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Re: architect is to blame
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An editorial nudge: "As for the line "not the dream"---I think you are exactly right to associate this with Freud's analysis of dreams and their place in a
person's life; I had never done so, and had wondered what "dream" was meant here. Isn't he saying that one's dreams are not the keys to hidden layers of a person's life, but rather that patterns of coincidence are. That seems to mesh with what he said about dreams (and coincidence) elsewhere, so it makes sense that Shade would have that view as well..."
Just this: not text, but texture; not the dream
But topsy-turvical coincidence,
Not flimsy nonsense, but a web of sense.
JM: Stephen Blackwell clarified something that remained in suspension at the time I wrote to the Nab-L. Namely, Nabokov's disavowal of Freud's discovery about dreams, together with his idea that "patterns of coincidence" can reveal hidden layers of a person's life*.
S.Blackwell's vision about how revelatory "patterns of coincidence" can be to someone like Shade and Nabokov is very stimulating. Nevertheless, after I tried to pursue Nabokov's observations on dreams ("Strong Opinions,") to locate SB's allusions plus Nabokov's words on his "watermark," I became rather disappointed by VN's admissions concerning his oneiric life, which was mainly caleidoscopically hypnagogic and there seems to have been no standard dreams which he'd decided to leave out from his novels.
Like Nabokov, though, I believe in revelatory "patterns of coincidence" but I could never make 'heads or tails' from their design. I wonder how much influence Nabokov's mother's amor fati wisdom exerted on him...
And here Alexey Sklyarenko's intriguing and informative message comes in:
"...Tolstoy's letter of February, 1888, to his future biographer, P. I. Biryukov ("Posha"), begins with apologies that imitate stammer: "Виноват... винов... вино... вин... ви... в... в..."* Виноват (mea culpa) means in Russian "guilty," Винов, "belonging to Veen" or "of the Veens," вино, "wine" or "vodka", вин, "of the wines" (вiн is Ukrainian for "he") but, if capitalized (Вин), becomes Russian spelling of the name "Veen." "Нет в мире виноватых" ("There are no Guilty People in the World," begun in 1908) is the title of Tolstoy's last unfinished novella. On the other hand, the phrase архитектор виноват ("the architect is to blame") became proverbial in the Tolstoy family. There is also виноват in the title of Herzen's novel "Кто виноват?" ("Who is to Blame?" 1847). In the first months of 1888 Tolstoy was reading Herzen ...History playing strange tricks, the Bolshaya Morskaya street in St. Petersburg where VN was born was renamed Herzen street by the Bolsheviks. This fact is mentioned in Speak, Memory. The Russian title of VN's autobiography, Drugie berega, is an allusion to a line in Pushkin ("Other shores, other waves") but it also echoes the title of Herzen's book S togo berega ("From the Other Shore," 1850)."
Yesterday I wrote that "Freud didn't believe that our actions are a consequence of our free-will, nor that they are inspired by mystical forces," but I didn't add that Freud still considered humans as being responsible for their deeds, even for their secret wishes**. He demonstrates his perspective in his writings about Sophocles' "Oedipus"for, although Oedipus wasn't guilty of the crimes he comitted - since didn't know what he was doing - he was still to blame and this is why he remained responsible for his acts, whatever their origin. This is why Oedipus blinded himself and walked into exile, an expiation which would deliver Thebes from the general blight his sinning had provoked.
...............................................................................
*Personal secrets (when unrelated to our art) are obviously only important as a source of inspiration or of anxiety to ourselves, irrespective of their original source.
**The work of the "true" psychoanalyst is to allow a person to exercise free-wil (this is very different from Nabokov's opinions about Freud), by clarifying some of the determining unconscious factors that weigh down (to inhibit or to drive on) their actions and decisions.
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person's life; I had never done so, and had wondered what "dream" was meant here. Isn't he saying that one's dreams are not the keys to hidden layers of a person's life, but rather that patterns of coincidence are. That seems to mesh with what he said about dreams (and coincidence) elsewhere, so it makes sense that Shade would have that view as well..."
Just this: not text, but texture; not the dream
But topsy-turvical coincidence,
Not flimsy nonsense, but a web of sense.
JM: Stephen Blackwell clarified something that remained in suspension at the time I wrote to the Nab-L. Namely, Nabokov's disavowal of Freud's discovery about dreams, together with his idea that "patterns of coincidence" can reveal hidden layers of a person's life*.
S.Blackwell's vision about how revelatory "patterns of coincidence" can be to someone like Shade and Nabokov is very stimulating. Nevertheless, after I tried to pursue Nabokov's observations on dreams ("Strong Opinions,") to locate SB's allusions plus Nabokov's words on his "watermark," I became rather disappointed by VN's admissions concerning his oneiric life, which was mainly caleidoscopically hypnagogic and there seems to have been no standard dreams which he'd decided to leave out from his novels.
Like Nabokov, though, I believe in revelatory "patterns of coincidence" but I could never make 'heads or tails' from their design. I wonder how much influence Nabokov's mother's amor fati wisdom exerted on him...
And here Alexey Sklyarenko's intriguing and informative message comes in:
"...Tolstoy's letter of February, 1888, to his future biographer, P. I. Biryukov ("Posha"), begins with apologies that imitate stammer: "Виноват... винов... вино... вин... ви... в... в..."* Виноват (mea culpa) means in Russian "guilty," Винов, "belonging to Veen" or "of the Veens," вино, "wine" or "vodka", вин, "of the wines" (вiн is Ukrainian for "he") but, if capitalized (Вин), becomes Russian spelling of the name "Veen." "Нет в мире виноватых" ("There are no Guilty People in the World," begun in 1908) is the title of Tolstoy's last unfinished novella. On the other hand, the phrase архитектор виноват ("the architect is to blame") became proverbial in the Tolstoy family. There is also виноват in the title of Herzen's novel "Кто виноват?" ("Who is to Blame?" 1847). In the first months of 1888 Tolstoy was reading Herzen ...History playing strange tricks, the Bolshaya Morskaya street in St. Petersburg where VN was born was renamed Herzen street by the Bolsheviks. This fact is mentioned in Speak, Memory. The Russian title of VN's autobiography, Drugie berega, is an allusion to a line in Pushkin ("Other shores, other waves") but it also echoes the title of Herzen's book S togo berega ("From the Other Shore," 1850)."
Yesterday I wrote that "Freud didn't believe that our actions are a consequence of our free-will, nor that they are inspired by mystical forces," but I didn't add that Freud still considered humans as being responsible for their deeds, even for their secret wishes**. He demonstrates his perspective in his writings about Sophocles' "Oedipus"for, although Oedipus wasn't guilty of the crimes he comitted - since didn't know what he was doing - he was still to blame and this is why he remained responsible for his acts, whatever their origin. This is why Oedipus blinded himself and walked into exile, an expiation which would deliver Thebes from the general blight his sinning had provoked.
...............................................................................
*Personal secrets (when unrelated to our art) are obviously only important as a source of inspiration or of anxiety to ourselves, irrespective of their original source.
**The work of the "true" psychoanalyst is to allow a person to exercise free-wil (this is very different from Nabokov's opinions about Freud), by clarifying some of the determining unconscious factors that weigh down (to inhibit or to drive on) their actions and decisions.
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/