So since we are now reading the masterpiece that is Lolita I thought I would post my favorite quote. There is another blog I did about other quotes but this is wonderful. It has that wonderful ability that Nabokov has of combining sound and sight in many of his scenes. It is best if read out loud but I have discovered that about many of Nabokov's works. To bring them to life through the human voice makes them so much better. Try it you will be amazed at the clarity that comes through the joining of his words and your voice.
"After coughing myself inside out, I rested a while on a boulder, and then, thinking the sweet air might do me good, walked a little way toward a low stone parapet on the precipice side of the highway. Small grasshoppers spurted out of the withered roadside weeds. A very light cloud was opening its arms and moving toward a slightly more substantial one belonging to another, more sluggish, heavenlogged system. As I approached the friendly abyss, I grew aware of a melodious unity of sounds rising like vapor from a small mining town that lay at my feet, in a fold of the valley. One could make out the geometry of the streets between blocks of red and gray roofs, and green puffs of trees, and a serpentine stream, and the rich, ore-like glitter of the city dump, and beyond the town, roads crisscrossing the crazy quilt of dark and pale fields, and behind it all, great timbered mountains. But even brighter then those quietly rejoicing colors-for there are colors and shades that seem to enjoy themselves in good company-both brighter and dreamier to the ear than they were to the eye, was that vapory vibration of accumulated sounds that never ceased for a moment, as it rose to the lip of granite where I stood wiping my foul mouth. And soon I realized that all these sounds were of one nature, that no other sounds but these came from the streets of the transparent town, with the women at home and the men away. Reader! What I heard was but the melody o children at play, nothing but that, and so limpid was the air that within this vapor of blended voices, majestic and minute, remote an magically near, frank and divinely enigmatic-one could hear now and then, as if released, an almost articulate spurt of vivid laughter, or the crack of a bat, or the clatter of a toy wagon, but it was really too far for the eye to distinguish any movement in the lightly etched streets. I stood listening to that musical vibration from my lofty slope, to those flashes of separate cries with a kind of demure murmur for background, and then I knew that the hopelessly poignant thing was not Lolita's absence from my side, but the absence of her voice from that concord."
MAGNIFICENT! This is the moment when I feel in love with literature and Nabokov!
Tuesday, 22 September 2009
Tuesday, 15 September 2009
A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words
So this photo of me is when I was about six and my Mother had taken me to Leavenworth, Washington for my birthday. I grew up in Seattle so this was just a short, scenic trip into the mountains of Washington. Leavenworth is a strange town because it is mostly made up of German immigrants or descendants. As you drive into town you feel as if you have entered another world. Most of the store names, restaurant menus and hotels are all in German. I remember feeling as if I had left the country with out even leaving my state.
The building behind me in the picture is our bed and breakfast. One of those horrifying buildings trying to look like a German ski chalet. With the bright white siding and brown trim that in places on the eaves looks like a kind of demented lace. All around the building were these gardens lined with hard, brown dirt and an overwhelming amount of rose bushes. Roses of every color, shape and size. As I lay in bed that night I fell asleep to the wafting smell of roses meandering through our windows.
Encompassing the roses were stone walls. Looking as if they were unstable and about to topple at any moment. which meant of course I had to sit on them and have my picture taken. When I was little I enjoyed having my picture taken for anything, but then that has all changed. In the picture I have my favorite outfit on. It was a tank and shorts covered in red polka dots and my fashionable, Spanish sandals that my Mother got me on a business trip to Paris. Looking as if I belonged in this sunny, hamlet in Germany and not in a small town in the mountains of Washington.
Tuesday, 8 September 2009
A Mother's Influence
I am well into Speak, Memory and I am loving every line. Each sentence brings me closer to understanding the man who writes these magnificent prose. In Chapter Two though in which Nabokov writes about his Mother and their relationship. I was struck by how he talks about her influence on his senses and personality. Which heavily influences his writing style in that he writes about every minute detail of his characters and their surroundings. That is what ultimately makes his writing so verbose and wonderful. As the reader, each paragraph that you encounter is like a little scene all its own. All this attention to detail in every moment in life is what his Mother gave him in their time spent together.
Nabokov writes, "My mother did everything to encourage the general sensitiveness I had to visual stimulation. How many were the aquarelles she painted for me; what a revelation it was when she showed me the lilac tree that grows out of mixed blue and red!" He goes on to write about how he entertained himself with her jewels she left for him and the many colored facets they provided for his enjoyment.
This stimulation and her tendency to focus on the little things shine through his writing. Both having the predilection to see the details that make every moment important and special. In his writing he goes into great detail describing sounds and the details of a scene as if it were a photograph set before you he was talking about. My favorite though is his writing about sounds as if they are colors that he is seeing and describing. One such example of this is in the closing chapter of Lolita when he writes, as I horribly misquote, that there are sounds and colors that do enjoy each others company. It is one of the more beautiful page and a half in Lolita that I will quote much later. Another example is in his work Transparent Things, which we will not read, that is as follows, "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."
Nabokov is a master of prose and this is shown through is attention to every detail of a scene. This gift that he shares with the world can be traced back to his Mother and their way of living in the moment and not seeing what is ahead. She was the formative figure that made him the way he is and made his writing what it is. This is the power that parents have on their children. No wonder Nabokov writes of her throughout his work Speak, Memory. His Mother was the one who helped him to become the writer we have come to know and love to this day!
Nabokov writes, "My mother did everything to encourage the general sensitiveness I had to visual stimulation. How many were the aquarelles she painted for me; what a revelation it was when she showed me the lilac tree that grows out of mixed blue and red!" He goes on to write about how he entertained himself with her jewels she left for him and the many colored facets they provided for his enjoyment.
This stimulation and her tendency to focus on the little things shine through his writing. Both having the predilection to see the details that make every moment important and special. In his writing he goes into great detail describing sounds and the details of a scene as if it were a photograph set before you he was talking about. My favorite though is his writing about sounds as if they are colors that he is seeing and describing. One such example of this is in the closing chapter of Lolita when he writes, as I horribly misquote, that there are sounds and colors that do enjoy each others company. It is one of the more beautiful page and a half in Lolita that I will quote much later. Another example is in his work Transparent Things, which we will not read, that is as follows, "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."
Nabokov is a master of prose and this is shown through is attention to every detail of a scene. This gift that he shares with the world can be traced back to his Mother and their way of living in the moment and not seeing what is ahead. She was the formative figure that made him the way he is and made his writing what it is. This is the power that parents have on their children. No wonder Nabokov writes of her throughout his work Speak, Memory. His Mother was the one who helped him to become the writer we have come to know and love to this day!
Monday, 31 August 2009
A Memory From Another Time
The memory that keep returning to me as I try to think of one that happened earlier is of the trip my Mother and I took for my 7th birthday. You should know to begin though that I love traveling by train. It is the only way to travel and perhaps that is what makes this memory so memorable.
At this point in the story you should know that my Mother and I were stilling living in Seattle, and so we actually had a train station. For my 7th birthday my Mother planned a two week trip by train from Seattle to Los Angeles to visit my grandparents and go to Disneyland. What is interesting about this memory is that I remember very little of our adventures in Disneyland, which you would think would be a major event in a child's life. All I remember is being freaked out by how big Mickey was and crying and then riding Pirates of the Caribbean until the day was over. What does return to me every so often is that train ride and one night in particular.
If you have ever traveled by train you know that the quarters are very small. They try to jam a bunk bed and a small bathroom into a space the size of our full bathroom at home. When I was little though I loved being in cramped areas. That snug feeling as you read a book or colour, which is pretty much what I spent the trip doing. I loved making the trips to the dining car each evening for dinner and going to get more treats from the overflowing and enigmatic cart that was always there between meals, but was gone when we went to eat. I loved every aspect of the train. The slow pace, the sounds at night as you slept, the voices that would pass the cabin door and whispered conversations between the bunks as my Mother and I spoke in the middle of the night. To this day it is my favorite mode of transportation.
But the memory that is most prevalent is from one particular night. I of course was on the top bunk and on one side of me was the railing and on the other was a small, circular window. One night after awaking from a sound sleep I noticed that the train had stopped, and so I decided to check out the window. I pushed back the thin, soft curtains there and there seemed to be a kind of fog settling around the warm train from the chilled air that surrounded us. As the fog began to clear I saw several men standing there chatting, but something was strange. There clothes were like nothing I had ever seen in day to day life. They were dressed as if it were the early 20th century and perhaps in England. I was intrigued and all I could do was stare at the scene before me. The train began to move then and we passed them in the silence of the early morning, and I watched as they faded into the fag that had once surrounded the train. I lay back and slowing began to fall back into the haze of the sleep that I had left just moments ago, and dreamt about the scene that had been before me.
Every time I see a train this memory returns to me, and it is a pleasant thought about my travels. Whether it was a dream or not it is a memory all the same. While others may forget their dreams I hold onto them and they become memories that I can dwell on. I hope with all my heart it was not a dream, but either way I will remember it for all time. A memory from another time and perhaps in a separate realm I am continually trying to return to.
At this point in the story you should know that my Mother and I were stilling living in Seattle, and so we actually had a train station. For my 7th birthday my Mother planned a two week trip by train from Seattle to Los Angeles to visit my grandparents and go to Disneyland. What is interesting about this memory is that I remember very little of our adventures in Disneyland, which you would think would be a major event in a child's life. All I remember is being freaked out by how big Mickey was and crying and then riding Pirates of the Caribbean until the day was over. What does return to me every so often is that train ride and one night in particular.
If you have ever traveled by train you know that the quarters are very small. They try to jam a bunk bed and a small bathroom into a space the size of our full bathroom at home. When I was little though I loved being in cramped areas. That snug feeling as you read a book or colour, which is pretty much what I spent the trip doing. I loved making the trips to the dining car each evening for dinner and going to get more treats from the overflowing and enigmatic cart that was always there between meals, but was gone when we went to eat. I loved every aspect of the train. The slow pace, the sounds at night as you slept, the voices that would pass the cabin door and whispered conversations between the bunks as my Mother and I spoke in the middle of the night. To this day it is my favorite mode of transportation.
But the memory that is most prevalent is from one particular night. I of course was on the top bunk and on one side of me was the railing and on the other was a small, circular window. One night after awaking from a sound sleep I noticed that the train had stopped, and so I decided to check out the window. I pushed back the thin, soft curtains there and there seemed to be a kind of fog settling around the warm train from the chilled air that surrounded us. As the fog began to clear I saw several men standing there chatting, but something was strange. There clothes were like nothing I had ever seen in day to day life. They were dressed as if it were the early 20th century and perhaps in England. I was intrigued and all I could do was stare at the scene before me. The train began to move then and we passed them in the silence of the early morning, and I watched as they faded into the fag that had once surrounded the train. I lay back and slowing began to fall back into the haze of the sleep that I had left just moments ago, and dreamt about the scene that had been before me.
Every time I see a train this memory returns to me, and it is a pleasant thought about my travels. Whether it was a dream or not it is a memory all the same. While others may forget their dreams I hold onto them and they become memories that I can dwell on. I hope with all my heart it was not a dream, but either way I will remember it for all time. A memory from another time and perhaps in a separate realm I am continually trying to return to.
Thursday, 27 August 2009
Nabokov's Memorable Tales
It's hard to think of, when asked, what my first memory was. When do we really begin to retain such information, and what makes something memorable? Making it stay in the corners of our minds or not for all our time in this realm. Nabokov seems to have a fascination with the idea of memories and their importance to what we consider out future. In Lolita he writes of a man that lost a childhood love, and the memories of that love are what drive him to his obsession. Transparent Things is the writing of a man that tries to connect to his past and memories by returning to the places that are familiar to him. And of course there is Nabokov's own autobiography, Speak, Memory, where he is remembering his own past to some how understand his present.
As Brian Boyd writes in the introduction, Speak, Memory is unlike any other autobiography we readers have encountered from great writers, "...more than these and any other biographies it fuses truth to detail with perfection of form, the exact with the evocative, and acute awareness of time with intimations of timelessness (ix)." But in the end that is what makes his autobiography so timeless, his ability to connect that present with the past through his writing. Connecting those memories to the world in which he lives at that moment!
As Nabokov writes in the first chapter of Transparent Things, each encounter we have with some object connects to a memory we have of that object and that objects own history. "When we concentrate on a material object, whatever its situation, the very act of attention may lead to our involuntarily sinking into the history of that object (1)." He goes onto write in Chapter 3 about a pencil Hugh encounters and the "memories" attached to that object.
These are the details that make Nabokov's work timeless and memorable. His writing is about connecting our present place to a memory long forgotten. In Dr. Sexson's Classical Lit. class we discussed the idea and importance of cyclical time especially in classical works of literature. Boyd again writes that Nabokov tries to break free of the linear time. Time is more than just cause and effect to Nabokov. As discussed in Classical Lit. anything that was believed to be important if missed would return again. That is what he tries to capture in his writing, that memories are events that are returning to us because of their importance. There is something critical that we need to understand in deja vu. We are being reminded of what is critical in this moment that we experienced in the past and must remember.
So that is what I am waiting for before I can write about by first memory. I must first encounter an object that connects my present to the memories in the corners of my mind. Then I will write about what I remember! And then my past will be with me at that moment and then I will be able to write about the memory that has returned.
As Brian Boyd writes in the introduction, Speak, Memory is unlike any other autobiography we readers have encountered from great writers, "...more than these and any other biographies it fuses truth to detail with perfection of form, the exact with the evocative, and acute awareness of time with intimations of timelessness (ix)." But in the end that is what makes his autobiography so timeless, his ability to connect that present with the past through his writing. Connecting those memories to the world in which he lives at that moment!
As Nabokov writes in the first chapter of Transparent Things, each encounter we have with some object connects to a memory we have of that object and that objects own history. "When we concentrate on a material object, whatever its situation, the very act of attention may lead to our involuntarily sinking into the history of that object (1)." He goes onto write in Chapter 3 about a pencil Hugh encounters and the "memories" attached to that object.
These are the details that make Nabokov's work timeless and memorable. His writing is about connecting our present place to a memory long forgotten. In Dr. Sexson's Classical Lit. class we discussed the idea and importance of cyclical time especially in classical works of literature. Boyd again writes that Nabokov tries to break free of the linear time. Time is more than just cause and effect to Nabokov. As discussed in Classical Lit. anything that was believed to be important if missed would return again. That is what he tries to capture in his writing, that memories are events that are returning to us because of their importance. There is something critical that we need to understand in deja vu. We are being reminded of what is critical in this moment that we experienced in the past and must remember.
So that is what I am waiting for before I can write about by first memory. I must first encounter an object that connects my present to the memories in the corners of my mind. Then I will write about what I remember! And then my past will be with me at that moment and then I will be able to write about the memory that has returned.
Sunday, 23 August 2009
The Beauty of Pale Fire
Once again I could go on and on about the masterpiece that is Pale Fire, but these few quotes will suffice for now. I wish I could just copy the whole poem into this blog, but parts of it live on in my mind forever and that is where it will stay for now!
"I recall seeing him from my porch, on a brilliant morning, burning a whole stack of them in the pale fire of the incinerator before which he stood with bent head like an official mourner among the wind-borne black butterflies of that backyard auto-da-fe."
"Windows, as well known, have been the solace of first-person literature throughout the ages."
"Solitude is the playfield of Satan."
"The evening is the time to praise the day"
"True art is above false honor."
"All the seven deadly sins are peccadilloes but without three of them, Pride, Lust and Sloth, poetry might never have been born."
"...until the red of the sunset had turned to the ashes of dusk..."
"...sometimes when the poet paced back and forth across his lawn, or sat down for a moment on the bench at the end of it, or paused under his favorite hickory tree, I could distinguish the expression of passionate interest, rapture and reverence, with which he followed the images wording themselves in his mind, and I knew that whatever my agnostic friend might say in denial, at that moment Our Lord was with him."
"I recall seeing him from my porch, on a brilliant morning, burning a whole stack of them in the pale fire of the incinerator before which he stood with bent head like an official mourner among the wind-borne black butterflies of that backyard auto-da-fe."
"Windows, as well known, have been the solace of first-person literature throughout the ages."
"Solitude is the playfield of Satan."
"The evening is the time to praise the day"
"True art is above false honor."
"All the seven deadly sins are peccadilloes but without three of them, Pride, Lust and Sloth, poetry might never have been born."
"...until the red of the sunset had turned to the ashes of dusk..."
"...sometimes when the poet paced back and forth across his lawn, or sat down for a moment on the bench at the end of it, or paused under his favorite hickory tree, I could distinguish the expression of passionate interest, rapture and reverence, with which he followed the images wording themselves in his mind, and I knew that whatever my agnostic friend might say in denial, at that moment Our Lord was with him."
Wednesday, 12 August 2009
An Update Before the Fire Consumes
So I am just finishing the masterpiece that is Pale Fire. The 999-line poem that is the work of a masters of prose. I am now realizing that I will not be able to finish all the works for class before class begins, but that is okay. I will reread them as we go along.
I probably started this blog much to early, but I am thrilled that I get to take a class focused on my favorite author of all time. He is so lyrical and while verbose I love that about him. I love that he covers every detail of a scene, from the fly crossing someones skin in the stifling heat of a hotel room to the detials of the sounds surrounding a character. He writes with such feeling that you wonder what kind of man could write like this, what his life was like, but that will all be revealed in Speak, Memory.
The good thing about starting the blog so early is that now I have easy access to all these wonderful quotes when I begin to write. Writing about my love of his writing and the details that I missed the first time I read the work. Each time a read one of his works I discover something new!
That is the magic of Vladimir's works. Each and every time you open then up it is like visiting an old friend. Perhaps that is why I feel such a connection to his works. Or it is like Updike says, "Nabokov writes prose the only way it should be written, that is, ecstatically."
I probably started this blog much to early, but I am thrilled that I get to take a class focused on my favorite author of all time. He is so lyrical and while verbose I love that about him. I love that he covers every detail of a scene, from the fly crossing someones skin in the stifling heat of a hotel room to the detials of the sounds surrounding a character. He writes with such feeling that you wonder what kind of man could write like this, what his life was like, but that will all be revealed in Speak, Memory.
The good thing about starting the blog so early is that now I have easy access to all these wonderful quotes when I begin to write. Writing about my love of his writing and the details that I missed the first time I read the work. Each time a read one of his works I discover something new!
That is the magic of Vladimir's works. Each and every time you open then up it is like visiting an old friend. Perhaps that is why I feel such a connection to his works. Or it is like Updike says, "Nabokov writes prose the only way it should be written, that is, ecstatically."
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