Subject
[NABOKOV-L] [THOUGHTS] words,
adornments - GW Sebald's deceived birds and style
adornments - GW Sebald's deceived birds and style
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While describing the "Ada, or Ardors" memoirs, Van's refes to "adornments" and "marginal notes," almost as if these expressed a "minor art" embedded into a major one, stylistic flourishes, filigreed butterflies and flowers, watermarks to surprise and delight the reader...
" Not the least adornment of the chronicle is the delicacy of pictorial detail: a latticed gallery; a painted ceiling; a pretty plaything stranded among the forget-me-nots of a brook; butterflies and butterfly orchids in the margin of the romance; a misty view descried from marble steps; a doe at gaze in the ancestral park; and much, much more."
And yet, I find in it a suggestion that this "and much, much more" it presents is not limited by beautified ornamentations..
In his 1962 BBC Interview, Nabokov said: "reality is an infinite succession of steps, levels of perception, false bottoms, and hence unquenchable, unattainable." Instead of an attribution, as in "reality is inexhaustible," Nabokov chose the word "unquenchable." Thus, he animated reality with a gigantic thirst and he projected his own avid curiosity onto the world. Although Nabokov regularly employs animism and personification, this particular example seems to carry in it a private signification, one that runs like a golden thread underneath its more usual meaning.
Sebald pointedly refers to Nabokov's "Speak,Memory" in his novel "Austerlitz" by recollecting an old lady who woke up under a blanket of snow, nevertheless, when he describes how a bird smashes against a glassy surface,* he seems to be directing his experience to reflect on a very different line of thought. Where John Shade encounters hope ("and I flew on in the reflected sky"), Austerlitz equates conceptual perfection, in practice, to relentless dysfunction. Nabokov's joy adds a special glitter in the contours of his watermark and, perhaps, his "ecstatic" writing is that which turns style into matter.
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* "And several times, said Austerlitz, birds which had lost their way in the library forest flew into the mirror images of the trees in the reading-room windows, struck the glass with a dull thud and fell lifeless to the ground. Sitting at my place in the reading-room, said Austerlitz, I thought at length about the way in which such unforseen accidents, the fall of a single creature to its death when diverted from its natural path, or the recurrent symptoms of paralysis affecting the electronic data retrieval system, relate to the Cartesian overall plan of the Bibliotheque Nationale, and I came to the conclusion that in any project we design and develop, the size and degree of complexity of the information and control systems inscribed in it are the crucial factors, so that the all-embracing and absolute perfection of the concept can in practice coincide, indeed ultimately must coincide, with its chronic dysfunction." (W.G.Sebald - Austerlitz)
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" Not the least adornment of the chronicle is the delicacy of pictorial detail: a latticed gallery; a painted ceiling; a pretty plaything stranded among the forget-me-nots of a brook; butterflies and butterfly orchids in the margin of the romance; a misty view descried from marble steps; a doe at gaze in the ancestral park; and much, much more."
And yet, I find in it a suggestion that this "and much, much more" it presents is not limited by beautified ornamentations..
In his 1962 BBC Interview, Nabokov said: "reality is an infinite succession of steps, levels of perception, false bottoms, and hence unquenchable, unattainable." Instead of an attribution, as in "reality is inexhaustible," Nabokov chose the word "unquenchable." Thus, he animated reality with a gigantic thirst and he projected his own avid curiosity onto the world. Although Nabokov regularly employs animism and personification, this particular example seems to carry in it a private signification, one that runs like a golden thread underneath its more usual meaning.
Sebald pointedly refers to Nabokov's "Speak,Memory" in his novel "Austerlitz" by recollecting an old lady who woke up under a blanket of snow, nevertheless, when he describes how a bird smashes against a glassy surface,* he seems to be directing his experience to reflect on a very different line of thought. Where John Shade encounters hope ("and I flew on in the reflected sky"), Austerlitz equates conceptual perfection, in practice, to relentless dysfunction. Nabokov's joy adds a special glitter in the contours of his watermark and, perhaps, his "ecstatic" writing is that which turns style into matter.
..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
* "And several times, said Austerlitz, birds which had lost their way in the library forest flew into the mirror images of the trees in the reading-room windows, struck the glass with a dull thud and fell lifeless to the ground. Sitting at my place in the reading-room, said Austerlitz, I thought at length about the way in which such unforseen accidents, the fall of a single creature to its death when diverted from its natural path, or the recurrent symptoms of paralysis affecting the electronic data retrieval system, relate to the Cartesian overall plan of the Bibliotheque Nationale, and I came to the conclusion that in any project we design and develop, the size and degree of complexity of the information and control systems inscribed in it are the crucial factors, so that the all-embracing and absolute perfection of the concept can in practice coincide, indeed ultimately must coincide, with its chronic dysfunction." (W.G.Sebald - Austerlitz)
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/