in The Gift and culminated in perhaps the most memorably hallucinating account of a dream in any literature--have also been extracted recently, and with the addition of some new material been published as a short story. The Lyre, in The New Yorker (April 13)" Here is what I got. http://archives.newyorker.com/?i=1963-04-13#folio=044
:
Vladimir Nabokov and Michael Scammell, (trans.), Fiction, “The Lyre,” The New Yorker, April 13, 1963,
."The author is a Russian, living in Berlin, some years after the revolution. He tells the story of his father, a famous lepidopterist, who spends the major part of his life away from his family, exploring vast areas of the world. Many years ago the father left to continue his researches and had never returned. Stories were circulated of his death, but as they were unverified, his family was left in a state of speculation and were unable to resign themselves to it. The author lives in as state of semi-poverty, supporting himself by teaching English and writing poetry. When his mother comes to visit, through their joint reminiscenses, he decides to gather all available material on his father's career and write a book. His mother encourages him after her return to Paris, but still he hesitates, doubting his ability to do the project justice. The story ends with the miraculous return of the father and the assurance of the son's writing the book".
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/