Vladimir Nabokov: Glory

[Peder]

And you can bet I have that picture among my favorites!
Peder

 

[Peder]

I've been trying to wait for an appropriate time to post this photo, but patience is just not one of my virtues! (I was waiting for you to put back one of your cat avatars, but now will just have to do.)

That was definitely pre-Twiggy days but I bet there were a whole bunch of men walking around NYC this morning with new smiles on their faces!
Peder

 

[pontalba]

There we go!

AG was/is one of my favorites. I didn't see too many of her movies, but I remember The Barefoot Contessa with Bogie. In fact, I think that may have been his last film.

 

[pontalba]

That was definitely pre-Twiggy days but I bet there were a whole bunch of men walking around NYC this morning with new smiles on their faces!
Peder

LOL! I won't get on the other side of that bet for sure! She was gorgeous.
Well thats Southern Women for ya!

 

[pontalba]

Speaking of rereading..... Who says that Nabokov didn't have a sly/good sense of humor? Not me said the little Red Hen.

.....in literature he sought not the general sense, but the unexpected, sunlit clearings, where you can stretch until your joints crunch, and remain entranced. He read a very great deal, but it was mostly rereading; and he did have occasional accidents in the course of literary conversation. For example, he once confused Plutarch with Petrarch, and once called Calderon a Scottish poet.

Mostly rereading! Heh, heh....
And another little jab at the Bolshevists by Archibald Moon, the Russian Lit professor that loved Russia.

Many people could not understand why he had not remained there. Moon's reply to questions of that kind would invariably be: "Ask Robertson" (the orientalist) "why he did not stay in Babylon." The perfectly reasonable objection would be raised that Babylon no longer existed. Moon would nod with a sly, silent smile. He saw in the Bolshevist insurrection a certain clear-cut finality. While he willingly allowed that, by-and-by, after the primitive phases, some civilization might develop in the "Soviet Union," he nevertheless maintained that Russia was concluded and unrepeatable.............

Really, I mistakenly call it a jab. It was more of a statement of sad fact. The Russia of Nabokov's youth was in fact a corpse.

 

[pontalba]

She was twenty-five, her name was Alla, and she wrote poetry: three things, one would think, that were bound to make a woman fascinating.

hmmmmm.....

 

[Peder]

Pontalba, SIL,
Ya think Ava wrote poetry?
It didn't say.
Peder

 

[pontalba]

Pontalba, SIL,
Ya think Ava wrote poetry?
It didn't say.
Peder

Probably the answer would be that she was poetry, and didn't need to write same.

 

[Peder]

Probably the answer would be that she was poetry, and didn't need to write same.

Oh Pontalba!
Aren't you the cool one? Neat response!
Peder

 

[Peder]

I'm dawdling along here rereading, finding chuckles along the way.

Here's how it is with Alla (p.29)

Married at eighteen, she remained faithful to her husband for more than two years, but the world all around was saturated with the rubineous fumes of sin; clean shaven persistent males would schedule their suicides at seven Thursday evening, midnight Christmas Eve, or three in the morning under her window; the dates got jumbled and it was hard to keep all those assignations. A Grand Duc languished because of her. Rasputin pestered her for a month with telephone calls.

Persistent males. A Grand Duc! And then Rasputin himself!!

Does anyone hear VN smiling, as he just might be satirizing here the gushing romance novels of his day, like say the Harlequin "bodice-rippers" of today?

/smiling/
Peder

 

[StillILearn]

In her memoirs ... Ava Gardner drew an extraordinarily positive biographical sketch of her admirer Robert [Graves], who dedicated some of his poems to her, which naturally filled the actress with enormous pride. One of these poems from 1964, the title of which is No way to sleep, describes the happily excited state which the presence of the beautiful Ava provoked in her host during her stays in Deià. "And I have to admit that I also loved him, although he was already more than sixty when I knew him. Being together with him, his marvelous wife Beryl and their children in his home on top of the mountains of Majorca, caused me such unbelievable pleasure and satisfaction that nothing in my life could be compared to it"."

Still, reading Glory. Martin has just gone to Berlin in search of his Sonia. I'm finding it hard to see what is so endearing about her.

 

[Peder]

So things progresss, and here is Martin after his first kisses with Alla.

What fired him as a rule was the remote, the hidden, the vague -- anything suffciently indistinct to make his fantasy work at supplying the detail -- whether a portrait of Lady Hamilton or a popeyed schoolmate's whisperings about "houses of ill repute." Now the mist had thinned. Visibility had improved.

The mist had thinned. Visibility had improved! A weather metaphor in the midst of Martin's rising emotional turmoil! And laconic, at that!

No gush for VN, nosirree!

Peder

 

[pontalba]

Still, reading Glory. Martin has just gone to Berlin in search of his Sonia. I'm finding it hard to see what is so endearing about her.

Hah! You and me both! Wretched girl. Although finally she does show somewhat that she has feelings for Martin. But.......oh better wait 'till you finish.

Actually I found Darwin to be the character I actually liked the most. In spite of everything, he is a true friend in the end. Even if..........
More later.

Peder, Yes, Alla was.......interesting. But, and this is going to sound mean, a good learner permit for Martin.

And btw SIL what I have read of Robert Graves, I love, what an interesting guy.

 

[pontalba]

What fired him as a rule was the remote, the hidden, the vague -- anything suffciently indistinct to make his fantasy work at supplying the detail -- whether a portrait of Lady Hamilton or a popeyed schoolmate's whisperings about "houses of ill repute." Now the mist had thinned. Visibility had improved.

So IOW, he only required a "form" and supplied them with the attributes he desired, not what they really were...well that certainly explains why he "loved" Sonia.

But I really do love the weather metaphors! I didn't remember that at all!

 

[Breaca]

Drum roll if you please

What an ending... Er, I think I feel has if I've missed something and will need to go back and check, and recheck....


Ah, Martin, Martin, Martin. What a daydreamer he be. Very endearing.

Argh, Sonia, Sonia, Sonia. What a gal - what a tease. Not very endearing and rather full of herself.

Mmm, Darwin...... I kinda like this guy and never a truer friend....

VN has a way with bringing his characters to life. Even the minor characters make an impression on the reader. I cannot believe how long it has taken me to finally finish the book. But as with the other works (of art) of VNs I've read I must confess that they're not my usual read which take between 1-2 days to read. I get lost in the actual writing rather than the plot and find myself rereading sentences - pure magic; pure genious.

 

[StillILearn]

And btw SIL what I have read of Robert Graves, I love, what an interesting guy.

Gardner wanted to give her memoirs the title "In Her Own Voice" (a phrase which comes from a poem by Graves), but was overruled. Interestingly, she did her own singing in Showboat, and was later 'dubbed over' by another singer.

Just some trivia.

(So far Sonia always has a sore throat or a runny nose or something like that.)

 

[Peder]

Still, reading Glory. Martin has just gone to Berlin in search of his Sonia. I'm finding it hard to see what is so endearing about her.

SIL, Pontalba,
Never possessed. Always sought?
And how can she not be endearing? Nabokov says she is (p.xi)

And llittle Sonia....should be acclaimed....as being the most oddly attractive of all my young girls

I think he was pulling our leg.
Even though in the same breath he does concede that she was "obviously a moody and ruthless flirt."
And even there I am not so sure about the moody. Selfish, more like it.

Peder

 

[Peder]

Um, I don't know quite how to phrase this, but

Is anyone out there still reading?​

Or are we three it?
Breaca?
Steffee?
Any?

Peder

 

[pontalba]

SIL, Pontalba,
Never possessed. Always sought?

That about sums it up. I wonder if he'd have wanted her if he had caught her. I suspect not. But then I tend to cynical in this area.

Peder Look above, Breaca has finshed, you must have missed her post.

 

[StillILearn]

Um, I don't know quite how to phrase this, but

Is anyone out there still reading?​

Or are we three it?
Breaca?
Steffee?
Any?

Peder

I am still learning.