Fulmerford via Google Reader: Nabokov's
Color Field: Carrie Frye contrasts Nabokov's color field to Muriel
Spark's.
Extracts: "Lane notes (on)...the Nabokov
first sentences ...'their lack of preamble or introduction. The reader is
almost always set down at some mid point of the narrative.'
Writes Lane: 'Again and again, with polite
indifference, the stories drop us in media res, and leave us to work out
what on earth the res might be'." *
"The Wood-Sprite" (Nabokov's first published story, written
while he was a student at Cambridge): "I was pensively
penning the outline of the inkstand's circular, quivering
shadow."
"Wingstroke": "When
the curved tip of one ski crosses the other, you
tumble forward."
"Gods": "Here is what I see in your eyes right now: rainy night,
narrow street, streetlamps gliding away into the
distance."
"Details of a Sunset": "The last streetcar was disappearing in the mirrorlike murk
of the street and, along the wire above it, a spark of Bengal light,
crackling and quivering, sped into the distance like a blue
star."
"La Veneziana": "In
front of the red-hued castle, amid luxuriant elms, there was a vividly
green grass court."
"A Letter That Never Reached
Russia": "My charming, dear distant one, I presume you
cannot have forgotten anything in the more than eight years of our
separation, if you manage to remember even the gray-haired, azure liveried
watchman who did not bother us in the least when we would meet, skipping
school, on a frosty Petersburg morning, in the Suvurov museum, so dusty, so
small, so similar to a glorified snuffbox."
"The
Potato Elf": "Actually his name was Frederick
Dobson."
"The Circle": "In the
second place, because he was possessed by a sudden mad hankering after
Russia."
"Tyrants Destroyed": "The growth of his power and fame was matched, in my
imagination, by the degree of the punishment I would have liked to
inflict on him."
"Ultima Thule": "Do you remember the day you and I were lunching (partaking of
nourishment) a couple of years before your death?"
"That In Aleppo Once": "Dear V.--Among other things,
this is to tell you that at last I am here, in the country whither so many
sunsets have led."
"Signs and Symbols": "For the fourth time in as many years they were confronted
with the problem of what birthday present to bring a young man who was
incurably deranged in his mind."
JM: Fascinating
collection of first sentences and the embedded revelation about one aspect
of Nabokov's style when these first lines are put together.
The idea
reminded me of Amós Oz: "The Story Begins," which I read with surprise
and delight.
I selected a review
that sumarized my own impressions: "Amos Oz's
essay collection is an insightful study of the significance of opening passages
in selected fictional works of literature. The author demonstrates how the
beginnings of fictional works serve as contracts that bind together writer and
reader. Although Oz analyzes but one story in each chapter, he cleverly makes
connections between the stories -- e.g., the birth metaphor in "The Nose" and "A
Country Doctor" -- in order to establish paradigms that support his
thesis." - Eric Sterling, World Literature
Today
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* CAAF: Portraits in first sentences: A collection of
first sentences from Nabokov's short stories. Selection cribbed from
Anthony Lane's terrific New Yorker essay about the collected stories, with
a couple additions..The
rest here. (Via Maud
Newton).