Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0000578, Wed, 3 May 1995 12:03:46 -0700

Subject
Re: SPEAK, MEMORY INDEX question (fwd)
Date
Body
EDITOR'S NOTE: I have taken the librerty of clumsily glossing Alexander
Dolinin's Blok quote below which leads to a question of my own. While AD is
certainly right about the Nabokov quatrain referring to the thematic
thread pulled together in the SM's index, I rather wonder whether the Blok
poem is a real subtext here. I am no Blok expert (and AD is), but the
sense of the the poem "Khudozhnik" [The Artist] seems to me to be quite
contrary to VN's vision of the artist. The overlap "siriny"
(Sirens--those female headed and breasted birds singing men to their
doom) does not persuade me that VN is alluing to Blok here--although he
so often does elsewhere. DBJ

From: Alexander Dolinin <dolinin@facstaff.wisc.edu>

A wind ex ponto is much more than an innocent pun on Windex and an
allusion to Ovid's poems of exile. Besides it is suggestive of Aleksandr
Blok's poem "Khudozhnik" (An Artist) and, through Blok, of Nabokov's
Russian pseudonim:
...I pered zorkim moim ozhidaniem
Tianet on ele primetnuiu nit'.

S MORIA li VIKHR'? Ili SIRINy rajskie
V list'iakh poiut? Ili vremia stoit?

[...and before my keen-eyed expectation
it (a barely heard sound) draws a scarcely noticeable thread.

Is it a whirlwind from the sea? Or edenic sirens
singing in the foliage? Or does time stand still?]

Nabokov seems to refer here to his old Russian avatar that gained a special
mention in the index (V.Sirin is the only pseudonim cited there without
revealing the author's real name) and to such "ele primetnye niti" (hardly
discernible threads) as "Colored hearing, 34-36. See also Stained glass.
<...> Stained glass, 105. See also Jewels and Pavilions," etc. These
palefiresque threads lead the reader to Nabokov's most poignant personal
memories, windows and roses in Vyra among them. To parapharase Nabokov, see
under English and Latin!
Alexander Dolinin

>
>The Epistulae Ex Ponto are Ovid's heartbreaking poems of exile. The joke,
>of course, is the combination of words to make Windex, which is what you
>clean windows with.
> Cheese Louise!
> David Slavitt, translator of Ovid's Poetry Of Exile
>
>>---------- Forwarded message ----------
>>Date: Fri, 21 Apr 1995 11:56:00 -0500 (CDT)
>>From: Brian D. Walter <bdwalter@artsci.wustl.edu>
>>
>>Can anyone offer a specific explanation of the verse at the end of
>>Nabokov's foreword to the revised SPEAK, MEMORY?
>>
>> Through the window of that index
>> Climbs a rose
>> And sometimes a gentle wind _ex
>> Ponto_ blows.
>>
>>Various echoes and motifs come to mind, but it's hard to see how they
>>might gloss the lines. Stained glass windows figure prominently in SPEAK,
>>MEMORY while windows in general are foregrounded repeatedly in Nabokov's
>>work, sometimes as an apparent conduit to the 'Otherworld' of the tricky
>>author (e. g. in BEND SINISTER and PALE FIRE). Rose imagery is especially
>>prevalent in LOLITA and PALE FIRE, the latter of which features a
>>memorable reference to the ascendant flower in the midst of Charles and
>>Disa's meeting in Nice: "Up in the trellis a telephone climbed with the
>>roses" (p. 212 in the Vintage edition). EX PONTO is a collection of poems
>>by Ovid, another famously exiled poet, and is mentioned in the commentary
>>to EUGENE ONEGIN. Also, the picture of Nabokov in the punt on the Cam
>>(subject of one of the most beautiful passages in SPEAK, MEMORY, pp.
>>270-1) is given extra prominence on the cover of the paperback Vintage
>>edition.
>>
>>Any theories?
>>
>>Brian Walter
>>6800 Vernon
>>St. Louis, MO 63130-2524
>>(314) 863-4041
>>bdwalter@artsci.wustl.edu
>**********************************
>David R. Slavitt
>TEL:(215) 382-3994
***********************************
Alexander Dolinin
(608) 231-1894