The Nabokovian (65, Fall 2010): "as you fly, swallowlike.../find one plain word within this
world,/...where moth and rust do not corrupt." ( from V.Nabokov, "The
University Poem").
Speak Memory: Ch.5 "The
man in me revolts against the fictionist, and here is my desperate attempt to
save what is left of poor Mademoiselle..." (95);
"What am I doing in this stereoscopic
dreamland?...the two sleighs have slipped away, leaving behind a passportless
spy standing on the blue-white road in his New England snowboots and
stormcoat...All is still spellbound, enthralled by the moon, fancy's rear-vision
mirror. The snow is real, though, and as I bend to it and scoop up a handful,
sixty years crumble to a glittering frost-dust between my fingers."
(100)
JM When the man in Nabokov revolts
against the fictionist, the real snow the writer holds in his hands is
transformed back again into an imagined scene by his writing. And
yet, also shaped by his writing, the
snow retains something of its physical "realness".
The plain word "snow," by the special tilt Nabokov has added to
its spinning ( "where moth and rust do not corrupt,/
cherishing each instant,/ blessing each motion,/ do not allow it to freeze
still, perceive the delicate rotation/ of the slightly tilted earth"),
now reveals, through a ressurrected child with
his Mademoiselle in a Russian scene, a trace of the real
timeless Nabokov.
Or so it feels to
me.