David Brodie inquires: "...what if the Dutch School
painting, pastoral or otherwise, were coded into details of the novel's 1930's
Berlin landscape?"
While he develops his hunch from Breughel's "The Proverbs" (or "The Blue
Cloak"),he finds out that in "the idiom of Breughel's time, to hang a blue cloak
on someone was to cuckhold him," and, for him, the "puzzle would seem to be
solved then: Albinus is hoist with his own petard by being consigned to the
retributions of an art nearer to cartooning than he had imagined. Within
Nabokov's color-coded syn-esthetic, it is sure to be no casual matter that the
bulging "wave" of the (colorless) carpet in the final passage above succeeds in
handing off, by sardonic association, to Albinus's "blue, blue wave" of
revelation a few pages before, through which the blind man "sees" as he lies
dying of a gunshot wound....The blue wave is, in effect, the blurry, translucent
fabric of the blue cloak which has blinded him."*
JM: Blindness, according to Jorge Luis Borges, is not
being kept in the dark. His particular torments were occasional flashes of
light although, most of the time, he was envelopped by a hazy blue
wave.** Analogies, correspondences, even
human relationships form an interminable link between existing and
even fantastic things. One can always take our pick and develop it into an
enticing narrative and embark on it as children do when they play.
It's almost too easy to denounce human stupidity. Although it seems to
me that this was the kind of prank Nabokov enjoyed, as in Brueghel who lived in
dire times, one cannot forget the pain and cruelty, the rich and powerful's
political irradiation of lies, which is also covered by a blue
haze***. It seems to me that, even though Nabokov wasn't indifferent to the
times in which he lived, while staying in Berlin, it's difficult to
find a thread of compassion beyond the level of a "father's loving heart" (Bend
Sinister). I was taught how to read this kind of dolour in "Pnin," in the very
succint but poignant sentences about the professor's first love, killed in a
concentration camp. Perhaps someone else could help ellucidate, here,
how to proceed beyond the cleverness and games in "Laughter in the Dark" and
VN's other Berlin novels?
........................................................................................................................................................................................
* wiki: "The picture was originally entitled The Blue Cloak or The Folly of
the World which indicates he was not intending to produce a mere collection of
proverbs but rather a study of human stupidity. The Blue Cloak referred to
in the painting's original title is being placed on the man in the centre of the
picture by his wife. This was indicative that she was cuckolding him. Other
proverbs indicate mankind's foolishness: a man fills in a pond after his calf
has died, just above the central figure of the blue-cloaked man another man
carries daylight in a basket. Some of the figures seem to represent more than
one figure of speech (whether this was Bruegel's intention or not is unknown),
such as the man shearing a sheep in the centre bottom left of the picture. He is
sat next to a man shearing a pig, so represents the expression "one shears sheep
and one shears pigs" meaning that one has the advantage over the other, but he
may also represent the advice "shear them but don't skin them" meaning make the
most of your assets... Netherlandish Proverbs
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlandish_Proverbs.
The image I add is a detail, focusing on "The Blue Cloak"
** - I cannot remember where I got this information.
*** - A very informative blend of cleverness and tragedy in
Breughel's times is to be found in Michael Frayn's "Headlong."