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THOUGHTS: artists don't have to be consistent...or do
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Barrie Karp [ on JM: VN's explicit opinions about psychoanalysis were apparently informed only by his contact with Freud's very early writings and, probably, by the "utilitarian Freudians". Therefore, as I see it, he actually was a true Freudian inspite of himself.]
Clearly (from my recent re-reading of Lolita and "Signs and Symbols"--) Nabokov had a good deal of what can now be known as contemporary psychoanalytic knowledge drawn from various schools, and is a "true Freudian" (since that is the phrase you used) [...] The fairy tales that he was after are not inconsistent with embodying such psychoanalytic and other knowledge in literature, and the ascription "Freudian" seems dated.
Jansy Mello: Thanks for the comments in which you managed to bring together Nabokov, Freud, consistency and fairy tales - but remained wary with "a Freudian". You are right, "utilitarian Freudians" (read "pragmatic psychoterrapists") have nothing to do with Freud. Freud believed that we are always consistent with what we are (unless terminally neurotic). We seldom know what guarantees this consistency of ours even after we realize that one cannot, ever, "be cured" from what we are (ie: the result of our constitutional seed interacting with environmental factors altering the growth of its root, trunk, foliage). Utilitarian therapists try to inflict reason into us - but even the best arguments will remain inoperant (except in suggestion or in brainwashing). We're probably born already as idealists, realists, Nabokovians, Freudians...
LH: Could you give an example of his making fun of anti-Freudians? I can't remember of any, but I may have missed it...
Jansy Mello: LH, you are an expert in inviting us to guess, go after quotations and book references, read past postings...In that way I run the risk of becoming referentially consistent! Did I write anti-Freudians, or was the "you" someone else? Barrie Karp wrote: I think he was making fun of anti-Freudians as well as certain kinds of Freudians he had in mind (probably mainly popularized vulgarized notions of them), and of didactic writers. And yet, his sentence mainly suggests VN's criticism of those who follow him to the letter, an inference, something that doesn't necessarily demand directly quotable examples.
JA [re Emily Sours: Isn't all fiction "intelligent design"--the creator knows the beginning, but may or may not know the end?Evolution--it works in all contexts] ... all fiction is ID, but my point was that Nabokov builds the sense of the author's authority into his books, which makes for a good way to parody literary conventions, and is used to reveal His divine purpose[...]
[re J.Mello: Where does Nabokov describe the "spherical shape of life"?[...] Why transform "ID" into an anthropoid "Designer"?[...] You got me. The spiral is from Speak Memory, but somewhere else he says that life is not a circle but a sphere--was it in the gift? [...] Besides, I was mostly being ironic, you know, because the shape of a book's life is pretty literally a rectangular shaped block.[...] I antropomorphized the concept because I'm collapsing the difference between whatever force or forces N may have thought (mentally italicize the "may") sparked life with that of an author who writes a book
JM: I've noticed that we sometimes informally apply concepts such as "world", "reality", "life", "novelist", "artist" as if they were interchangeable terms. This may become confusing when one responds but, of course, I'm all in favor for maintaining our spontaneity at the List! Mistakes,misquotes and missing points can always stimulate others into participating whereas their corrections might spiral us onto new worlds.
I did realize you were making fun by comparing a rectangular book/world and VN's "spheres/worlds" ...I tried to contrast your rectangular image as merely suggesting a closed book, to another, of the book being leafed-thru rapidly, when the movement of flipping pages would shape at least a half-sphere. I dropped it then because the image of roundness was not precise... Anyway, you originally meant a metaphorical sense...
JA [ on JM: Did Fyodor's father believe in evolution?] I thought he in fact did not [...] isn't the idea that his evolving fictive worlds (their metamorphosing or books with surprises and twists and details which constantly make the reader redifine their relation to the material[...]) as encased in a crystal sphere to be observed by readers, a pretty close approximation of what he said he wanted his fiction to do?
JM: After Emily Sours' observation I realized that "evolution, the origin of species, darwinism, lamarckism, platonism aso" had been taken for granted by me in a very imprecise way, but I'll have to re-read Fyodor's posthumous chapter since I still think his father, although no Darwinist, was still an evolutionist: perhaps not in the sense of infinite development into the unknown but, more likely, as smoke and clouds evolve. Like in Hamlet's rather vague remark in Act II,scene 2: "A dream itself is but a shadow." Beautiful link bt. the crystal sphere and its internal evolving spires as the book a reader contemplates along with its designer. I agree with that!
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Clearly (from my recent re-reading of Lolita and "Signs and Symbols"--) Nabokov had a good deal of what can now be known as contemporary psychoanalytic knowledge drawn from various schools, and is a "true Freudian" (since that is the phrase you used) [...] The fairy tales that he was after are not inconsistent with embodying such psychoanalytic and other knowledge in literature, and the ascription "Freudian" seems dated.
Jansy Mello: Thanks for the comments in which you managed to bring together Nabokov, Freud, consistency and fairy tales - but remained wary with "a Freudian". You are right, "utilitarian Freudians" (read "pragmatic psychoterrapists") have nothing to do with Freud. Freud believed that we are always consistent with what we are (unless terminally neurotic). We seldom know what guarantees this consistency of ours even after we realize that one cannot, ever, "be cured" from what we are (ie: the result of our constitutional seed interacting with environmental factors altering the growth of its root, trunk, foliage). Utilitarian therapists try to inflict reason into us - but even the best arguments will remain inoperant (except in suggestion or in brainwashing). We're probably born already as idealists, realists, Nabokovians, Freudians...
LH: Could you give an example of his making fun of anti-Freudians? I can't remember of any, but I may have missed it...
Jansy Mello: LH, you are an expert in inviting us to guess, go after quotations and book references, read past postings...In that way I run the risk of becoming referentially consistent! Did I write anti-Freudians, or was the "you" someone else? Barrie Karp wrote: I think he was making fun of anti-Freudians as well as certain kinds of Freudians he had in mind (probably mainly popularized vulgarized notions of them), and of didactic writers. And yet, his sentence mainly suggests VN's criticism of those who follow him to the letter, an inference, something that doesn't necessarily demand directly quotable examples.
JA [re Emily Sours: Isn't all fiction "intelligent design"--the creator knows the beginning, but may or may not know the end?Evolution--it works in all contexts] ... all fiction is ID, but my point was that Nabokov builds the sense of the author's authority into his books, which makes for a good way to parody literary conventions, and is used to reveal His divine purpose[...]
[re J.Mello: Where does Nabokov describe the "spherical shape of life"?[...] Why transform "ID" into an anthropoid "Designer"?[...] You got me. The spiral is from Speak Memory, but somewhere else he says that life is not a circle but a sphere--was it in the gift? [...] Besides, I was mostly being ironic, you know, because the shape of a book's life is pretty literally a rectangular shaped block.[...] I antropomorphized the concept because I'm collapsing the difference between whatever force or forces N may have thought (mentally italicize the "may") sparked life with that of an author who writes a book
JM: I've noticed that we sometimes informally apply concepts such as "world", "reality", "life", "novelist", "artist" as if they were interchangeable terms. This may become confusing when one responds but, of course, I'm all in favor for maintaining our spontaneity at the List! Mistakes,misquotes and missing points can always stimulate others into participating whereas their corrections might spiral us onto new worlds.
I did realize you were making fun by comparing a rectangular book/world and VN's "spheres/worlds" ...I tried to contrast your rectangular image as merely suggesting a closed book, to another, of the book being leafed-thru rapidly, when the movement of flipping pages would shape at least a half-sphere. I dropped it then because the image of roundness was not precise... Anyway, you originally meant a metaphorical sense...
JA [ on JM: Did Fyodor's father believe in evolution?] I thought he in fact did not [...] isn't the idea that his evolving fictive worlds (their metamorphosing or books with surprises and twists and details which constantly make the reader redifine their relation to the material[...]) as encased in a crystal sphere to be observed by readers, a pretty close approximation of what he said he wanted his fiction to do?
JM: After Emily Sours' observation I realized that "evolution, the origin of species, darwinism, lamarckism, platonism aso" had been taken for granted by me in a very imprecise way, but I'll have to re-read Fyodor's posthumous chapter since I still think his father, although no Darwinist, was still an evolutionist: perhaps not in the sense of infinite development into the unknown but, more likely, as smoke and clouds evolve. Like in Hamlet's rather vague remark in Act II,scene 2: "A dream itself is but a shadow." Beautiful link bt. the crystal sphere and its internal evolving spires as the book a reader contemplates along with its designer. I agree with that!
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/