Dear List members,
While I was investigating one of VN's
sentence about coincidences, trying a short-cut thru internet took
me to an article written by Victoria N. Alexander [ NABOKOV AND INSECT
MIMICRY (The final product of this research is a paper published in Nabokov
Studies and can be found at
http://www.dactyl.org/directors/vna/papers/InsectMimicry.pdf) [1] ]
Since we've been randomly discussing, among
various other VN developments, evolutionary theory, platonism and
darwinism,V.N.Alexander's article should be brought up here. She begins with a quote: "The
mysteries of mimicry had a special attraction for me. Its phenomena showed an
artistic perfection usually associated with man-wrought things.... When a
butterfly has to look like a leaf, not only are all the details of a leaf
beautifully rendered but markings mimicking grub-bored holes are generously
thrown in. 'Natural selection' ...
could not explain the miraculous coincidence of imitative aspect ..., nor
could one appeal to the theory of 'the struggle for life' when a protective
device was carried to a point of mimetic subtlety, exuberance, and luxury far in
excess of a predator's power of appreciation. I discovered in nature the
non-utilitarian delights that I sought in art." Vladimir Nabokov (Boyd
85-86). From it she proceeds
to: Some believe Nabokov is implying here that there must be a creator
responsible for some wonders of nature[...]I argue that Nabokov assumed there
were some apparently teleological mechanisms in
addition to natural selection that also guided the evolutionary process. And he
was right [ ...]My area of specialization as a narrative theorist is
teleology, and more generally, causality. My understanding of telos, or
final cause, differs from what I consider an oversimplified if not simply
incorrect understanding held today by many postmodernists.Several paragraphs later:
This brings me to the idea of funny coincidences in
Nabokov's Plots. ÷it dawned on me that this / Was the
real point, the contrapuntal theme;Just this: not text, but texture; not the
dreamBut topsy-turvical coincidence,Not flimsy nonsense, but a web of
sense (Pale Fire
342) And adds: You all know that John Shade begins to
suspect that there is an afterlife when he hears about Mrs. Z who, like he, saw
a fountain during a brief and aborted visit to the other side[...] Apparently,
whether or not there truly is a God or an afterlife is not as interesting to
Nabokov as the fact that it is suggestive coincidences that give the impression
life is like a novel written by an omniscient and somewhat playful author. Why
is chance so important to the belief in an external supernatural Creator (whose
role is very like that of an Author of fictional worlds)? Science is only
interested in resemblances that are indicative of a common
cause[...]
[...] Nabokov: "the chance that
mimics choice, the flaw that looks like a flower" (622).