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[ Thoughts and idle pondering ] future recollection
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In his Introduction to "Vladimir Nabokov: The American Years", on page 4 ( Princeton University Press) Brian Boyd writes: "Nabokov felt with a stab of pleasure that that moment of surprised discovery would stay with his son forever - as it did. He always considered that to recognize a future recollection at the moment it happened, to know with certainty that this particular moment would later be recalled, was somehow to cheat the tyranny of time, and that to glimpse someone else's future recollection was even rarer, a brief escape from the prision of the self." (Cf. TD,131; Gift, esp.16,106,354; Lolita,88)
I was reading a story that became part of Herman Broch's "Die Schuldlosen", published in America after H.Broch had to leave his native Austria while fleeing from Hitler during WWII. It was published a year before his death in 1951, in New Haven, US.
I came across a sentence that made me remember Nabokov's recognition of a "future recollection" and I thought it might be interesting to bring it up to the list. Unfortunately my translation will carry many imprecisions since I don't have the English version and Broch's own undulating magic rendering will thereby be lost.
Here is the paragraph that touched me in particular:
"One usually forgets what exists between distinct stages in one's life. While he was crossing the street, getting through the thin current of people that hurried to the station, A. became certain that he would never forget that instant and that he would include it among those moments que would recall at the time of his death so that he might take it with him to eternity. He would probably be unable to explain why he was chosing that floating moment in particular, it was so fleeting if compared with others that were clearly defined. The swiftness in which he crossed the street made him feel something divine as if he were advancing over a sublime rainbow when his lightness in motion and limb had invaded his inmost being without disturbing his conscious reasoning. If anyone asked what was he thinking about at that time he might have answered that he was worried about the rent... ("The Prodigal Son", first version, spring 1933; fifth and last version, Spring 1950)."
Astronomers are now able to describe distant dead stars they can see as extant because the light they emitted seven minutes, or ten years or a hundred years before is still travelling towards them. We can set the course of a sail boat by a star that has already exploded and changed into something else while its luminous span still encompasses our short lives. Perhaps VN's or Broch's "eternal" recollections resulted from an apprehension of the light shed by a real past now transformed into a future event... Who knows? But the intensity and "truthfulness" of their described certainties had this appeal for me, suggesting something more complex than a mere memory feat and wishful thinking into infinity...
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I was reading a story that became part of Herman Broch's "Die Schuldlosen", published in America after H.Broch had to leave his native Austria while fleeing from Hitler during WWII. It was published a year before his death in 1951, in New Haven, US.
I came across a sentence that made me remember Nabokov's recognition of a "future recollection" and I thought it might be interesting to bring it up to the list. Unfortunately my translation will carry many imprecisions since I don't have the English version and Broch's own undulating magic rendering will thereby be lost.
Here is the paragraph that touched me in particular:
"One usually forgets what exists between distinct stages in one's life. While he was crossing the street, getting through the thin current of people that hurried to the station, A. became certain that he would never forget that instant and that he would include it among those moments que would recall at the time of his death so that he might take it with him to eternity. He would probably be unable to explain why he was chosing that floating moment in particular, it was so fleeting if compared with others that were clearly defined. The swiftness in which he crossed the street made him feel something divine as if he were advancing over a sublime rainbow when his lightness in motion and limb had invaded his inmost being without disturbing his conscious reasoning. If anyone asked what was he thinking about at that time he might have answered that he was worried about the rent... ("The Prodigal Son", first version, spring 1933; fifth and last version, Spring 1950)."
Astronomers are now able to describe distant dead stars they can see as extant because the light they emitted seven minutes, or ten years or a hundred years before is still travelling towards them. We can set the course of a sail boat by a star that has already exploded and changed into something else while its luminous span still encompasses our short lives. Perhaps VN's or Broch's "eternal" recollections resulted from an apprehension of the light shed by a real past now transformed into a future event... Who knows? But the intensity and "truthfulness" of their described certainties had this appeal for me, suggesting something more complex than a mere memory feat and wishful thinking into infinity...
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