I know we have not read it yet, but I love Transparent Things. It is one of my favorite works by Nabokov, and one of my favorite books of all time. I therefore have decided to write my final paper on it.
Transparent Things revolves around Hugh Person, a very interesting name and you have to keep track as a reader when Nabokov capitalizes Person and when it is lower case person, and his four trips to a town in Switzerland. These trips take place over a couple decades, and each experience is different. In his last trip he is trying to understand his past and all that went on, he is recapturing his memories through his recollections. This is what I want to focus my paper on, MEMORY.
This theme, besides time, seems to be a major topic for Nabokov in many of his works. I want to focus mainly on Transparent Things though, and perhaps a couple references to Speak, Memory. In Transparent Things he explains what constitutes a memory, and how we fall into the past of objects and into our memory of them. It is all right there explained wonderfully in the first chapter.
If you read my early blog, Nabokov's Memorable Tales, I write more about the topic and quote Transparent Things. That blog also covers what I want to cover in my paper. I want to focus on the themes of time and memory in Nabokov's works, Transparent Things and Speak, Memory. In particular Nabokov's passion for memory, and the striving of human beings to always try to remember and understand the past, especially our own.
p.s. There's no connection to the image in my paper. I just like it. It is the cover of Time from January 1969. Still enjoying the success of Lolita I see Mr. Nabokov.
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