Vladimir Nabokov: Look at the Harlequins!

[pontalba]

Here is a man who will tell us in one sentence what shape a rubber band forms when it is dropped to the tabletop, and who will then leave us with these words as the ending to his novel?

I'm pounding my head on my desk here. He's completely merciless, I tell you. (I wish I could say that in Russian.)

I'm guessing that Speak, Memory is up next?

SIL--You didn't think he died at the end did you?
You know I thought that this..

.....(kissing the hand resting on my sleeve).....

was about the sweetest gesture....talk about dissolving...../sigh/

Oh, and you would/will love Speak, Memory!

 

[StillILearn]

I'm thinking that I'll need a good dose of Virginia Woolf first though.

You are just such a romantic, pontalba. And you too, Peder. You're both pushovers when it comes to a love story, and expecially when it is about these particular Russians.

 

[Peder]

But otoh, do I have the right question?

Pontalba,
It must have been the right answer to the right question!
Sounds like SIL is stunned into total silence,
Which sounds like an entirely appropriate reaction, come to think of it.
I think VN really finished off his sequence of novels in high style with The Harlequins and his final puzzle.
Very happifying,
Peder

Q. "Who was that lady I saw you with last night?"
P.

 

[Peder]

Now to read again what was happening while I was typing.
Amazing!

 

[pontalba]

I'm thinking that I'll need a good dose of Virginia Woolf first though.

You are just such a romantic, pontalba. And you too, Peder. You're both pushovers when it comes to a love story, and expecially when it is about these particular Russians.

Guilty as charged.
But how can you not read Nabokov like that?

Well, I just finished Mrs. Dalloway, and probably will read To the Lighthouse next, especially if it goes into the BOTM here....have you read either of those? I can't wait to read more of her. Plus her bio and diaries.....

 

[StillILearn]

Now to read again what was happening while I was typing.
Amazing!

Flat out flummoxed and flabbergasted, Peder. Also amazed, astonished, staggered, nonplussed, confounded; perplexed, confused and mystified.

But almost ready for more. Almost.

 

[pontalba]

Now to read again what was happening while I was typing.
Amazing!

As though you miss a thing! Hah!
Not in this century.

 

[pontalba]

Q. "Who was that lady I saw you with last night?"
P.

Is that a P. or a .........

 

[Peder]

That kinda sums it up I guess. How worse could it get?

It could get worse that I have lost my place in the conversation here, like I just did. :EEK:
I stepped away for a bit, and when I came back the index showed a last post by Pontalba.
And when i clicked in for the next post, sure enough, there was a post by Pontalba.
But the "next" post was not the "last" post.
This thread is going Nabokovian on us. Or at least me.
And who knows what I have missed while typing this one.
But I'll go back, reread, and when I emerge out into the sunlight of the real world again I'll try to type something, if I am not gibbering.
Peder
/sheesh/

 

[Peder]

Flat out flummoxed and flabbergasted, Peder. Also amazed, astonished, staggered, nonplussed, confounded; perplexed, confused and mystified.

But almost ready for more. Almost.

SIL,
That was my reaction entirely, to just the single scene by itself at the gate! I did a genuine full triple-take and had to reread to believe what I had just reread. I was just so stunned that this man, who can hide clues out of sight so cleverly that one can hardly find them, and definitely constructs them not to be visible on the first reading, no matter how careful, could hold a clue out in front of my eyes for the whole novel, in full sight, and then spring it like a trap on me, unsuspecting fool, as a key moment in the novel!
I was flat out goggle-eyed, speechless, with my jaw hanging opened, and my reading apparatus completely unwilling to go further. I have never seen anything like that! And I was really stunned in admiration.

As for the second question, which I assume Pontalba has answered for you, that was a very slow dawning realization for me. There he 'gave me the opportunity,' as one says, to look high and low for the clue and believe me I really did. But finally I remembered what Sherlock Holmes said. When all the possibilities are eliminated, then it has to be the impossibility that is the correct one. So I grudgingly accepted what had to be so and then, true romantic, as you so accurately pegged me, I saw how really beautiful the ending was. And, more especially, it fits because as VN says at the very end of Speak Memory, once you see it you can't unsee it.

And that leaves number three.

But, re more Nabokov, ready when you are, or Woolf instead. Fully as beautiful in her writing and heart-wrenching in her scenes. At least judging from Mrs. Dalloway. But one at a time.

Now let me see if I come out the same rabbit hole I went down.
Peder

 

[Peder]

And Pontalba,
Sometimes a "P" is just a "P" /innocently/
Or, since this is a Nabokov thread, VN would thunder that a "P" is always just a "P' and not whatever that other guy might think.
, but nice
Peder

 

[pontalba]

Thundering is good.

 

[Peder]

Thundering is good.

 

[StillILearn]

He who steals my thunder steals ...

trivia

 

[StillILearn]

Peder = I was flat out goggle-eyed, speechless, with my jaw hanging opened, and my reading apparatus completely unwilling to go further.

That actually pretty much describes my own reaction to the ending. Obviously VN was writing for his "first reader". I kinda suspected that to be the case, but he took me by surprise anyway by the simple act of making her exactly young enough to be his daughter.

 

[Peder]

That actually pretty much describes my own reaction to the ending. Obviously VN was writing for his "first reader". I kinda suspected that to be the case, but he took me by surprise anyway by the simple act of making her exactly young enough to be his daughter.

SIL,
With respect to the ending, I just never suspected at all! The age, yes, and also the circumstances of their meeting, and also his age, they just completely deceived me and pointed me in the wrong direction altogether, even when I was trying to think of all the possibilities I could. I guess I am just easily misled, which is why I also fall for any romantic story that comes along. But it's fun and I like it.
Peder

 

[pontalba]

Flat out flummoxed and flabbergasted, Peder. Also amazed, astonished, staggered, nonplussed, confounded; perplexed, confused and mystified.

But almost ready for more. Almost.

Er....why flummoxed and flabbergasted. I suppose I am being dense (my speciality), but why?

 

[StillILearn]

Er....why flummoxed and flabbergasted. I suppose I am being dense (my speciality), but why?

I guess it wasn't feeling like an ending to me, and then Blam! And even then I couldn't really quite tell what had happened. Maybe I have to read the last few pages again. I suspect that I should read all of Part Seven again. I haven't read Speak, Memory yet, so the only two "you"s I could think of were Vera and Dmitri, but VN outwitted me there. Also, when the narrator said that "the I of the book couldn't die in the book", I think it was kind of like when the magician is waving his right hand around so much that one simply fails to keep an eye on the left hand. It felt kind of like that.

 

[pontalba]

I see what you mean, really, if you think about it wasn't the end. It was their beginning. The beginning of his Real Life.

"You" faces the fact that "time is not reversible", logically speaking, she will not have as many years with Vadim as say Vera and Vladimir had together, but "You" certainly intends to make the Most of the years they do have. And with her "exquisite quibble" she has actually cured him. In other words.....YAY for Love!!

 

[StillILearn]

Love, love, hooray for love
Who was ever too blase for love
Make this the night for love
If we have to fight, let’s fight for love

Some sigh and cry for love
Ah, but in pa-ree they die for love
Some waste away for love
Just the same - hooray for love!

.....................