Final Thoughts and Thanks

This class has been one of the most mentally challenging classes since I made the mistake of trying to be an electrical engineer. What makes this class amazing is that it is not only mentally challenging, but emotionally vexing and thought provoking, which are not always things you ascribe to great times. I took literary criticism earlier on in my career and thought that I had gotten through the bulk of the narcissistic intellectuals, but Nabokov seems to be able to transcend these stereotypes and made being an intellectual cool again. He is able to make fun of the whole elitist ideal and still sit at the top of it. Reading these novels has made me such a better reader than any class I have taken thus far. I used to think of reading as a theoretical knowledge that you can't really learn until you apply it. Nabokov's books make you apply your literary knowledge to the page and maps out the emotions so well its as if you are really there. I am so glad that I could end my school career on a class that has made me grow so much as a individual. I don't reread many books (i'm picky) and neither do I re-watch very many movies, but these novels have given me something that I can reread and enjoy and ponder over for years to come. If it wasn't for the class I wouldn't have been able to reach this understanding that I now sit at. The conversations that we had in class go beyond school work and career preparations; they are standards and ideals to live your life by. I want to thank everybody, especially Dr. Sexson, for helping me along this rough terrain of information and knowledge so I can feel complete leaving this institution.

A thin film

In Transparent Things Hugh Person considers to himself that if you could stop worrying about what the future had in store then he wouldn't worry so much about mistakes of the past. The story discusses how impossible it is to keep your mind in the moment.

"When we concentrate on a material object, whatever its situation, the very act of attention may lead to our involuntary sinking into the history of that object.Novices must learn to skim over matter if they want matter to stay at the exact level of the moment."

Person explains that “immediate reality” is but a “thin veneer” over the past, and it’s much better not to test “the tension film” of this reality. Most decisions are made by the repercussions of past or future events. There are few times in life where the "moment" seizes you and you are able to float along the film of the present without deliberation or bias. Hugh Person's past haunts him at every turn, but he still seeks it out. It may be because it is what he knows and it doesn't take him to far off the beaten path. This idea reminds me of the definition of apocalypse given by Frye. An apocalypse is the way the world looks after the ego has disappeared. Person's ego has kept his mind from transcending to the level where time, past and present no longer matter.

Googling Nabokov, Were the masters now!

When you Google key Nabokovian phrases and ideas and you scroll down through the options often you will find several of our blog sites as references to Vladimir Nabokov. People are getting their information about Nabokov from us. Our blog writing has transcended from illegitimate classroom babble to scholarly incite to the masses. AMAZING!

The Original of Laura

Having become a fan of Vladimir Nabokov I have been arguing with myself about buying the new novel The Original of Laura. After listening to the presentation of it given in class I know that it is going to be a challenge that even experienced Nabokovians will find vexing. Through the grapevine of class I heard that Vladimir did not want the work published. Knowing that money talks more than dying wishes I decided to investigate the reasoning behind publishing this once thought to be lost work. As I looked into the issues surrounding the debate to publish the work or not, I read some of the quotes from his concerning the issue.

"Dmitri says he could have stored it away, where it would have inevitably been discovered, or he could publish it now and "present this wonderful gift to the public" while he is still alive." (www.npr.org)

I also got to read some of the reviews for the novel. I didn't read any of the negative critics that Dr. Sexson talked about, but I did read a review that said it was obviously unfinished. The article didn't necessarily say it was a bad thing, but it did want to be honest to the reader. It also said that it wouldn't be like anything you have read from Nabokov before. It also made hints to allusions in the novel that are from other Nabokov novels. There is a character named Hubert H. Hubert that tries to molest his stepdaughter (how fun!) Even if this novel isn't a Lolita or Pale Fire I think I have come to respect and understand Nabokov's writing enough that I will find plenty to enjoy in this new work.

"I came to the very clear conclusion," Nabokov says, "imagining my father, with a wry smile, in a calmer and happier moment, saying, 'Well you're in a real mess here — go ahead and publish. Have some fun.'"

Cosmic Sychronization

"In a sense, all poetry is positional: to try to express one’s position in regard to the universe embraced by consciousness, is an immemorial urge. The arms of consciousness reach out and grope, and the longer they are the better.… While the scientist sees everything that happens in one point of space, the poet feels everything that happens in one point of time. Lost in thought, he taps his knee with his wandlike pencil, and at the same instant a car (New York license plate) passes along the road, a child bangs the screen door of a neighboring porch, an old man yawns in a misty Turkestan orchard, a granule of cinder-gray sand is rolled by the wind on Venus, a Docteur Jacques Hirsch in Grenoble puts on his reading glasses, and trillions of other such trifles occur—all forming an instantaneous and transparent organism of events, of which the poet (sitting in a lawn chair, at Ithaca, N.Y.) is the nucleus." (pg. 218)

Nabokov likes to produce the notion that instances are all connected within a point in time. This really helps to understand some situations in Nabokov's novels where many things take place simultaneously. In Pale Fire, the whole poem deals with moments in time that overlap and then move to the past and reoccur again. It is alluded to in the novel that Jack Grey is plotting his plan throughout the commentary. Nabokov coined the term "cosmic synchronization" in his biography Speak, Memory which was defined as the "capacity of thinking several things at a time". I think this has to go along with the reader as well when reading any of Nabokov's works. When Hazel Shade is dying in the poem, that is the only thing that isn't discussed.

"You gently yawned and stacked away your plate.
We heard the wind. We heard it rush and throw
Twigs at the windowpane. Phone ringing? No.
I helped you with the dishes. The tall clock
Kept on demolishing young root, old rock." (478-82)

Even though the most crucial part of the storyline is Hazel dying, life still goes on regularly adjacent to the incident. Even thought this is a simple literary tool, I think the reader often neglects issues that go on around the main plot of the story which would make Nabokov a hard read for a lot of people.

Narrating through the dead

As we have been discussing in class, Nabokov has a deep interest in the dead and afterlife. These issues become more apparent in Transparent Things. Nabokov shows how are mortal conscience has trouble comprehending the signs that the world gives out to help guide him. Hugh Persons only escape from his reality lies in his memory of things past. The novel really brings out the aspect of time and how Hugh is fighting with it and how R and his companions are able to see the patterns that are apparent in the mortal world. With Hugh's narrow consciousness he is unable to comprehend how situations are going to play out. The story brings into light this rebirth or transcendence needed to view the world from this outside eye.

While looking through some essays online I found a quote from Vladimir Nabokov about the necessity of our consciousness to understand all the facets of life. The essay explained that it was a discarded note from the Pale Fire novel from an essay called Strong Opinions which read: “Time without consciousness—lower animal world; time with consciousness—man; consciousness without time—some still higher state.” R and his companions exist without the issue of time. Just writing that makes my mind wander about what that could even be like. The novel dives deep into these theoretical ideas about the effect time has on the mind and how transparent things must look from the outside.

Thief!

I was looking for pictures to put up on my blog when I clicked on a picture of Vladimir Nabokov standing in a field with a butterfly net. When I clicked on the picture it brought me to Adam Benson’s Nabokov blog. I thought it was pretty cool that our class is now main references for imagery of Nabokov. Since I was already on his page I began to scroll through his blogs (for ideas of my own) when I scrolled past a modernist picture of colorful numbers. I immediately realized that that was the picture that I had used for my blog about synesthesia. I will credit myself for using the picture first, and I almost used the picture that I clicked on originally to get back at Mr. Benson for using somebody else’s art, that I had already stolen, for his own gain. Kidding!

I did find it interesting though that we both used the picture for the same blog type and I had planned on using a picture that he had already used on another of his blogs. I haven’t took the time to look through the reoccurrences of images throughout are blogs, but I would bet that there has been a lot of overlapping of pictures and themes in the blogs that I have decided not to put anymore pictures on my blog (unless it is completely outstanding). These occurrences just show that great minds think alike.