Jim Twiggs: ..." Such
obvious things as learning language, growing up, being trained in various
practical activities of life, falling in and out of love, watching loved ones be
born and die, growing old--all these represent vast expansions in self-awareness
and consciousness. But considering only the arts, my own consciousness has been
formed and expanded far more by (for example) Mark Twain and Nathanael West,
Walker Evans and Diane Arbus, Rembrandt and Warhol, Charlie Parker and Billie
Holiday, Errol Morris and David Lynch, Aristotle and Wittgenstein, than by VN...
[...] one of the most vexing problems in understanding VN (and, in this
case, Shade)... how to speak about something that by definition lies outside
language. In his book on Ada, Boyd answers the question in this way: ". . .
Whereas the relentless pursuit of rectilinear logic eventually leads us, on this
small planet, around in circles, a work of genuinely inspired art may draw on
all that is best in human thought and at the same time be penetrated “by the
beyond’s fresh breath.” (SO 227)..The declaration Van (or anyone) makes from
within this world that the beyond remains philosophically unknowable could prove
(for those able to look from the without) to be the very confirmation that where
they are is a beyond...That conclusion, surely, lies at the heart of Nabokov’s
thinking. The problem here, as Boyd himself shows with numerous
quotations, is that VN is forever spelling out his private theology...The
Otherworld theme--far from being a breath of fresh air from the beyond, is the
stalest thing in VN’s writing. Thank goodness...he can give skepticism its due
in a fine work of pitch-black comedy, which is perhaps best seen as a furious
argument within himself...As for me, I’ll stick with the old hymn “Farther
Along”--provided, of course, that one adds “or not” in all the right
places."
JM: There's no disagreement
between my experience and the arguments presented by Jim
Twiggs qua the role of Nabokov's writings in relation to
an "expansion of consciousness," set in comparison to a host of other
poets and novelists. And I
think that Nabokov used writing as a resource to expand his own awareness
of people and society, not the reader's (he was explicit about the
latter).
I have a problem with how Jim
refers to the term "beyond". Does he use it to imply a location
in space or a "thereafter" life for those who died? It is a
very wide acception. If there's no "beyond" us, humans, trifling specks in
the universe (unlike the Renaissance vision of man as
the "measure of all things"), one would be condemned to solipsism
or to a life with no surprises.
Nabokov expressed hopes that there'd be a
"big surprise" lying beyond his individual existence but, for me, my
present life is surprising enough to keep me off wishing for more. A
similar mood is present in a sonnet by Vinicius de Morais, from
which I quote its last lines:
"E assim, quando mais tarde me
procure/ Quem sabe a morte, angústia de quem vive/ Quem sabe a solidão, fim de
quem ama/ Eu possa me dizer do amor ( que tive ) :/Que não seja imortal, posto
que é chama/ Mas que seja infinito enquanto dure." *
Who knows if Van Veen (a self-described
"epicure of duration") is not a teeny bit greedy? Nabokov, himself,
seemed content when he wrote, in SM: "It is
certainly not then — not in dreams — but when one is wide awake, at moments of
robust joy and achievement, on the highest terrace of consciousness, that
mortality has a chance to peer beyond its own limits, from the mast, from the
past and its castle-tower. And although nothing much can be seen through the
mist, there is somehow the blissful feeling that one is looking in the right
direction." ( but I have no idea what a
"right direction" means).
Jerry Friedman: "I
must say I don't think any place on Earth has the sun at any different angles at
sunset to the horizon than any other, but maybe Brasilia's climate favors the
kind of weather when these phenomena appear, and unquestionably some people
observe them better than others. Also, rainwater can certainly reflect a
rainbow (it must have been spectacular!) because it can reflect anything, but
clouds can't reflect an image of anything."
JM: You are the expert and often my reference for parahelia and
sundogs. Instead of sunsets I should have considered the angle from
where we follow the course of the sun, its inclination, in Summer and
Winter. The fact is that we are unable, at times, to register in one single shot
a striking phenomenon. A verbal rendering of it provides by any amateur
remains an insufficient proof. Like when the sun sinks in the West, like a
giant disk of fire and, at the same time, we can
see the moon, as big and red like the sun, rising in the
East. Diagrams and mathematical talent to cope with this regular
180-degree distance bt sun and moon may demonstrate or illustrate this
phenomenon, not I.
But, Jerry... clouds (not only mist) sometimes
reflect spectral images, such as the moving silhouette of
one's airplane, and YES... I see your point concerning Shade's "reflected
rainbow." Thanks.
...............................................................................................................................................................................................
* "And thus, when later comes looking
for me/Who knows, the death, anxiety of the living,/Who knows, the loneliness,
end of all lovers/I'll be able to say to myself of the love (I had):/Be not
immortal, since it is flame/ But be infinite while it lasts." http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/119640-Vin-cius-de-Moraes-Sonnet-of-Fidelity ( not the best translation, but one I could find available
in the internet)