Rachel Meibos:An image from the first chapter of Nabokov’s Bend Sinister and one from a footnote at the end of Breton’s Nadja (1947) bear an unlikely similarity: both describe a painter who fails to paint a sunset because the scenery changes faster than the painter can paint. From Bend Sinister: “ the sunset had gone, leaving only a clutter of the purplish remnants of the day, piled up anyhow – ruins, junk” Perhaps this is coincidental - I have no way of knowing if V. Nabokov ever read Nadja – but perhaps Nabokov was paying a subtle homage to another modernist.
 
JM: One more example of "remnants of the day" in VN,  related in this case to a painter's desire to fix, and bring order!, to impermanence -  to the constant shifts of light and color. 
R.Meibos added another perspective to the "fugal theme" in Glory by reminding us of "fugitive", transient, phenomena experienced as "piled up anyhow - ruins, junk". Didn't VN mention Heraclitus somewhere in Bend Sinister?
 
I was also reminded of Pale Fire's lines 849-852: The pen stops in mid-air, then swoops to bar/  A canceled sunset or restore a star,/ And thus it physically guides the phrase/ Toward faint daylight through the inky maze. Shade fears "gradual decay" and, for Kinbote, a sunset glow may signal "the ashes of dusk"  or a zemblan "palette with the dregs of many sunsets".  There may be others in Pnin, when young Victor's modernist visions are detailed. 
 
Search the archive Contact the Editors Visit "Nabokov Online Journal"
Visit Zembla View Nabokv-L Policies Manage subscription options

All private editorial communications, without exception, are read by both co-editors.