Dear List,
In a movie-review, in which Nicholas Cage is a teacher
who decyphers a special pattern from a list of numbers, the term
"apophenia" was introduced*.
Many Nabokovians are particularly sensitive to
the play of coincidences, synchronicity and correlated patterns and numbers.
In Strong Opinions (p.67/8) Nabokov
answers[interviewer: Some criticsmay find the use of coincidence in a novel
arch or contrived...}"But in "real"
life they do happen..Very often you meet with some person or some event in
"real" life that would sound pat in a story. It is not the coincidence in the
story that bothers us so much as the coincidence of coincidences in several
stories by different writers, as, for instance, the recurrent eavesdropping
device in ineteenth-century Russian fiction;" On Tolstoy's War and Peace:
"I derive no pleasure from its
cumbersome message...from the artificial coincidences...this or that footnote in
the sources used often uncritically by the author."(p.148).
For Nabokov, "Average reality begins to rot and stink as soon as the act
of individual creation ceases to animate a subjectively perceived
texture"(p.118), so, as I understand, VN agrees with the phenomenologists
that "perceived textures" are subjective - also because they
rely on "individual creation."
He also adds, on a different key, p.84: "incidentally, the boy at St.Mark's
[Victor?/St.Bart?] and `Pnin both dream of a passage from my drafts of
Pale Fire, the revolution in Zembla and the escape of the king - that's
telepathy for you!"
Pale Fire, now keeping "apophenia" in mind,
is equally revelatory. In SO,p.119, VN states: "John Shade in Pale Fire leads an intense inner existence,
far from what you call a joke". In his many-layered ironies we find the sedate John
Shade engaged in a kind of "apophenic" pursuit (fountain-mountain,
bobolinks...**), whereas it befalls delirious Kinbote to speak
against occult messages, hidden patterns, coincidences.
Kinbote notes, in
connection with Hazel & the barn ghost: "Divisions
based on such variable intervals cannot be but rather arbitrary; some of the
balderdash may be recombined into other lexical units making no better sense
(e.g., "war," "talant," "her," "arrant," etc.)..".
At the same time, he adds:"a diabolical force urged us
to seek a secret design in the abracadabra".
He states: "I abhor such games... but I have braved it
...with a commentator’s infinite patience and disgust..".
He concludes that nothing, "nor her own
imaginative hysteria, express anything here that might be construed, however
remotely, as containing a warning..."
These exchanges suggest to me that Nabokov could distinguish quite well
between "true patterns" and "false coincidences" in life. He would invent
dates and recurrent numbers in his novels that, at times, served to express
his beliefs about a hereafter. More often than not, such an insertion was
to disguise and deny them.
Freud's deterministic view of mental life and the workings of unconscious
processes to engender revelatory "coincidences" must, indeed,
have profoundly annoyed Nabokov...***
.................................................................................................
* (internet) When someone sees patterns which do not really exist, this is
known as apophenia. Apophenia can take a wide range of forms, from thinking that
the same number turns up too often to be mere coincidence to seeing a man in the
moon. In some cases, apophenia is used as a criteria for the diagnosis of mental
illness, but having apophenia does not necessarily imply that someone is
mentally ill; many extremely creative people, for example, have demonstrated
apophenia.One of the most common forms of apophenia involves numbers. Many
people are under the impression that a particular number keeps appearing in
their lives; 23 is a common choice. They may start seeing that particular number
everywhere, either in pure form or in the form of numbers which add up to it.
This type of apophenia has often been the subject of films and books which
involve cursed numbers.In another form of apophenia called pareidolia, people
pull shapes or sounds out of meaningless data...Apophenia is an example of what
is known in statistics as a type I error, or a false positive. Most people do
not exhibit apophenia by conscious choice; they simply draw connections where
there are none out of a sense of false sensitivity. The behavior of someone with
severe apophenia can veer into the absurd, as someone may go to elaborate
lengths to support the connections he or she makes, or to avoid particular
circumstances.Learning to recognize apophenia is important, as it is a good idea
to be able to distinguish between true patterns and mere coincidence. This
distinction is especially crucial in the sciences, where type I errors can
radically skew experiment results, especially when people make subtle
adjustments to reinforce their ideas. As a general rule, if you keep noticing
the same number, symbol, pattern, sound, or event in your life, it is probably a
case of apophenia; you might want to seek out evidence which contradicts your
impression of a pattern or connection.
**...this/ Was the real point, the contrapuntal theme;/
Just this: not text, but texture; not the dream/ But topsy-turvical
coincidence,/ Not flimsy nonsense, but a web of sense./Yes! It sufficed that I
in life could find/Some kind of link-and-bobolink, some kind/ Of correlated
pattern in the game,/ Plexed artistry, and something of the same/ Pleasure in it
as they who played it found [...] Playing a game of worlds, promoting
pawns...(810-820)
*** - The quote made above (
VN,SO, p.84):
"incidentally, the boy at St.Mark's [Victor?/St.Bart?] and
Pnin both dream of a passage from my drafts of Pale Fire, the revolution in
Zembla and the escape of the king - that's telepathy for you!"
lets us witness Nabokov's intention to
stimulate, in his readers, the impulse towards a literary kind
of "apophenia". He deliberately plays the role of a scheming god who keeps
sending out clues, emitting signs that are meaningful only in the
corpus of his work, signals that sometimes travel from one novel onto
another.
In "The Defence" the recurrent checkered shadows and
marble floors are probably elements that only serve to
emphasize Luzhin's hallucinations.
And yet, in "Pale Fire", they are presented in
disconcerting ways.
Kinbote's commentary, about Hazel's ghostly
registers, that nothing, "nor her own imaginative hysteria, express anything here that might
be construed, however remotely, as containing a
warning..." represents his common-sense
denial of any hidden warning to Hazel by appoplexic Aunt
Maud.
It is ironical - because Nabokov's satire
demands the reader's acceptance of a fictionally
"real" ghostly message. He (informed by the author, perhaps by
Boyd) is justified in his disdain towards poor demented
Kinbote who can find in it no warning clues and cannot accept the
guidance of a well-intentioned spirit.
Freud's anedocte about the spies that meet in a
train-station and inquire about each other's travel plans, may ellucidate
( or it may not) a Nabokovian tactic. Charles asks John about his travel projects. Hans
answers:
"- I'm going to New
Wye," while Karl reasons:
"- He said New Wye only to avoid telling me that
he is going to New York. But he knows that I will deduce this shift!"
Therefore Karl knocks Hans down, in
anger:
"-You, perfidious liar... You told me
that you are going to New Wye because you are, in fact,
really going to New Wye!"
On the other hand ( a conjurer's hand), when we examine
more closely Shade's lines ( "it sufficed that in life I could
find some kind of link-and-bobolink...," *) we must realize that, inspite
of his fictionally-real encounter with a lady who'd seen a
"mountain", he is in fact thinking not about "real life events" but
of a plexed artistry! ( whose?).
He then says that he wishes to extract "the same
pleasure in it as they who played it found" ( and yet, who
is playing ...a game of worlds, promoting pawns?). Kinbote, like the author, promotes pawns...
Although, in the novel, Shade disregards Kinbote's
Zembla and resists his influence, what is expected from the "real" reader?
To discern that he, as reader, is a pawn, as are Shade and Kinbote? Must the
reader accept that, for Shade, "a web of
sense" is only to be found through art? That he, like Kinbote,
rejects spiritual warnings - while the reader can accept them and feel
superior...