Vladimir Nabokov: Glory

[pontalba]

I am still learning.

ROTFALOL!!

And man oh man arn't we all!

 

[Peder]

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.

Pontalba,
Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhh
Yes I did.

Sorry Breaca​

Peder

 

[pontalba]

And Centered no less! LOL

 

[Peder]

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.

Pontalba,
You took the words right out of my mouth, actually out of my next post! That young man has a very complicated way of relating to reality.
So, not cynical, accurate, as Nabokov himself describes it.
In a little while,
Peder

 

[steffee]

lol, Still.

I'm still reading, honestly. Very slowly, but still going... I've slowed down the reading of anything dramatically this month, it seems, and I have a currently reading pile of about eight books and I'm working on two (overdue) assignments... so most likely I will roll up here once the conversation is over and done with and restart it all over again.

The discussion is coming along nicely, though, keep up the good work.

 

[StillILearn]

steffee, you and I may end up discussing Martin and Sonia all by our lonesomes (and in the year 2007) at the rate we're going!

 

[Peder]

We get a tour through one track of Martin's mind, from ear to ear as it were, as he travels from Greece to England in the course of a mere dozen pages.
Leaving Greece,(p.41)

...he sailed with his mother for Marseille, the Chernosvitovs came to see them off at Piraeus; they stood on the pier, arm in arm, and Alla was smiling and waving a mimosa banch. The day before though she had shed a tear or two.
Upon her, upon that frontispiece, which, after the removal of the gauze paper, had proved to be a little coarse, a little too gaudy, Martin replaced the haze and through it the colors reassumed their mysterious charm.

In Lausanne,(p.45)

The imminent journey to England excited and gladdened him. His memory of Alla Chernosvitov had reached its ultimate perfection. and he would say to himself that he had not sufficiently appreciated the happy days in Greece. The thirst she had quenched, only to intensify it, so tormented him during that alpine summer, that at night he could not go to sleep for a long time, imagining among numerous adventures, all the girls awaiting him in the dawning cities, and occasionally he would repeat aloud some feminine name -- Isabella, Nina, Margarita -- a name still cold and untenanted, a vacant and echoing house, whose mistress was slow to take up residence; .....
In the mornings, Marie, the niece of the old chambermaid, would come to help with the household chores .... He resolutely vowed to start a conversation with her and give her a furtive hug ...... Once, however, after she had left, Sofia sniffed the air, made a face, and hurriedly opened all the windows, and Martin was filled with dismay and aversion toward Marie....Gradually in the course of her subsequent appearances in the distance.....he began again to succumb to that enchantment, but now was afraid to come closer.

Martin plays a game of tennis against a professional from Nice, and loses after being within just one game of winning.(p.47)

"Bad luck" said Kitson jauntily, and Martin grinned back heroically controlling his disappointmet.
On the way home he mentaly replayed every shot, transforming defeat into victory, and then shaking his head: how very, very hard it was to capture happiness.

Still in Lausanne (p.49)

Martin, in a breathless trance, imagined how, completely alone in a strange city -- say London -- he would roam at night along unfamiliar streets .... excitedly looking for Isabella, Nina, Margarita, some one whose name he would give to that niight....She would not acept money, she would be tender, and in the morning she would not want to let hm go.

Then, actually in London (p.50)

... one autumn evening ...a girl in an umbrella stopped beside him. Martin glanced out of the corner of his eye: slender figure, black suit, glittering hat pin. She turned her face toward him, smiled and pursing her lips, made a small "oo" sound. In her eyes he saw the sparkling light, the play of reflected colors, and hoarsely muttered "Good evening." ..... Later when he awkwardly extracted his billfold, she said "No. No. If you want take me tomorrow to a fancy restaurant. ..... Later, he gazed at her bare childish shoulder and blond bob, and felt completely happy. Early the next morning, as he slept she dressed and left quckly after stealing ten pounds from his billfold. "Morning after the orgy" thought Martin, slapping shut his billfold.....Her name was Bess. When he went out of the hotel and started walking the xpacious morning streets, he felt like jumping and singing with joy...He climbed a ladder leaning against a lamp post, and had a long and comical argument with an elderly passerby, who from below gestured threateningly with his cane."

Martin, finding happiness in his thoughts, envisioning girls all along the way, able to arrange his thoughts more perfectly than reality, and able to create happiness despite setbacks, is on his way to college at Cambridge, finding it difficult to pin down enough happiness for any length of time in the real world.

Peder

 

[pontalba]

Peder All marvelous examples of Martin's amazing ability to bend reality to his wishes. Its a bit ironic that Alla told him when he did not understand her poetry that he was p.30

....devoid of poetic imagination, and, on their arrival in Athens, gave him Pierre Louys's Chansons de Bilitis in the cheap edition illustrated with the naked forms of adolescents, from which she would read to him, meaningfully prononcing the French, in the early evening on the Acropolis, the most appropriate place, one might say.

hmm, I suspect it was terrible poetry anyhow, and that in fact she was the one lacking imagination.

The husband of Alla, Chernosvitov, was either very unimaginative, blind, or simply didn't care about his wife having affair(s). When he moved in with Martin, I had to laugh at the line p.31

Apparently his blood immediately poisoned the flea, as it did not reappear.

 

[pontalba]

Even though Martin continually sought to capture Sonia, he was a busy little fella with (p.102)--

Rose, the goddess of the tearoom, consented to go with him for a motorcar drive.

et als.....

 

[Peder]

Pontalba,
Thnkng of it now, Alla is the second girl who gets put down by a friend for writing bad poetry. The other being Pnin's eventual wife in Pnin. But Martin gets away with it better here. And the girl doesn't take it so poorly either.

Martin is a strange duck.
He seems to be happiest communing with nature. That part of the real world he relates to effortlessly and rapturously, and it leads to one of the most beautiful sections of the whole book IMO. And he is quite happy in his own reveries, where his fertile imagination easily supplies satisfying scenes and events. I suppose, against that background, his unhappiness in the real world is quite understandable where, as he said after the tennis game, "It is so very, very hard to capture happiness." And I guess it is especially hard if one expects it to match up to one's dreams.

Nabokov, however seems quite happy going along inserting humor into his book. That example of the flea being one place, and Martin up the lamp post being another. That last scene has to be the most ridiculous scene we have seen so far in reading VN. Again IMO, and I would love to hear other suggestions. One other that comes to my mind is the middle-aged man and the 12 year old girl, each hopping about on one foot trying to get into their underwear quickly after being discovered naked on the beach, and while she roundly curses him out. Humbert didn't plan it that way!

And finally I would have to nominate that "oo" as one of the most unusual pieces of dialogue in all of literature. I have to laugh at that scene, and that 'oo,' for reasons I can't put my finger on. Maybe because that seems to be a kind of ultimate non-verbal communication taking place right there. Maybe because it is such an unexpected (non-) word. Maybe because that scene has been done so many tmes, and so many different ways, but never that way! I don't know. But I would suggest that Nabokov, once again, happily brings us something new.

And finally, on the serious track, we don't yet see any trace (I don't think) of a serious side to Martin. Rereading should be able to uncover where, and why, he eventually takes the path in life that he does. To me it so far seems rather extravagant and sort of arbitrary.

Peder

 

[Peder]

Even though Martin continually sought to capture Sonia, he was a busy little fella with (p.102)-- et als.....

Yes indeedy Pontalba,
His idealism didn't quite seem to extend as far as the notion of one-man one-girl.
Peder

 

[pontalba]

But honestly Peder, I don't think Martin thought of his eventual foray as "serious". It was a lark to him. A trip to "Zoorland", la la la..........something to expand upon eventually, tell more Tall Tales of heroic deeds. And I agree that he was happiest communing with nature and dreaming about the lights and what adventures they might hold for him. His middle name was exaggeration.

And doesn't it seem as though VN is comparing the pastries in Rose's shop to the girl herself...

...you could buy pastry of every imaginable color: bright-red with speckles of cream that made them look like one of the deadly varieties of amanitas; purplish-blue, like violet-scented soap; and glossy-black, Negroid, with a white soul. One went on devouring cake after cake till one's innards got glued together, in the ever-present hope of at last discovering something really good.

Comparing the red pastries to her red and rough hands that Martin could not bear to look at, the black dress, with her claim to virginity to the black with white cake. Trying every girl he could find, only to be ultimately disappointed in each and every one of them, as the cakes.

 

[pontalba]

And finally I would have to nominate that "oo" as one of the most unusual pieces of dialogue in all of literature. I have to laugh at that scene, and that 'oo,' for reasons I can't put my finger on. Maybe because that seems to be a kind of ultimate non-verbal communication taking place right there. Maybe because it is such an unexpected (non-) word. Maybe because that scene has been done so many tmes, and so many different ways, but never that way! I don't know. But I would suggest that Nabokov, once again, happily brings us something new.

I think "ultimate non-verbal communication" covers it quite nicely. Sometimes words just won't do, will they? Its all in the slanting of the eyes, or the raising of an eyebrow. As the King would say....etc, etc, etc......

 

[Peder]

But honestly Peder, I don't think Martin thought of his eventual foray as "serious". It was a lark to him. A trip to "Zoorland", la la la..........something to expand upon eventually, tell more Tall Tales of heroic deeds. And I agree that he was happiest communing with nature and dreaming about the lights and what adventures they might hold for him. His middle name was exaggeration.

And doesn't it seem as though VN is comparing the pastries in Rose's shop to the girl herself...
Comparing the red pastries to her red and rough hands that Martin could not bear to look at, the black dress, with her claim to virginity to the black with white cake. Trying every girl he could find, only to be ultimately disappointed in each and every one of them, as the cakes.

Pontalba
Not serious. Hmmm. Maybe he didn't. Maybe they just seemed serious enough for me, timid mouse that I am. Definitely no rock climbing, for example.
Pastries as metaphors for girls. I won't vote against that idea either. Could well be.

And, I do like the name Zoorland! VN again at work!

And, just as a progress check, I'm not quite that far yet on reread, which I am doing like a vacuum cleaner. Martin has just arrived at Cambridge and has been talking to Darwin a bit.

Peder

 

[pontalba]

Well actually I'm skipping about barefoot in Nabokov.

I wonder what the origin for the term/name "Zoorland" is. Martin and Sonia make it up, but I wonder where Nabokov found it. Off the top of his head?

 

[StillILearn]

It seems that VN never goes anywhere without at least one squirrel and his collapsible tub.

And, did anybody read this without trying it out for themselves?

"Is that a scientific expedition or something?" asked the Frenchman squashing a yawn with his back teeth.

 

[Peder]

It seems that VN never goes anywhere without at least one squirrel and his collapsible tub.

And, did anybody read this without trying it out for themselves?

SIL,
Or, did anybody read right by it without noticing it at all, is more like it -- like me?
But I guess that sounds like a fair description of stifling a yawn doesn't it? And again the verbal master at work, closely examining, thinking, and then putting together a precise set of words. Many yawns have been stifled, but this one is done this way. Not those other ways. I'm yawning now, typing, and stifling it the Nabokovian way
Nice find, SIL,
Peder

PS Squirrels I suspect we all have seen, but that tub gives me a chuckle every time I see it. And as you say, it is hard to miss! I've never seen one, or even heard of one, and, now that you mention, I wonder if using one meant something special back then, so that it implied something particular about the user in some way -- especially careful about personal cleanliness, or maybe upper-class, or well-to-do, or odd, or foreign, or maybe Russian, but something in particular that I/we don't catch the meaning of these days? Maybe somebody knows? Or did just everyone have one? It's also odd to hear references to America creeping in, in those times, at least for me.
Again, who knew?
P.

 

[Peder]

And nice tag line SIL. Another good find!

 

[Peder]

Well actually I'm skipping about barefoot in Nabokov.

I wonder what the origin for the term/name "Zoorland" is. Martin and Sonia make it up, but I wonder where Nabokov found it. Off the top of his head?

Pontalba,
Dunno, but I'm thinking right off the top of his head. Or maybe thought up way back in his childhood?
Peder

 

[Peder]

Good morning to all:

We will probably be reaching a point in this discussion, maybe fairly soon, where revelation of further details of the plot will spoil the story for our two members who are still reading. The question of spoiler information therefore arises here in this Zoorland which we all enjoy without the use of spoiler bars. Perhaps one approach might be to voluntarily keep the discussion within the framework of what is already known by everyone about the story. The following public information from the back cover of my Vintage International edition says:

Glory is the wryly ironic story of Martin Edelweiss, a twenty-two year old Russian emigre of no account, who is in love with a girl who refuses to marry him. Convinced that his life is about to be wasted and hoping to impress his love, he decides to embark upon a "perilous, daredevil project" -- an illegal attempt to reenter the Soviet Union, from which he and his mother had fled in 1919. He succeeds -- but at a terrible cost.​

Key elements of the story, which that description leaves hanging for the reader to discover, would seem to include:

1. Whether or not he finally succeeds in impressing the girl;

2. Whether or not she finally agrees to marry him;

3. Details of his success in his project; and

4. What that terrible cost might be.

They might be four things we could avoid discussing until our remaining two members, StillILearn and Steffee, have finished reading the story. So,

1. Does that seem like a workable approach?

2. Would anyone like to suggest altering it somehow, or suggest some rather different approach altogether.?

3. Is there anyone out there who is still silently reading who would like to join the discussion at this point or, otherwise, hold off discussion until they finish?

It is a thought provoking story with an ending whose impact depends as much upon the stated facts as on the manner of their telling, and I hope members here will get to enjoy that full thrill of realization as they finally turn the last page.

Any thoughts?
Anyone?
Peder