I have been racking my brains to write something
special for VN's birthday celebrations. I thought I could follow the example of
a recent HAIKU that was sent to me and easily create 5-7-5 lines (it seemed
to be easy - how wrong I was). And yet, there is nothing that substitutes the permanent wonder
of reading VN directly. A fresh sample, a very humbert humble
one, will suffice to bring up Nabokov's
extraordinary achievements.
"Lolita had been safely solipsized. The
implied sun pulsated in the supplied poplars..."
Lolita is verbally solipsized, right in front of
the reader's eyes, who now vicariously shares HH's prolonged erotic
ecstasis: from the lilting Lolita
sounds we pass on to their decreasing import, through "L" in "ly" and
"lip", gradually dissolving by the safe "s" into "sol".
Then we come to next sentence with its
supple "pl" and "ps" sounds re-creating the
word "solipsism", attenuated by a compliant lightning
in "size, imply, supply" and a sunny ray.
Next the entire sentence pulsates and our eyes begin to
enjoy a jumpy ride, a real cavalcade, that makes one leap as if
the words themselves, like Lolita in HH's knees, are now
unvicariously enhanced by the fleshy rythmic stimulation that
is taking place, outside Lolita's and, often, our own
solipsistic awareness.
HH's spidery web is alive and Nabokov's
infinite birthdays shall be celebrated as long as there are readers to ride
along from artistic fetich into a real "otherworld".