Subject
BIRTHDAY: Don Quixote and VN's future acrobatics
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“It was the standing of a metaphor on its head not for the sake of the
trick's difficulty, but in order to perceive an ascending waterfall or a
sunrise in reverse: a triumph, in a sense, over the ardis of time. Thus
the rapture young Mascodagama derived from overcoming gravity was akin
to that of artistic revelation” (A,184/5). His vertical “vertebrate
thoughts” (A,421) were probably informed by Nabokov´s own experience
while bending over to look at the sky upside down: “This constant shift
of the viewpoint conveys a more varied knowledge, fresh vivid glimpses
from this or that side. If you have ever tried to stand and bend your
head so as to look back between your knees, with your face turned upside
down, you will see the world in a totally different light” (LEL,228).
Unlike Don Quixote's exposed and inapt somersaults, VN's elegant
attempts to shift his perspective and to stand a metaphor on its head
were aimed at a reversal or at an alteration of the arrow of history to
obtain "a triumph over the ardis of time." When we enter into the
spirit of VN's observations, our birthday homage to Nabokov should not
merely be directed toward a past birthdate, but include the celebration
to all his future "birthdays," made possible when reader and writer meet
and other worlds, Nabokovian worlds, are created anew.
Jansy Mello
[EDNOTE. See Portinari's attached illustration of Don Quixote turning
upside down. -- SES]
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trick's difficulty, but in order to perceive an ascending waterfall or a
sunrise in reverse: a triumph, in a sense, over the ardis of time. Thus
the rapture young Mascodagama derived from overcoming gravity was akin
to that of artistic revelation” (A,184/5). His vertical “vertebrate
thoughts” (A,421) were probably informed by Nabokov´s own experience
while bending over to look at the sky upside down: “This constant shift
of the viewpoint conveys a more varied knowledge, fresh vivid glimpses
from this or that side. If you have ever tried to stand and bend your
head so as to look back between your knees, with your face turned upside
down, you will see the world in a totally different light” (LEL,228).
Unlike Don Quixote's exposed and inapt somersaults, VN's elegant
attempts to shift his perspective and to stand a metaphor on its head
were aimed at a reversal or at an alteration of the arrow of history to
obtain "a triumph over the ardis of time." When we enter into the
spirit of VN's observations, our birthday homage to Nabokov should not
merely be directed toward a past birthdate, but include the celebration
to all his future "birthdays," made possible when reader and writer meet
and other worlds, Nabokovian worlds, are created anew.
Jansy Mello
[EDNOTE. See Portinari's attached illustration of Don Quixote turning
upside down. -- SES]
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
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
