Finally the Internet is working at home. It seems to be a hit or miss most of the time. A while back though I finished Nabokov's Transparent Things. One word, MAGNIFICENT! Again I have so many quotes I just don't know where to begin! His writing is lyrical and as I have discovered much better when read aloud. His words seem to come alive when heard out in the open. I am sure people on the ferry to Bainbridge thought I was quite insane! So here they are more of Vladimir's magnificent prose!
"We recognize its presence in the log as we recognize the log in the tree and the tree in the forest and the forest in the world that Jack built. We recognize that presence by something that is perfectly clear to us but nameless, and as impossible to describe as a smile to somebody who has never seen smiling eyes."
"Of the two thrills young Hugh experienced, one was general, the other specific. The general sense of liberation came first, as a great breeze, ecstatic and clean, blowing away a lot of life's rot."
"On contact with paper it acquired a shapeliness, a richness, an ostensible dash, that caused some of the less demanding reviewers in his adopted country to call him a master stylist."
"'Made in Turkey,' whispered its label."
"Hugh, a sentimental simpleton, and somehow not a very good Person (good ones are above that, he was merely a rather dear one), was sorry that no music accompanied the scene, no Rumanian fiddler dipped heartward for two monogram-entangled sakes. There was not even a mechanical rendition of 'Fascination' (a waltz) by the cafe's loudplayer. Still there did exist a kind of supporting rhythm formed by the voices of foot passengers, the clink of crockery, the mountain wind in the venerable mass of the corner chestnut." (I love the way he writes about sounds. A quote in Lolita that is my favorite is later to come that perfectly exemplifies this!)
"...if they had not been especially close fitting she would have wiggled her toes inside as a woman does when her footwear happens to be discussed in flattering terms (smiling toes taking over the making of mouths)."
"He loved her in spite of her unlovableness."
"Actually the favors of death knowledge are infinitely more precious than those of love."
"...not merely because a dying man cannot write books but because that particular one would never express in one flash what can only be understood immediately."
"Days like this give sight a rest and allow other senses to function more freely. Earth and sky were drained of all color. It was either raining or pretending to rain or not raining at all, yet still appearing to rain in a sense that only certain Northern dialects can either express verbally or not express, but versionize, as it were, through the ghost of a sound produced by a drizzle in a haze of grateful rose shrubs."
There are many more where these came from, but I must save a few for later in the year. And perhaps that is the perfect place to stop after our several days of rain!
Wednesday, 29 July 2009
Sunday, 5 July 2009
Dolores, Dolly, Lola, Lo and Lolita
So here it is some of my favorite lines from Nabokov's Lolita. You should know that I had a very hard time narrowing it down. If I hadn't quotes from this masterpiece would have filled this blog!
"She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita."
"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle of thorns."
"It was something quite special, that feeling: an oppressive, hideous constraint as if I were sitting with the small ghost of somebody I had just killed."
"While a few pertinent points have to be marked, the general impression I desire to convey is of a side door crashing open in life's full flight, and a rush of roaring black time drowning with its whipping wind the cry of lone disaster."
"...I looked and looked at her, and knew as clearly as I know I am to die, that I loved her more than anything I had ever seen or imagined on earth, or hoped for anywhere else. She was only the faint violet whiff and dead leaf echo of the nymphet I had rolled myself upon with such cries in the past....I insist the world know how much I loved my Lolita, this Lolita, pale and polluted, and big with another's child, but still grey-eyed, still sooty-lashed, still auburn and almond....No matter, even if those eyes of hers would fade to myopic fish, and her nipples swell and crack, and her lovely young velvety delicate delta be tainted and torn-even then I would go mad with tenderness at the mere sight of your dear wan face, at the mere sound of your raucous young voice, my Lolita."
"And do not pity C.Q. One had to choose between him and H.H., and one wanted H.H. to exist at least a couple of months longer, so as to have him make you live in the minds of later generations. I am thinking of aurochs and angels, the secret of durable pigments, prophetic sonnets, the refuge of art. And this is the only immortality you and I may share, my Lolita."
There is another really long quote that I love, but that will come later on in the evolution of this blog!
"She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita."
"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle of thorns."
"It was something quite special, that feeling: an oppressive, hideous constraint as if I were sitting with the small ghost of somebody I had just killed."
"While a few pertinent points have to be marked, the general impression I desire to convey is of a side door crashing open in life's full flight, and a rush of roaring black time drowning with its whipping wind the cry of lone disaster."
"...I looked and looked at her, and knew as clearly as I know I am to die, that I loved her more than anything I had ever seen or imagined on earth, or hoped for anywhere else. She was only the faint violet whiff and dead leaf echo of the nymphet I had rolled myself upon with such cries in the past....I insist the world know how much I loved my Lolita, this Lolita, pale and polluted, and big with another's child, but still grey-eyed, still sooty-lashed, still auburn and almond....No matter, even if those eyes of hers would fade to myopic fish, and her nipples swell and crack, and her lovely young velvety delicate delta be tainted and torn-even then I would go mad with tenderness at the mere sight of your dear wan face, at the mere sound of your raucous young voice, my Lolita."
"And do not pity C.Q. One had to choose between him and H.H., and one wanted H.H. to exist at least a couple of months longer, so as to have him make you live in the minds of later generations. I am thinking of aurochs and angels, the secret of durable pigments, prophetic sonnets, the refuge of art. And this is the only immortality you and I may share, my Lolita."
There is another really long quote that I love, but that will come later on in the evolution of this blog!
My Vladimir
This blog used to be for my classical literature class, but now it is dedicated to my favorite author, Vladimir Nabokov. A genius among Russian writers and a true artist of prose. From here on out I will be re-reading all the novels assigened for class and posting qoutes this summer before class starts in September. Now all can begin to understand my love affair with Vladimir and his writing that began at the age of 12. As Updike says, "Nabokov writes prose the only way it shoule be written, that is, ecstatically." Oh you are so right Mr. Updike!
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