I was asked if Marat did, in fact, collect
butterflies. My source about this item came
from Nabokov, but he might have invented it...
(btw. Marat's name as a "scientist" is
linked to combustion and the phlogiston, not to the word aether).
Excerpts from an exchange with
Alvin Toffler, (Payboy -January, 1964) & gleaned from the internet.
AT:
"Can you tell us something more
about the actual creative process involved in
the germination of a book-- perhaps by
reading a few random notes for or excerpts from a work in
progress?"
Nabokov: "Certainly not.
No fetus should undergo an exploratory operation.
But I can do something else. This box contains index
cards with
some notes I made at various times more or less recently and
discarded when writing Pale Fire. It's a little
batch of rejects. Help yourself."
AT: "Selene, the moon..."Berry: the
black knob on the bill of the mute swan" . . .
"Naprapathy: the ugliest word in the language."...Snow
falling, young
father out with tiny child, nose like a pink
cherry..."Inter-columniation: dark-blue sky between two white columns."
"Not I, too,
lived in Arcadia,' but 'I,' says Death, even am in
Arcadia'-- Legend on a shepherd's tomb (Notes and Queries, June 13, 1868,
p. 561)" . . . "Marat collected butterflies" . . . What
inspires you to record and
collect such disconnected impressions and
quotations?
Nabokov: All I know is that at a
very early stage of the novel's development I get this urge to garner bits of
straw and fluff, and eat pebbles...
AT: In what sense
do you copy "the conceived picture" of a
novel?
Nabokov: A creative
writer must study carefully the works of his rivals, including the
Almighty. He must possess the inborn
capacity not only of recombining but of re-creating the given world.
In order to do this adequately, avoiding duplication of labor,
the artist should know the given
world.
All private editorial communications, without
exception, are
read by both co-editors.