Stan Kelly-Bootle [to Jansy/Sergey] I was
reading VN’s Foreword to Speak, Memory (1966 Revised Edition, Wideview/Perigee).
Teasingly, he wrote:“ ... I planned to entitle the British edition Speak,
Mnemosyne but was told that ‘little old ladies would not want to ask for a book
whose title they could not pronounce.’ I can imagine readers of all sizes and
genders being unaware of how the Goddess Mnemosyne, the personification of
Memory, fitted into the grand scheme of Greek mythology. Without delving into
Platonic views on anamnesis, I found it interesting that VN pondered invoking
the Mother of all these diverse creative/imaginative spirits when naming his
Memoirs.
JM: I forgot how Mnemosyne fitted in
the great scheme of things - but not how to pronounce her
name...
Curiously, in the book I had just cited as a
bibliographical item related to our Nab-L discussions the author, Christoph Henry-Thommes,* states that he "will investigate the
role Mnemosyne, the Ancient Greek goddess of memory and mother of the
muses, plays within Nabkov's concept of artistic inspiration" and he
addes, in a foot-note: "For
doctrinal reasons Augustine, the catholic thinker, did not evoke any muse in his
writings."
...............................................................
* Christoph Henry-Thommes: "Recollection, Memory and
Imagination, Selected Autobiographical Novels of Vladimir Nabokov,"
American Studies, A Monograph Series, volume 132. Universitätsverlag. Winter,
Heidelberg. The author investigates the structural
analogies in the works of Augustine and Nabokov who, "although separated by
more than one and a half millennia, are linked by certain commonly held beliefs
belonging to the general Platonic tradition.." He traces the Augustinian
paradigm through Nabokov's various writings and their art of memory, to work ut
a "grammar of autobiography," encompassing the triad of memory,
recollection and imagination.
For those who agree with Galya Diment's opinion that
Speak,Memory is "the most typical autobiography in the history of world
literature," Henry-Thommes's arguments, that "Nabokov's autobiographical
novels and his autobiography embody a continuation of the Augustinian legacy of
life writing in a strictly secularized form" shall certainly provide a wealth
of information and thoughts. For the author, both
Nabokov and Augustine are linked by certainly commonly held beliefs
belonging to the general Platonic tradition. They share, first of all, the
belief in the non-materiality of the highest form of reality, secondly the
conviction that there must be a higher level of reality, than visible and
sensible things, and thirdly, the conviction that there is some form of
immortality."
(this is not a summary, but a selection of lines from the
book's opening pages)