Vladimir Nabokov: Glory

[Peder]

Just with a stiffish Brit accent I would expect (awkward I mean). And yes, the second syllable is the emphasized one.
Which is awkward (haha) for me, as I'd not thought of that pronunciation before. But it sounds so much cooler that way.

In fact a friend of mine teaches lit at one of the universities locally, and didn't even know how it was pronounced. 'Course shes never even read Nabokov!
I don't have a barge pole long enough to touch that one!

Pontalba,
I have a longer pole, and I'll stand behind you as you reach.
Peder

PS I have to confess I still don't think of it his way. And the first pronounciation out of my mouth is always mine. Then his, if I think of it.
Maybe it's time we Americanized, er Englified. Oops Steffee, sorry!
P

 

[pontalba]

Pontalba,
PS I have to confess I still don't think of it his way. And the first pronounciation out of my mouth is always mine. Then his, if I think of it.
Maybe it's time we Americanized, er Englified. Oops Steffee, sorry!
P

I have finally (mostly) trained myself to pronounce it Correctly, but I do slip on occasion.

Regarding Martin being shy, I just don't think of him that way. Yes, he was, but it was more than that. Withdrawn and solitary. Yes he was spoiled somewhat, and his mother was very fearful for him. Remember how she was so afraid that his father would try to keep Martin with him after the separation? Her fear of loss affected him, maybe made him unable to really interact efficiently with people. He craved the grand gesture and that craving is what led to his 'adventure' and his eventual............

 

[Peder]

I have finally (mostly) trained myself to pronounce it Correctly, but I do slip on occasion.

Regarding Martin being shy, I just don't think of him that way. Yes, he was, but it was more than that. Withdrawn and solitary. Yes he was spoiled somewhat, and his mother was very fearful for him. Remember how she was so afraid that his father would try to keep Martin with him after the separation? Her fear of loss affected him, maybe made him unable to really interact efficiently with people. He craved the grand gesture and that craving is what led to his 'adventure' and his eventual............

Yes, Pontalba,
That is what I think is part of the difficulty in describing him. There is a whole jumble of scenes of all different kinds involving him. On the one hand he is a member of an athletic team, but also at other times he can't stand the conversation in someone's living room. He imagines physical challenges, but then he goes out and actually does them; he doesn't just imagine succeeding. To me it's a very mixed set of (contradictory) indications. But yes, he no doubt craved the grand gesture and pinned all his hopes on that being what people would like him for. And, as far as I can see, he never really changed, unless perhaps (only perhaps) in the direction that the only thing that came to be important was whether he liked the grand gesture because it proved something about himself to himself, never mind to anyone else. Baffling young man.
Peder
PS I'm not sure Sonia is so much easier to figure out.
P

 

[pontalba]

Also, when he does participate, he is extremely unhappy with his performance. Its never good enough even though he does an average job, he wants to stand out and shine. But it seems that he really is not talented enough to stand out and shine in what he does attempt.
I must say I was impressed (partially with how foolhardy ) with his success in the rock climbing adventure. He did persevere and finally overcome his fears. The defeating of his fears is what really impressed me. Happily.
To me, it seems as though he simply did not find his niche in life. He constantly searched, but without success. He was capable of if not great, then interesting things.

 

[pontalba]

Peder I think you've hit on the crux of his problem though. He wanted people to like him, and simply tried too hard, and became desprate, and people tend to "smell" that desparation, and turn away. That probably what turned Sonia off as well.

 

[Peder]

Peder I think you've hit on the crux of his problem though. He wanted people to like him, and simply tried too hard, and became desprate, and people tend to "smell" that desparation, and turn away. That probably what turned Sonia off as well.

Pontalba,
And in addition not every kind of excellence, even if one had it, resonates with so many people. If one were the best translator of Nabokov in the world, there would still not be so many people being turned on by that. Or in Martin's case, suppose he was the most whizz-bang goalkeeper Trinity had ever had. Again, so? So I agree. One can't quite blame Sonia's lack of interest entirely on her. She might have been more polite and taken an interest, but she wasn't that style.
Peder

 

[Peder]

SIL,
While rereading today, I came across the passage you quoted a number of posts back about Martin irrigating the plants and about the "fat purple mud," and it was a genuine pleasure to come across it yet again. Proceeding with your quote and going on a bit further, I came across a sentence that absolutely blew me away and made my eyes well up.

...feeling in [the water] with a spade, he mercifully softened the soil until something gave delightully, and the percolating water sank away, washing the roots. He felt happy he knew how to satisfy a plant's thirst, happy that chance had helped him to find work that could serve to try out both his shrewdness and his endurance.

There in the middle "he felt happy he knew how to satisy a plant's thirst!" There is Martin, outside of his reveries, outside of his all-consuming interest in himself, thinking for once about caring for something else, for nurturing another living thing for its own benefit.
I read that, and stopped dead! Because I don't think there is another sentence like that in the whole book. But what a difference it makes in how one lives life, whether selfishly, or caring about others. The basic choice in life! And there Martin was happy when he felt it. Inside, everything in me wants to do a high five every time I read that sentence, and say "Yay Martin! Way to go!" How different his life might have been if that impulse had been nurtured in him earlier.
Indeed, he noticed a house for sale there, and thought perhaps of settling there and abandoning "the daredevil, perilous project." But life goes on and Sonia would have none of it, so that became the path not taken. What a shame! What a far-reaching shame!
But, I will never forget that

Martin felt happy that he knew how to quench a plant's thirst.​

Peder

 

[Peder]

Oops. I could of course try to remember it with the correct wording.

 

[pontalba]

Peder Well, Nabokov didn't call Sonia

...the most oddly attractive of all my young girls, although obviously a moody and ruthless flirt.

for nothing! Look at how she treated Darwin. The minute she knew she had Darwin, she dropped him like a sack of malodorous dung. She knew all along she had Martin in her hip pocket. Ah, but I do think in the end she was sorry. Shhhh.....

 

[Peder]

Peder Well, Nabokov didn't call Sonia for nothing! Look at how she treated Darwin. The minute she knew she had Darwin, she dropped him like a sack of malodorous dung. She knew all along she had Martin in her hip pocket. Ah, but I do think in the end she was sorry. Shhhh.....

Well Pontalba,
I still think VN was holding back, or pulling our leg, with those descriptions. I don't know why he thought she was attractive for example. I didn't find her treatment of Darwin attractive at all. And I don't know why Martin got all hung up on her. She sounded like bad news to me from the git go. She sounded deliberately mean, not just flighty and whimsical in her actions. And I think VN knew that, because I don't really see anything convincing to the contrary in his text. I think it is all up to the reader to read any good interpretation into any of her actions, Not that that is impossible, but on balance I wouldn't have gone near her.
Perhaps one might argue she "didn't know her own mind" but I think that is really stretching it. If OTOH one is thinking self-centered, then alsongside her, Martin is a paragon of virtue.

VN was holding back on Martin also. Sure he was the most upright and honest of all his characters (but had he written Pnin yet)
but if I were asked to pick a word for Martin, those are not the first two that would come to mind, although they are of course correct enough as far as they go. Could VN not spell 'dreamer'?

I thought that Martin annd sonia in Zoorland was a very appealing section of the book. There, she and Martin really clicked, nimd-to-mind and temperment-to temperment (sp??) and their imaginings were fun to read. theree they really enjoyed each other, and I enjoyed them.

For Martin, he was at his most appealing in the farming scenes, and especially for me, in the single sentence just mentioned and in thinking of wanting to settle and live out his life there. But he wanted to do it with the girl he loved and I can't fault him for that either.

So they each came across briefly as people one might like, but all too briefly, IMO.
Peder

 

[Peder]

Act III - Climax

The years at Cambridge might properly be called Act 3 in a classical 5-act drama, the act usually described as the "Climax." In Glory these are the years where the three principal characters meet each other, share their lives together, and then part at the end to each go their separate ways toward the conclusion of the story. Act III is the story of Sonia.

Sonia appears first, when Martin spends a week at the Zilanov's and meets her there as one of the daughters of the family.

Immediately upon meeting him,

Sonia needled him, making fun of his wardrobe - shirts with starched cuffs and stiffish fronts, his favorite bright purple socks, his orange-yellow knobby-capped shoes bought in Athens.

And then we meet Darwin, a week later, Martin's downstairs neighbor in his lodgings at Cambridge.

..a large sleepy looking Englishman in a canary yellow jumber, who sprawled in an armchair, making wheezing sounds eith his pipe, and gazing up at the ceiling,..

Eventually Sonia and Darwin were the two who preferred each other's company, and it was Martin who was left outside looking in. Martin did his best to interest Sonia but her interests were always elsewhere during the entire three years.

"What did you do this summer?" inquired Martin ....
"Nothing in particular. We went to Brighton." She sighed and added "I flew in a hydroplane."
"And I very nearly got killed" said Martin. Yes, yes, very nearly. High up in the mountains. Rock climbing. Lost my hold. Saved by a miracle"
Sonia smiled dimly and said "You know, Martin, she [Elena, her recently deceased sister] always maintained that the most important thing in life was always to do one's duty. It's a very deep thought, isn't it?"

After the victorious game against stronger St. John's, where he distinguished himself as goalkeeper by not allowing a single goal against, Martin finds that Sonia and Darwin left early.

"Shame you didn't stay to the end," said Martin, sinking into the abyss of an armchair. "We won. One to nothing."
"You ought to wash up," she remarked. "Just look at your knees. They're a sight! And you've tracked something black in here."

If those two conversations didn't suggest to Martin that he needed a "Plan B" if he was going to get anywhere with Sonia, or perhaps even drop her, then they should have!

It is clear throughout that Martin is still the knight in single combat, measuring himself by the self-imposed challenges that he overcomes, but that neither Sonia nor anyone else is much interested. And then follows the final put-down by his Uncle, already mentioned. However, the first inkling of a new direction for Martin also appears in Act 3, almost unnoticeable, as he is getting ready for that game against St. John's, when it seemed to him that (p.109)

a new series of reveries that he had recently evolved - about an illegal clandestine expedition - would also grow solid and be filled with life, as his dreams about soccer matches had grown solid and incarnate..

So Graduation Day comes in three years and the three friends part, perhaps never to see each other again, and we wonder what will become of Martin, still the dreamer. Act IV is the answer to that question.

Peder

 

[pontalba]

Peder You are organizing it beautifully. I tend to hop about too much, but you've laid it out beautifully!
You'd think Martin would have taken the hint from Sonia and Darwin leaving such an important occasion for him (Martin), but neither of them seemed to notice Martin's efforts. They were embroiled with each other at that point, and that is all they could see. Although I feel that Darwin redeemed himself with his later behavior.

Peder wrote--I still think VN was holding back, or pulling our leg, with those descriptions. I don't know why he thought she was attractive for example. I didn't find her treatment of Darwin attractive at all. And I don't know why Martin got all hung up on her. She sounded like bad news to me from the git go. She sounded deliberately mean, not just flighty and whimsical in her actions.

I agree. VN does call her ruthless though, and cruelty is part of ruthlessness. And as far as why Martin and Darwin found her attractive.....pheromones. It certainly wasn't her actual physicality.

 

[Peder]

Peder And as far as why Martin and Darwin found her attractive.....pheromones. It certainly wasn't her actual physicality.

Pontalba,
Those youngsters can get so exasperating at times!
Re 'organizing' it. I'm finding it strange going because, as you can see, the summary turns out to be so slender. I'm trying to notice the main turning points in the story and why they happen so I can figure it out better, but in Glory there don't seem to be many. Instead, for example, there is a quite a bit of detail about their lives at Cambridge during the three years, and many episodes illustrating their relationships, but basically nothing happens to change Martin. So the short form seems to be, at least to me, that they all meet, they socialize for three years, they all part -- and Martin is still the same Martin!
Which is not the same thing as saying that those episodes are devoid of insight or of clues about the future, but that is a separate topic (and a separate post) which more fully becomes apparent on reread. Martin's main trajectory through the story is really quite simple IMO, despite all the words.

Peder

 

[Peder]

Clues in Glory

I have been searching high and low -- really page by page -- for some advice to writers that I am sure I saw in John Irving's novel, A Widow for One Year. As I recall, an aspiring writer was advised that he should not surprise the reader. For example, if someone was going to pull our a gun and shoot someone, that gun shouldn't come as a surprise. Previously in the story, the reader should have been made aware in a separate episode that the character had a gun, or that a gun was used in some ourelated other scene, or at the very least that there was gun in the vicinity.

In Glory, I seem to find that Nabokov is quite clearly following that advice -- which is interesting considering that VN came some 50 years before John Irving! But maybe all writers just know that, and it is a time-honored technique described by a well-known techincal literary term. I'm not a writer and it was news to me. But the point for Glory is that these prefigurings or forebodings or omens stand out rather clearly when one rereads the novel, to the point IMO where the actual ending of the novel can be understood quite clearly.

In later works, VN also became a master at concealing them thus making them harder to find in his game of chess with the reader. But in Glory, he was still letting them appear out in the open, and a single reread is therefore very rewarding.

The idea of a path through the woods, for example, prominently appearing first in that picture which hung over Martin's crib, is again mentioned twice in the story, albeit less noticeably, but unmistakeably underlying and keeping fresh the idea that a path through the woods will again be a part of the story.

Other examples to follow.
Or hopefully as anyone notices,
Peder

Peder

 

[pontalba]

"The fight" between Darwin and Martin and the subsequent solicitiousness and affection between them was put so beautifully. How on earth can VN make even a fist fight seem almost poetic?! {in the most peculiar manner}. Also a good example of Martin deluding himself as to his powress, or lack there of. p.124-6

Despite the buzzing pain in his head, and the crimson fog in his eyes, Martin felt sure he was inflicting more injury on Darwin that Darwin on him, but John, a lover of pugilism, already saw clearly that Darwin was only now getting into his stride, and that in a few moments the younger of the two would be down for good.

And afterwards..

"Can you stand?" Darwin asked solicitously. Martin nodded and, leaning on him, straightened up. They trudged toward the river, arms across each other's shoulders.

 

[Peder]

Pontalba,
I didn't understand that fight in the first place, and marked the page "Foolishness." Now that I see that it was really about Sonia, and especially Martin having fibbed to Darwin and rubbed it in by saying that things went well between them, I still shake my head. I can understand Darwin's disappointmet at being turned down, but just there he is being even more foolish than Martin -- if such a thing can be imagined

Such childishness that passes for manliness, IMO!
But yes, VN no doubt does do good fights.
Charles

 

[Peder]

Pontalba,
Thinking more about your post on the fight, I realize the full truth of what you suggest. That the fight, and Martin's wrong assessment that he is winning when he is losing, is a vivid emblem of his frequent delusion which I think is more than reverie. Later on Gruzinov tells him his plan is foolish, but he only becomes offended and decides Gruzinov was not being serious but only treating him like a child -- which might have been so, considering the intentionally ambiguous nature of the conversation they were having. But neverhteless Martin does persist in his reveries, even though they bring little reward in the way of support from the real world. The fight shows he will stick with them to the end -- ominous thought!
Or maybe stubbornness rather than delusion, but still ominous.
/shaking head, sorrowfully/

Peder

 

[pontalba]

Everything seemed to conspire to make Martin feel smaller than he was, he follows Sonia, questions her as to where she has been one night as she is returning after midnight, and she reacts as thusly--p.152

"Won't you ever leave ma alone?" cried Sonia and without waiting for an answer turned her key with double crunch, and the heavy door swung open, stopped for a moment, banged shut.

Martin also feels that all of his friends are either ignoring or avoiding him. So he decides to leave Berlin so as not to become Sonia's shadow.

On the train leaving he feels more like his old self, "regaining gaiety". He puts it over on "The Frenchman" (at this point it is in fact a French train) who thinks Martin is English. That tickles Martin no end. He tells the Frenchman

The fact is I'm planning to explore a certain remote, almost inaccessibel region. It has been reached by a few adventurers...

Martin tells him

There are besides--how shall I say?--glory, love, tenderness for the soil, a thousand rather mysterious feelings."

 

[pontalba]

It seemed to me that this was in a way a turning point for Martin. He'd fooled the Frenchman into thinking he (Martin) was English. He already had the plan/dream in the wings, but this was the straw that broke the camels back so to speak. Martin felt for sure he could carry off any intrigue.

"Like this I shall travel north, exactly like this, in a coach that one cannot stop--and after that, after that----" He began to follow a forest path, the path unwound, kept unwinding, but sleep did not come to meet him. Martin opened his eyes. Good idea to lower the window.

And

he reflected what a strange, strange life had fallen to his lot, it seemed as if he had never left a fast train, had merely wandered from car to car--and one was occupied by young Englishmen, among whom was Darwin in the act of solemly taking hold of the emergency cord; in the other were Alla and her husband; or else the Crimean crowd; or snoring Uncle Henry, or the Zilanovs, her father with his eternal newspaper, and Sonia, her velvet-dark eyes staring through the window. "And then I'll continue on foot, on foot," muttered Martin excitedly--a forest, a winding path--what huge trees!

It was right after this Martin saw his lights...

--a necklace of lights, far away. among dark hills.

Suppose he'd not left the sleeping car at that particular time. Suppose the Frenchman had not complained of the opened window.

Suppose.

 

[Peder]

Pontalba,
I think there are many, many things to like and admire about the book, even if the two main characters are not the warmest and fuzziest we have ever met.

And I think you have put your finger on some of the book's finest moments in your posts.

I think it is wonderful that Martin gets to ride that particular train again and recall that he made exactly that trip when he was a child; that he can recall where his parents sat; and can recall the dining car. But especially that he gets to see again, in realty, and for a second time, the lights that he has remembered all his life. He gets to walk up to the source of those lights, the village of Molignac, and in real reality actually touch it with his hands. That may be the only one of his reveries that is real and that gets to come true again, the only reverie that is not a dream. That must have been a very special moment for him, and suddenly this reader was drawn again to his side, seeing those lights, and wishing the very best for him.

Also, you rightly catch his mention of his "love, glory, tenderiess for the soil" that underlie that series of magnificent scenes out in the country. He sees them as providing a living and partly as training and practice for his clandestine project. But I see them as revealing an admirable humanity that he briefly feels within himself and speaks to the wonderful future that might have been if it had only worked out well with Sonia. Would it be too much to call her his soul-mate, the one girl in the world destined for him? Or is that too romantic a notion to try to hope for in their unhappy friendship.?

And then, always, the winding path through the forest that you have picked up twice. A metaphor perhaps for his whole life and perhaps also a prefiguring of events to come. And the "huge trees" perhaps an indication of the ominous and nearly overwhelming surroundings and giants that he felt he had to slay in real life. A winding path through looming challenges that just never stopped unwinding before him. Never a walk across a sunny field full of flowers with a warm breeze carrying the fragrance of fresh cut hay. No, never for Martin.

Peder