JA (to
JM): I agree with you that how you take
the material says something about how you relate to it, but I'm curious about
what all this consciouness picking was really about. I've read the book over and
over and over and never been fully satisfied, I think because Nabokov is trying
to force the satirical, the lyrical, and the pedantic sides of his nature to
come together and the effect is much more inscrutable than is necessary,
pointing several contradictory directions at once. So perhaps you're right, and
the bl in the words siblings which Nabokov claimed was his main interest in the
subject of incest then connects up with the word blank.
JM: ..."the effect is
much more inscrutable than is necessary" and, as a tease, I ask: ain't this too
utilitarian?
VN's apparently unsuccessful attempt to
bring together the satirical, lyrical, pedantic sides in his nature
( the bawdy and the puritan, too) is for me a source of endless
delight. No "unified field theory"! ( and I loved your angry comment
"the bl in the words siblings...connects up with the word
blank".)
JA:Nabokov
also said that the imagination was either a plaything for genius, without
quotiation marks of course, or a bane to the cracked and the
immature...
JM: In TRLSK,we
read that "imagination is the muscle of the mind". Another
useful application: Nabokovian mental calysthenics...
JA: Certainly Van is waving reality off rather hysterically when
he insists vehemently that death need not have anything to do with him, and
does not represent a future certainty--if that's not a waving away of reality I
don't know what is.
JM: Ditto.