Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0002557, Mon, 17 Nov 1997 10:11:04 -0800

Subject
Nabokov's Phantom Verse
Date
Body
EDITOR's NOTE. I wonder if this isn't a prankish attribution by David
Thompson. All of VN's poetry is rhymed and metered. Nice, none the less.
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From: Bill Blackwell <wblackwe@erols.com>


Film critic David Thomson's Introduction to _Beneath Mulholland_,
his recently published collection of essays, begins:

How does the poem go . . . . ?

Beneath Mulholland there are bodies buried:
Ghosts, spooks, those flaming images so pale and filmy,
The intimates we never met. O how they stir,
Fretful, sleepless, and how steadily fond parents
School their young---it's only an earthquake, dearest,
5.0 or 5.1.

I quote from unreliable memory---Nabokov's unfinished Los Angeles
rhapsody (going back to his brief Stanley Kubrick period) was, as
far as I know, never committed to paper or index cards. Truly,
a phantom verse. I wish I could remember more.