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Re: [NABOKOV-LIST] [GOGOLIAN EXTRACTS] Art: Ancillae and Human
Sacrifice.
Sacrifice.
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Well I loved your note for that "monstrable", which will probably skip through my mind all day at work. I had not ever read that poem, but I assume it must be from N.'s twenties? Since he has an actual angel in the thing. He mostly used directly religious imagery like that when he was young, right? My first thought reading the poem is why do Angels need to sleep? Is this a subtle Nabokovian hint that paradise might not be what it's cracked up to be? Then I thought it would have been funny if the provincial naturalist actually had captured the thing and put it on display at a museum--that at least would be a specimen immune to the ravages of light and other atmospheric problems mounting up over time. Seriously, though, is the poem supposed to be about a naturalist who stumbles upon one of God's minions and then realizes he's dead, or that certain things in God's universe simply cannot be communicated by words, or both? A non-message message.
jansymello <jansy@AETERN.US> wrote: J.Aisenberg: you have concretely shown precise examples of his use of the Cinderella fairytale taking on strange and ironic meanings and connotations over the course Ada [...] which relates to specific context (what else is Ada but a kind of anti-fairytale fairytale) and the demonstrable thinking of the artist...
J.M: I wonder if VN, reaching towards some ineffable paradaisal truth managed to hear his work "speak back" like HH (just once) heard Lolita...he was never the same after that...
Isn't truth what "responds", provokes "effects" or is, at least, monstrable?
J. Aisenberg: I suspect that Nabokov, who seems to have admired himself immensely, probably did hear his work speak back to him, though I must say I'm not too interested in the otherworld, just Lolitaworld, or Adaworld, or whichever of his books I like.
Here is VN's poem "In Paradise" ( long before he wrote "Lolita"):
My soul, beyond distant death
your image I see is like this;
a provincial naturalist,
an eccentric lost in paradise.
There, in a glade, a wild angel slumbers,
a semi-pavonian creature.
Poke at ir curiously
with your green umbrella,
speculating how, first of all,
you will write a paper on it,
then - But there are no learned journals,
nor any readers in paradise!
And there you stand, not yet believing
your wordless woe.
About that blue somnolent animal
whom will you tell, whom?
Where is the world and the labeled roses,
the museums and the stuffed birds?
And you look and look through your tears
at those unnamable wings.
(Berlin, 1927)
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jansymello <jansy@AETERN.US> wrote: J.Aisenberg: you have concretely shown precise examples of his use of the Cinderella fairytale taking on strange and ironic meanings and connotations over the course Ada [...] which relates to specific context (what else is Ada but a kind of anti-fairytale fairytale) and the demonstrable thinking of the artist...
J.M: I wonder if VN, reaching towards some ineffable paradaisal truth managed to hear his work "speak back" like HH (just once) heard Lolita...he was never the same after that...
Isn't truth what "responds", provokes "effects" or is, at least, monstrable?
J. Aisenberg: I suspect that Nabokov, who seems to have admired himself immensely, probably did hear his work speak back to him, though I must say I'm not too interested in the otherworld, just Lolitaworld, or Adaworld, or whichever of his books I like.
Here is VN's poem "In Paradise" ( long before he wrote "Lolita"):
My soul, beyond distant death
your image I see is like this;
a provincial naturalist,
an eccentric lost in paradise.
There, in a glade, a wild angel slumbers,
a semi-pavonian creature.
Poke at ir curiously
with your green umbrella,
speculating how, first of all,
you will write a paper on it,
then - But there are no learned journals,
nor any readers in paradise!
And there you stand, not yet believing
your wordless woe.
About that blue somnolent animal
whom will you tell, whom?
Where is the world and the labeled roses,
the museums and the stuffed birds?
And you look and look through your tears
at those unnamable wings.
(Berlin, 1927)
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.
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
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/