J.Friedman: I think I understand what Nabokov meant,
but I don't even try to apply it to my life.But I realize that in even bringing
up the possibility of what he meant, I'm denying a large part of the twentieth
century [...]And one fact--about the book, not our reality--is that Shade is
right. Nabokov is the higher being, and Aunt Maud at least has a life after
death. [...]. I'd say you and I, not believing in the supernatural, can see
Nabokov's beliefs as we like, but we have to see Shade's beliefs as true in the
fiction. Unless again you deny the author's meaning[...]
JM: There's a correction
to my posting to J.Aisenberg.
I wrote: For J.
A "no afterlife can be explained in living terms" and
yet, he employs words, such as "beyond the veil",
just as J.Friedman...". -
I should have
written instead: " As J.A pointed out, for VN "no
afterlife can be explained in living terms" and yet, when
describing instances about VN's hereafter, he employs words such
as "beyond the veil"...
Like J.Friedman now discusses ( or so it seems to me),
VN's "mysticism" is not the theme (he was so very
reticent about his real beliefs), only how his mysticism affects his
style to the point of satire.
I didn't understand J.F's sentence:" I realize
that in even bringing up the possibility of what he meant, I'm denying a large
part of the twentieth century." Perhaps because I often see VN straddling the
XIXth unto the early XXth (nostalgia, childhood favorite authors, later
contempts: Freud...)