Last week I intended to post the following compilation in response to Jansy’s query regarding VN’s use of pathetic fallacy. It is highly selective and gleaned from the novels only, but purports to show that this stylistic feature of VN’s did not wane with the passing of time, i.e. from Ada onward, including the posthumous unfinished The Original of Laura.
Ada:
A latticed gallery looked across its garlanded shoulder into the garden and turned sharply.. 44
A notice-board calmly proclaimed 216
The clock…was gathering its strength to strike 231
“It’s crowded and gay down there, with a masturbating jazzband. No?”
Transparent Things:
Amidst tossing remonstrative trees 64
A long lavender-tipped flame danced up to stop him with a graceful gesture of its gloved hand 104
Look at the Harlequins!:
None of the serried tree trunks looked this way. 10
Intelligent trail 171
The Original of Laura:
A cloudless September maddened the crickets. 83
The novel My Laura was begun very soon after the end of the love affair it depicts, was completed in one year, published three months later, and promptly torn apart by a book reviewer in a leading newspaper. It grimly survived and to the accompaniment of muffled grunts on the part of the librarious fates, its invisible hoisters, it wriggled up to the top of the bestsellers’ list then started to slip, but stopped at a midway step in the vertical ice. 117
A. Bouazza
From: Vladimir Nabokov Forum [mailto:NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU] On Behalf Of Jansy
Sent: zaterdag 27 april 2013 18:32
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Subject: [NABOKV-L] Personification in LATH
Personifications, in LATH, are not as common as I thought because the emphasis has shifted from attributing human feelings and motion to inanimate objects, to dwell on human movements acting onto specific body-parts (as the tongue steping down the palate, in "Lolita" and "... down the marble steps of memory's front porch, here sheslowly comes, sideways, sideways, the poor lame lady..." in LATH)
I think that Nabokov considers them, simply, stylized images:: "Only by projecting thus on the screen of my mind those stylized images, could I allay the anguish of carnal jealousy.."
A host of trite examples with a moon looking down, a smiling sun and lapping waves seem to have escaped his scrutiny* - perhaps even those in which we find again variations about "the stunned look on the face of a clock that has stopped."
There are many delightful and joyous motion-images: "the performance that a breeze was giving above a street sufficiently narrow for three pairs of long drawers to cross over on a string in as many strides or leaps" and multiple variations about typography that may belong to a separate category, probably related to the movement-body-thought kind: "Then I drew a thick line underneath and a caravan of question marks...," one that has not been used simply as a rich dream-state analogy:"I saw my pages and notes flash past like the bright windows of an express train that did not stop at my station, with a battery-operated green engine that emitted at realistic intervals puffs of imitation smoke, pursued a circular course through a brambly picturesque nightmare grove whose dizzy flowers nodded continuous assent to al the horrors of childhood and hell."
:
I'll continue my search and, please, remember that I humbly welcome corrections and suggestions!
............................................................................................................................................
* However, Nabokov indicates one that stems from the poetry of Pushkin: "recite that Pushkin thing about waves lying down in adoration at her feet." and in this case it might be an ironical move. .
All private editorial communications are read by both co-editors.