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TT1: Proustian influence? (fwd)
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EDNOTE: SOME VERY NICE COAMPARISONS. THANKS TO ALYSSA PELISH
---------- Forwarded Message ----------
Date: Thursday, July 15, 2004 11:53 AM -0700
From: Alyssa Pelish <hsilep@yahoo.com>
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Subject: TT1: Proustian influence?
While reading the Kilmartin/Moncrieff translation of À la recherche, I
recently unearthed this passage which bears an at least passing resemblance
to the fifth and sixth paragraphs of Transparent Things first chapter.
Given that Proust was influenced by Bergson, and Nabokov influenced by
Proust, I thought the following would be of some interest to the listserv:
Days in the past cover up little by little those that preceded them and
are themselves buried beneath those that follow them. But each past day
has remained deposited in us, as in a vast library where, even of the
oldest of books, there is a copy which doubtless nobody will ever ask to
see. And yet should this day from the past, traversing the translucency of
the intervening epochs, rise to the surface and spread itself inside us
until it covers us entirely, then for a moment names resume their former
meaning, people their former aspect, we ourselves our state of mind at the
time, and we feel, with a vague suffering which however is endurable and
will not last for long, the problems which have long ago become insoluble
and which caused us such anguish at the time.&nb! sp; Our ego is composed
of the super imposition of our successive states. But this superimposition
is not unalterable like the stratification of a mountain. Incessant
upheavals raise to the surface ancient deposits (The Fugitive,
Remembrance of Things Past, Proust, trans. Moncrieff and Kilmartin, New
York: Vintage Books, 1982, 555).
*In the French text, translucency is translucidité.
*I also think the simile of the stratification of a mountain might
faintly recall you are thinking, and quite rightly so, of a hillside
stone?
*And perhaps it is also significant that these ruminations of Marcels are
in reference to the recent death of Albertine.
--Alyssa Pelish
__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail Address AutoComplete - You start. We finish.
---------- End Forwarded Message ----------
D. Barton Johnson
NABOKV-L
---------- Forwarded Message ----------
Date: Thursday, July 15, 2004 11:53 AM -0700
From: Alyssa Pelish <hsilep@yahoo.com>
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Subject: TT1: Proustian influence?
While reading the Kilmartin/Moncrieff translation of À la recherche, I
recently unearthed this passage which bears an at least passing resemblance
to the fifth and sixth paragraphs of Transparent Things first chapter.
Given that Proust was influenced by Bergson, and Nabokov influenced by
Proust, I thought the following would be of some interest to the listserv:
Days in the past cover up little by little those that preceded them and
are themselves buried beneath those that follow them. But each past day
has remained deposited in us, as in a vast library where, even of the
oldest of books, there is a copy which doubtless nobody will ever ask to
see. And yet should this day from the past, traversing the translucency of
the intervening epochs, rise to the surface and spread itself inside us
until it covers us entirely, then for a moment names resume their former
meaning, people their former aspect, we ourselves our state of mind at the
time, and we feel, with a vague suffering which however is endurable and
will not last for long, the problems which have long ago become insoluble
and which caused us such anguish at the time.&nb! sp; Our ego is composed
of the super imposition of our successive states. But this superimposition
is not unalterable like the stratification of a mountain. Incessant
upheavals raise to the surface ancient deposits (The Fugitive,
Remembrance of Things Past, Proust, trans. Moncrieff and Kilmartin, New
York: Vintage Books, 1982, 555).
*In the French text, translucency is translucidité.
*I also think the simile of the stratification of a mountain might
faintly recall you are thinking, and quite rightly so, of a hillside
stone?
*And perhaps it is also significant that these ruminations of Marcels are
in reference to the recent death of Albertine.
--Alyssa Pelish
__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail Address AutoComplete - You start. We finish.
---------- End Forwarded Message ----------
D. Barton Johnson
NABOKV-L