Fireberry - Hawthorn....Du côté de chez Ardis?

 

Or (I have not been following this entire thread...) has there been any mention of the possible "Bunbury" connection to Wilde, whose first plays were "Vera" and "The DuCHESS of P-ADuA?  The brilliant wordplay, the garden scene at the manor house, the child and brothers who are not what they seem, or who go missing, "in married life three is company and two is none", and much, much more...?

 

Would VN agree with Wilde's comment on the "philosophy" in The Importance of Being Earnest - "That we should treat all the trivial things of life seriously, and all the serious things of life with sincere and studied triviality." 

 

Algernon - "Truth is rarely pure and never simple.  Modern life would be very tedious if it were either, and modern literature a complete impossibility!

 

Jack - That wouldn't be at all a bad thing.

 

Algernon - Literary criticism is not your forte, my dear fellow.  Don't try it.  You should leave that to people who haven't been at a University.  They do it so well in the daily papers.  What you really are is a Bunburyist.  ...

 

Jack - What on earth ...?

 

Algernon - You have invented a very useful younger brother called Ernest, in order that you may be able to come to town as often as you like.  I have invented an invaluable permanent invalid called Bunbury, in order that I may be able to go down into the country whenever I choose.  Bunbury is perfectly invaluable."

 

I am not aware of what VN's take was on Wilde, but it strikes me that they both enjoyed, in their best writing, inverting respectable, conventional clichés.  For them respectability is tiresome, repetitious and unoriginal, and they apply an aesthetic judgment by bringing in the contrasting brightness and inventiveness of their witty characters.

 

These witty characters (Van, Ada, Humbert, Kinbote) may be heavily painted as selfish creatures - but VN is a master at letting us catch glimpses of their tincture of heartbrokenness.  These strokes of selfishness/superiority remind me of the final lines of TIoBE:

 

Jack - "What is a selfish person?  A selfish person is surely one who seeks to keep his joys and sorrows to himself.  I am not like that.  When I am happy, as I am now, I desire everyone to share in my unhappiness.  I give freely of my misfortunes.  I do not treat my misery as a miser treats his gold.  On the contrary, I scatter it abroad with a lavish hand.  If I am blighted there is a general blight, and no one can complain that they are left out or overlooked.

 

Cecily - Gwendolen, will you appeal to him.

 

Gwendolen - I will be very glad indeed to tell him what I think of his conduct. (Goes over to Jack.)...Up to the present moment I will frankly admit that I have always admired you.  Now I simply adore you.  It requires merely physical courage to sacrifice oneself.  To sacrifice others moral courage is necessary."

 

How lucky we are that VN allows his characters to share with us their happiness and unhappiness!

 

David Krol