Rachel Meibos:An
image from the first chapter of Nabokov’s Bend Sinister and one from a footnote
at the end of Breton’s Nadja (1947) bear an unlikely similarity: both describe a
painter who fails to paint a sunset because the scenery changes faster than the
painter can paint. From Bend Sinister: “ the
sunset had gone, leaving only a clutter of the purplish remnants of the day,
piled up anyhow – ruins, junk” Perhaps this is coincidental - I have no
way of knowing if V. Nabokov ever read Nadja – but perhaps Nabokov was paying a
subtle homage to another modernist.
JM: One more example of "remnants of the day" in VN, related in this
case to a painter's desire to fix, and bring order!, to
impermanence - to the constant shifts of light and
color.
R.Meibos added another perspective to the
"fugal theme" in Glory by reminding us of "fugitive", transient,
phenomena experienced as "piled up anyhow - ruins, junk". Didn't VN mention Heraclitus somewhere in Bend
Sinister?
I was also reminded of Pale
Fire's lines 849-852: The pen stops in mid-air, then swoops to
bar/ A canceled sunset
or restore a star,/
And thus it physically guides the phrase/ Toward faint daylight
through the inky maze. Shade fears "gradual
decay" and, for Kinbote, a sunset glow may signal
"the ashes of dusk" or a
zemblan "palette with the dregs of many
sunsets". There may be others in Pnin, when
young Victor's modernist visions are
detailed.