Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0020930, Sat, 30 Oct 2010 22:18:26 +0100

Subject
Re: QUERY: Source for Nabokov passage from love letter
From
Date
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Hafid, Ludger,

That is indeed the passage I was looking for - thank you very much for the
sources

Paul


On Fri, Oct 29, 2010 at 8:04 AM, Didier Machu <didier.machu@univ-pau.fr>wrote:

> Hello,
> Is this the passage you were referring to?
>
> "Whenever I start thinking of my love for a person, I am in the habit of
> immediately drawing radii from my love ? from my heart, from the tender
> nucleus of a personal matter ? to monstrously remote points of the universe.
> Something impels me to measure the consciousness of my love against such
> unimaginable and incalculable things as the behavior of nebulae (whose very
> remoteness seems a form of insanity), the dreadful pitfalls of eternity, the
> unknowledgeable beyond the unknown, the helplessness, the cold, the
> sickening involutions and interpenetrations of space and time." (*Speak,
> Memory*, 296)
>
> A similar notion is encountered in a letter to Elizabeth Marinel Allan and
> Marussa Marinel (25 August 1940):
>
> "We fervently hope that you may move to this country. We too have a feeling
> of interplanetary remoteness, some ungodly distance separating us from the
> dearest and most precious of friends." (*Selected Letters*, 33)
>
> Hope this helps,
> Didier Machu
>
>
> NABOKV-L <NABOKV-L@HOLYCROSS.EDU> a écrit :
>
>
> > Hello,
> >
> > I'm trying to find a passage that I read in a Nabokov book, however I
> only
> > have the very vaguest recollection of it. The clues I can remember are:
> >
> > - I'm almost certain it was the end of a love letter
> > - It used the sun rising or setting, or perhaps the turning of the earth,
> as
> > a device to illustrate the distance between the letter-writer and his
> love.
> > - I'm also pretty sure that Martin Amis used it somewhere, either putting
> > the words into one of his own characters or quoting it in some critical
> work.
> >
> > I know there is almost nothing to go on, but maybe someone will recognize
> > what I'm talking about.
> >
> > thank you,
> >
> > Paul Nulty
> >
> > Search archive with Google:
> > http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
> >
> > Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
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> >
> > Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> Search the archive<http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en> Contact
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>



--
Paul

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Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
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