Barrie Karp [ on
JM: VN's explicit opinions about psychoanalysis were
apparently informed only by his contact with Freud's very early
writings and, probably, by the "utilitarian Freudians". Therefore, as I
see it, he actually was a true Freudian inspite of himself.]
Clearly (from my recent re-reading of Lolita and
"Signs and Symbols"--) Nabokov had a good deal of what can now be known as
contemporary psychoanalytic knowledge drawn from various schools, and is a "true
Freudian" (since that is the phrase you used) [...] The fairy tales that he
was after are not inconsistent with embodying such psychoanalytic and other
knowledge in literature, and the ascription "Freudian" seems
dated.
Jansy Mello: Thanks for the comments
in which you managed to bring together Nabokov, Freud, consistency and
fairy tales - but remained wary with "a Freudian". You are right, "utilitarian Freudians" (read "pragmatic
psychoterrapists") have nothing to do with Freud. Freud believed
that we are always consistent with what we are (unless terminally
neurotic). We seldom know what guarantees this consistency of
ours even after we realize that one cannot,
ever, "be cured" from what we are (ie: the result
of our constitutional seed interacting with environmental
factors altering the growth of its root, trunk, foliage). Utilitarian therapists try to inflict reason into us
- but even the best arguments will remain inoperant (except
in suggestion or in brainwashing). We're probably born already
as idealists, realists, Nabokovians, Freudians...
LH:
Could you give an example of his making fun of
anti-Freudians? I can't remember of any, but I may have missed
it...
Jansy
Mello: LH, you are an expert in inviting us to guess, go
after quotations and book references, read past
postings...In
that way I run the risk of becoming referentially consistent!
Did I write
anti-Freudians, or was the "you" someone else? Barrie Karp wrote: I
think he was making fun of anti-Freudians as well as certain kinds of Freudians
he had in mind (probably mainly popularized vulgarized notions of them), and of
didactic writers. And yet, his sentence mainly suggests VN's criticism
of those who follow him to the letter, an inference, something that doesn't
necessarily demand directly quotable examples.
JA [re Emily Sours: Isn't all fiction "intelligent
design"--the creator knows the beginning, but may or may not know the
end?Evolution--it works in all contexts] ... all fiction is ID, but my point was
that Nabokov builds the sense of the author's authority into his books, which
makes for a good way to parody literary conventions, and is used to reveal His
divine purpose[...]
[re J.Mello: Where does Nabokov describe the "spherical shape of
life"?[...] Why transform "ID" into an anthropoid "Designer"?[...] You got me. The spiral is from Speak Memory, but somewhere else he
says that life is not a circle but a sphere--was it in the gift? [...]
Besides, I was mostly being ironic, you know, because the shape of a
book's life is pretty literally a rectangular shaped block.[...] I
antropomorphized the concept because I'm collapsing the difference between
whatever force or forces N may have thought (mentally italicize the "may")
sparked life with that of an author who writes a book
JM: I've noticed that we sometimes informally
apply concepts such as "world", "reality", "life", "novelist", "artist" as
if they were interchangeable terms. This may become confusing when one
responds but, of course, I'm all in favor for maintaining our spontaneity
at the List! Mistakes,misquotes and missing points can always stimulate others
into participating whereas their corrections might spiral us onto
new worlds.
I did realize
you were making fun by comparing a rectangular book/world and VN's
"spheres/worlds" ...I tried to contrast
your rectangular image as merely suggesting a closed
book, to another, of the book being leafed-thru rapidly, when the
movement of flipping pages would shape at least a half-sphere. I
dropped it then because the image of roundness was not precise...
Anyway, you originally meant a metaphorical sense...
JA [ on JM:
Did Fyodor's father believe in evolution?] I thought he in fact
did not [...] isn't the idea that his evolving fictive worlds (their
metamorphosing or books with surprises and twists and details which constantly
make the reader redifine their relation to the material[...]) as encased in a
crystal sphere to be observed by readers, a pretty close approximation of what
he said he wanted his fiction to do?
JM: After Emily Sours' observation I realized that
"evolution, the origin of species, darwinism, lamarckism, platonism aso"
had been taken for granted by me in a very imprecise way, but I'll have to
re-read Fyodor's posthumous chapter since I still think his father, although no
Darwinist, was still an evolutionist: perhaps not in the sense of infinite
development into the unknown but, more likely, as smoke and clouds evolve. Like
in Hamlet's rather vague remark in Act II,scene 2: "A dream
itself is but a shadow." Beautiful
link bt. the crystal sphere and its internal evolving spires as
the book a reader contemplates along with its designer. I agree with
that!